Cancer? That’s hilarious! But Aunty Christ’s sad.

Rape victims? That’s so last week. I’m totally over rape victims now.

You’ll be psyched to hear that Aunty Christ does not have cancer. At least not that anyone’s detected yet. Whoopie! Take that public health option and stick it in your ear, Dems. Until the next time I think I might be ill. At which point I will promptly ask you to retrieve it from your ear and wipe it off with a moist towel and hand it to me. Oh, American Public. When will you ever learn?

Yesterday I took a test, and now the unemployment office is clear on my abilities to add two fractions together, given the assistance of a calculator, and do simple algebra and at least guess at what the volume of a sphere might be. I was lauded for being a very bright un(der)employed person, and that is all.

It seems like I should be able to tie these two themes together and make a blog post out of them. Something about how I currently find myself in a position where I would like the government to give me stuff, but it keeps not quite happening—either at all, or in the way that I would like.

Or about how easy it is to relax into the idea that the government owes you stuff. Just six months ago I was pretty unhappy with the concept of not receiving my very own paycheck that I had earned with the sweat and hard labor of my own two red-blooded American hands! Now I’m okay with it, as long as I don’t have to make any sacrifices or anything. The moment my cable TV gets cut off, I will have a big problem, but as long as the govmint’s paying my bills, I’m kind of uncomfortably okay with it.

I’m turning Old in two weeks. Old! I never thought I’d reach this age! It is half wonderful. On the one hand, I am no longer obsessed with looking exactly like [whichever teen starlet who, everyone agrees, anyone who isn’t her is repulsive]. Which is nice. I remember in high school thinking that I had it made because all of these popular girls were going to go crazy at some point because they had lost their looks, whereas I was never particularly good-looking, and thus wouldn’t suddenly become not-good-looking upon turning elderly or 30 or whatever. Nonetheless, that didn’t stop me from always wanting to be hot.

Not like that wish is entirely gone now. But I’ve come to terms with who I am, a little bit. I’m at least more all right with it than I used to be, and that makes me a little bit less unhappy all the fucking time.

On the other hand, there is in age this diminishment in choices that’s strangely unexpected to me. Not that long ago, I felt pretty okay with the idea that I could always do that later—“that” being whatever it was that I wasn’t 100% sure that I wanted to do right now. Popular culture loves these stories. Grandma Moses didn’t start painting until she was in her 70s! Giuseppi Tomasi di Lampedusa didn’t finish writing The Leopard until he was 60! There was this lady, right? And she graduated from college when she was, like, 80 or something! So all sorts of possibilities are open to the old, leaving the young with the freedom to piss away any number of years shacked up in the mountains working in careers that they don’t particularly enjoy, talking to people they don’t really know about topics that they find uninteresting.

At one time, it struck me that I was too old to start a modeling career, become a ballerina or a gymnast, or date someone who wasn’t old enough to go to bars. And none of that bothered me because, fuck. I wasn’t going to do that anyway.

But now I come to the realization that I’m too old to go to law school, and that one kind of hurts. Mind you, I never wanted to go to law school when I was 25. It’s only now that the opportunity’s gone that I kind of miss it.

All this to one side, however, what I’m thinking about lately is that trying to find a new job while on the brink of turning Old kind of sucks. I commented this earlier on another blog, but I think it may require further discussion: Women are always too young to be taken seriously, until they are too old to be taken seriously. I don’t think I was ever discriminated against, per se, for being too young, but I also don’t think I was ever seen as anyone who was ever actually going to do anything important, wield any sort of power, hold even the tiniest mote of authority over any of my officemates. If I’ve ever achieved any sort of supervisory role in a job, it’s been an accident: No one else wanted it, or I was the only one who had any idea what was going on.

Now, of course, I worry that potential employers look at me and see, along with the few grays and crap skin and weird thighs, someone who doesn’t have a lot more to give, and who expects a lot in return. It’s like when 40-year-old dudes only want to date 20-year-olds: They want someone who can still make a baby, someday (not right now, though), and won’t ask too many questions when they’re treated kind of shabbily. And also, I’m not exactly the eye candy some muckety muck wants at his front desk.

All of the above, however, kind of sounds like an excuse to me. Even though I also think it’s true. It’s like that guy who complains that he can’t get a girlfriend because girls don’t like nice guys. His problem is that he’s too nice! Not that he’s kind of creepy and doesn’t know how to talk to women without being kind of insulting and staring at their boobs all the time! (I love this subject of conversation, but it’s apparently been nigh on exhausted by this point.) Anyway, yes. Saying I’m too old for anyone to want to hire me is maybe keeping me from addressing my real faults. Like how I’m too smart for anyone to want to hire me.

Kidding! Oh say, this all reminds me of my favorite comic square.

Always having someone to blame your misery on.

OMG. Babies!