Odysseus Among the Lotus Eaters

I've been watching the show Portlandia with a mixture of interest and despair. It pokes fun at the stereotypes of Portland - the socially conscious, tattooed bicycle rider with a weakness for a compelling food sourcing story. It also jauntily confirms a fear that's been creeping in me since I arrived, that this is the city where "young people go to retire." Because, really, in a city where unemployment is above 10% and the number of newly arrived college-graduates just keeps rising, what else are they to do?

The kind of aggressive professionalism that I associated with the New York yuppie crowd, that character of New York that I delighted in scoffing at, I find myself longing for here in Portland. I find myself just wishing that if there were a few more people pathologically prone to networking, I might be able to scare up new leads for jobs. The coffee shop near my house is packed every day of the week; behind the counter it feels like there is always one or two more employees than they technically need, and as for tables, well, I see people take their coffee outside in the cold and watch through the windows for someone to leave so they can come in, open up their MacBook Pro, and start searching craigslist for a job.

I turn 27 in a couple of weeks. I don't subscribe to any fantasies of a "traditional career arc" or anything like that, but I do notice that as I grow older I accumulate more obligations, limitations, etc. What I'm trying to say is that right now is my time to kill myself at a job, the time to put in my hours, to learn, to advance, to develop my own perspective on a profession and my role in it. And here I am watching a season of Battlestar Galactica a week and reluctantly composing a playlist for the craigslist posting "SWINGERS CLUB SEEKS DJ FOR SEXXXY THURSDAYS."

I can feel myself getting sour. I'm not sure what the solution is, whether to move, to stick it out or what. Once I'm employed this is all going to feel like a fun growing experience, but while I'm in the midst of it I'm feeling a little desperate.