Monday morning ramble

I’m a zombie today. And I don’t even know why. It’s not like I did anything really strenuous yesterday or anything. My Sunday consisted of me lying in bed, watching the Project Runway marathon on Bravo. I think I only got up to eat, use the bathroom, or check e-mail.

You thought I was kidding when I said I was into that show, didn’t you?

I’m getting really self conscious about myself these days. Not in the usual, girly sense of “I’m so fat” self consciousness. It’s more along the lines of “am I taking advantage of all that life has to offer?” Actually, it’s not even that profound. It’s more like I’m caught somewhere along a continuum, with “status quo” on one end and “higher level of intellectualism” on the other.

Let me try to explain. I have a master’s degree. It’s from a well-known journalism school back east. But my current job has nothing to do with media. Back in 2001, I quit my previous job at this huge, international bank because I wanted to make a change. I wanted to go back to school and change careers. I moved to New York, got my degree, and graduated in a post-9/11 economy in which media jobs were highly coveted and hard to get for someone like me.

Anyway, after about two years of looking and looking for work and being depressed about not being able to find work, I finally got a job back here in California. And I really like the company I work for now. I believe in it. I love the product that we sell. The people I work with are so inspirational in the amount of knowledge they have about our products. I’ve never had this level of admiration for any place I’ve ever worked or for the people I work with. I’m happy here, for the most part.

But from time to time, I struggle with the fact that I don’t work in the media. Like I wasted $40K to pursue a graduate degree in a field in which I’m not even working. And essentially starting over, careerwise. Part of me thinks I’m an idiot for throwing away a promising career in financial services, where I had a good title, decent salary, and almost 10 years of service under my belt. But then again, my two-year-long, unsuccessful search for a job in public relations left me feeling really bitter and jaded about that industry. Like, really bitter.

So if I’m happy with my current company, where is this self-consciousness coming from, you ask?

This is going to come off sounding really arrogant. And I really don’t mean it to, but I think that I have this self-inflicted expectation that I must be well-informed on every single thing going on in the world. I try to keep myself in the loop: I read The Nation, a whole slew of online newspapers, political blogs, nonfication books, etc. And sometimes I try to write about how I feel about what's going on in the world.

But sometimes I get tired of it all. It’s like staying informed becomes, in many ways, like a job in and of itself, when sometimes I just can’t be bothered to think about the implications of how much Dubya and His Freakshow have fucked us over and is now making a ham-handed attempt at making things better, for example.

So I also get a kick out of watching shows like Project Runway all day. And I read US Weekly, and bestsellers like The DaVinci Code and The Devil Wears Prada. Stuff that doesn't require all that much "thinking" on a higher level.

So where does the self consciousness come into play? I guess it’s because I feel like I shouldn’t enjoy these things. I should find them trite and banal. But I enjoy them. Really. And because I enjoy them, does this bring my intelligence level down a notch or two? Or does it make me well rounded? I feel like I should be climbing Mount Everest, or learning a foreign language, or running marathons, or in the Priory of Sion (just kidding), or making more money than I do now.

Fuck it, I need more coffee. Talk amongst yourselves.