MELANCHOLY AND THE INFINITE SAD MESS, or, THUNDERBOLTS ARE GO!

Yeah, I fucked up. I freely admit it, so now, maybe I can start to make things better.

I really had my heart set on an M.A. in Journalism, either from NYU or Columbia. Having done research on the practical implications of the degree, I knew that an M.A. in Journalism did not promise more money than a B.A. holder, or even immediate employment. But I wanted the rigorous curriculum, and even more importantly, the potential contacts. So I applied to those two schools, and those two schools alone. I will grant you, not a lot of colleges even offer an M.A. in Journalism. However, I could have applied for Hunter College’s M.A. in Media Studies (though God only knows what I would have used for a portfolio), or the same program at New School University. But I didn’t. I wanted the NAME college, and the prestige that accompanies either a Columbia or an NYU. I made a valiant play for both, and came up empty.

(For those who didn’t know, I made similarly valiant efforts for the Film programs at NYU and Florida State, and came up equally empty there, too. But that is another rant…)

So the 2003-2004 schoolyear is drawing to a close without me, and there’s a good chance the 2004-2005 schoolyear will also feature me standing on the sidelines. I suppose I shouldn’t make it out to be the Greek tragedy that it isn’t; I’m not in college anymore because I graduated in 2002, and there is no law that says I must go to grad school. Yet, with my spotty employment record to date, and the fact that I’m about to toss elbows with a second graduating class, I can’t help feeling that the longer I stay out of grad school, the less chance I have of ever, ever landing a position anywhere.

Of course, that is my fault, too. Like my parents tell me, I didn’t have to major and (almost) minor exclusively in the Liberal Arts. I didn’t have to leave FIU for NYU. My usual reply, which is becoming all-too-familiar lately, is that I didn’t ask to be born, either. Then my mom reminds me that I was a blue baby, meaning I found the womb too confining and decided to make my first appearance a few weeks early. Considering that I am the most indecisive person anyone’s ever met (Or perhaps I’m not—I can’t decide), I find my prenatal impulsiveness difficult to fathom. And frankly, what was I thinking? Had I known what I was about to get into, I would have stayed in my mom’s womb until I was eighteen.

Speaking of my parents, I’m on the phone with my mom the other day, and she tells me that she and my dad are selling the house in Miami. Thunderbolt #4 within the last three weeks! I guess I shouldn’t really care, since I’ve spent maybe two weeks out of the last three years in that house. Like my mom says, my brother’s in Chicago, and neither of us visit very often. It’s just too much house. And maybe it is.

But they’re not planning to buy a smaller house in Miami. No, they’re going to move to Port St. Lucie, a trailer park two hours north. Folks, only my parents would move OUT of Miami to retire, and to a hicktown with no major airports or shopping malls, to boot. And once they move, the city of Miami and I will be finished. There will be nothing holding me there anymore, save fifteen years of bad memories, which I would be better off sublimating, anyway.

So good-bye, bad memories! Good-bye, you sad, sad suburbia! Farewell, racist, barely-literate blacks and skinheads! You won’t have ‘Phil the class chink’ to kick around anymore! Good-bye! Good riddance! I’m sure the thousands of new Haitian immigrants will only strengthen the city economy, if they don’t deplete the social services first! Sayonara!

Man, I want to go home.