A needle in a hay stack

We’ve all been there. Searching for that perfect cup of coffee on an autumn day. Or that favorite shirt that would look perfect on you today. Or even your keys in the bottom of your purse. Impossible to find and always the last thing you put your hand on. It’s not exactly an idea that you want to use to describe your recent job search, but yet I still find myself facing the fact that searching for a job is like searching for a needle in a hay stack.

I mean is there something wrong with me?

I’m at the 25 year milestone of my life. I should be starting a career, aka. a long-term or lifelong job, with professional progress along a general path. This is what Google thinks I, a “young professional”, should look like:

This is what I look like:

I'm not anything like those overzealous young professionals, but I am young, and I am trying to be a professional (even if the door to opportunity slams shut in my face more often than not). So doesn't that make me a young professional. So why don't I look like them, why instead do I look like my kitten just got eaten by a mastodon?

Maybe instead this whole reality of a young professional is a skewed opinion. Maybe that image above is what society wanted us to be, but our predecessors didn't leave us with enough opportunity to achieve that success. You can't raise the dead, and you can't revamp an economy that is void of chances. I'm not saying don't try or even that I won't try. I'm still here everyday trying to figure out the next step, but I'm afraid I'm stuck at the bottom of an elevator shaft, with no way up. And what I'm even more afraid of is, I'm down here with all the other young professionals, the next generation of  . . .

Call me the princess and the pea, but I want a reality that is dreamlike. I blame Disney.

I do not want to leave that "next generation of . . ." question completely blank. In any great void, there is always space for new opportunity, however difficult to achieve. So I ask you to ask yourself a question that I ask myself  almost every day (that's a tongue twister): What do I want of my future? Followed by: I have nothing to loose (no money, no house, no collateral), so why don't I go get it?

THE COOL WIND // POEM

The cool wind blowing in

Cold front is on its way

Dear lord I’m so ready

I can’t wait for this change

Bring on the new air, new air, bring on the new air

I can’t wait till the end of these days

Wrap a sweater tight around your arms

Wait for the sun to drop on down

Night time brings the bleak and black

Waiting for this time, this time to collapse

Bring on the new air, new air

Open the windows, bring on the new air

I can’t wait til the end of these days

Cut my hair

Change my shoes

Exfoliate the tan away

It’s time to change from old to new
Bring on the new air, new air, bring on the cool new air

I can’t wait til the end of these swollen summer days

Are millennials cut out for this job market?

Are millennials cut out for this job market? By Ruben Navarrette, Jr., CNN Contributor

This article sheds bad light on my age group and does not accurately represent our generation. I am not afraid of a red pen, compromise, criticism or washing both sides of a dirty dish. In fact, I do all of this each day. I understand the fact that you think we are lazy and self-obsessed because we want the perfect job, with benefits, paid vacations, ability to earn raises, and to rise up throughout a company, but isn’t that what you wanted at our age as well?


We are suffering through the biggest recession the United States has ever experienced. We are graduating from college with the highest hope, that you, yes you, the older generations instilled in us, that we would get a good job, but in reality we can’t. I mean isn’t that why we all went to college in the first place, to get a good job, to make good money, to be “educated”, to thrive like our parents did.

But don’t let me use the struggling economy as an excuse.

Even though these are our dreams, our realities are much different. Our realities are filled with the older generation’s leftovers. Millennials are working jobs that are well below our education and pay range. Instead of our dreams we are choosing other realities: lower pay, volunteer and community building positions, living with our parents (which is as much of a struggle for them as for us), entrepreneurship, etc. I’m sorry some of you think this means all 50 million of us needs a “reboot” or that we are failing as a generation, but that’s just your way of looking at it. When faced with a reality, we handle it. We may not make the same choices or vote for the same president or back the same ideals as other generations, but we believe in what we support and we stand behind it. So go ahead “reboot” the millennial generation, if you can. You’ll be losing some of the greatest assets you have in this struggling economy. You may not see it now, but one of these days you’ll be thanking us for who we are and what we believe in. And if that makes us arrogant then so be it.

Dear mockingbird sitting in a tree, why don't you peep just for me?

You could tell the world what I see and that this place wasn't made for you or me.

I can't wait to see this song again LIVE!

I'm looking for a sleepy town where in the winter it's covered in snow. I drink whiskey to stay warm or I stumble down to the local brewery for delicious mouthwatering ipa's.

And during the summer, there are mild temperatures and cold mountain streams that clear my head.

Does anyone know of a place like this?

I can’t “afford” to live

You know there are some serious issues in your life when suicide seems easier than trying to budget your finances. Seriously. But don’t worry. Don’t put me on your suicide watch list or call me just because of this. I simply only think that life would be easier without money. Or if we were all dead.

Anyhow, good job congress for doing something about the debt ceiling, other than of course sitting on your asses. Give yourself a big pat on the shoulder and go home to your million dollar houses.

Up until recently I didn’t really understand what the implications of letting the debt ceiling default really meant. I mean, I’d followed the news, listened to endless reporting on how no one would budge. Got sick of endless reporting and read all the breaking news today. But it still didn’t click until someone said, “we would turn into Greece”.

What’s so bad about that?, was my first thought. I mean attractive Europeans with beautiful accents, wine and food. Hell yeah. No, not seriously. Though that would be nice. My thoughts were more like, maybe it’ll give the U.S. a reason to get off our fat asses and protest, change things, show the world what we really want. Or maybe it won’t, but I still would have liked to have seen what we would have done, had the Senate not come to a decision. Didn't any of you?