Welcome to Lazytown, Courtesy of The New Mayor

Mayor of Lazytown seems like quite an exaggeration (or presumptuous, depending on how you look at it), and it probably is, but after working almost nonstop for a month I feel like I just jumped off a large, boring cliff, or perhaps hit a hard, boring wall. Although almost every day that I’ve had off has ended with one thing or another accomplished, I still feel strange about not hating my life because I’m working all the time. Also, I feel guilty because it’s so awesome to not have to work. I’ve been so lazy, in fact, that this is the first blog I’ve written in months. Whether this is a good or bad thing remains to be seen (insert self-deprecation here).

My work history of the last 3 months is a virtual Frankenstein’s monster of occupations. I have worked four places, no less than two at once. Everything is part-time, temporary, or some other sort of mish-mashed “we’ll call you when we need you, but we don’t really want you that bad otherwise we’d give you more hours or pay you more or something” situation. I recently got accepted to train as a tutor, which will mark my FIFTH job in the past few months (and hopefully, my only one for the summer). I feel like this isn’t uncommon—recent graduates have been grappling for real jobs for almost a year now, and in the absence of a full-time adult job, a lot of small part-time practically adult jobs seem like good stand-ins.

It’s certainly heartening to see more and more of my friends and acquaintances transition from partial, multiple employment to one solid, career-track job. It feels like the economy is getting better, even if it isn’t. It does make me feel slightly stunted, though: while my friends will be toiling and excelling at the jobs that can (gasp) actually pay their bills, I will be starting my doctoral studies in the fall, effectively delaying my entry into the full-time working world for years to come. I know that this is a step forward, and I really can’t wait—looking at all of the courses, I want to take pretty much every single one. I’m a little afraid, but I’m mostly excited. I’ll take adult step after adult step, until suddenly, without realizing it, I’ll be in the thick of it. (This is how I imagine it happening. Reality to follow).

Until September 1st, however, I’m going to be doing basically whatever I can find to do: hours at my deli job until I stop working there, hours substitute teaching at various schools, and hours tutoring high school students on standardized testing. Sounds like a lot of hours, yet I imagine the paychecks will feel awfully small. My work life seems so arbitrary and jig-sawed together, as if I have no more direction than a plastic bag being tossed by the summer wind. I’m not one to merely mope at my simultaneous good fortune and plummeting income: I will make something of this summer, even if it kills me (it probably won’t kill me).

I want to work on my screenplay and send it out. I want to take a Kerouacian (oh yes, that’s a word now) trip to Boston and New York, if only to get a deep whiff of New England class, classy culture, and East Coast inhospitality. And of course, I will spend a whirlwind August travelling all over hell’s half-acre for various life-affirming events. I’m hoping I’ll do any of this.

The problem isn’t necessarily motivation or means, but merely that once I start reading fun books and going to the beach enough days in a row, underemployment might begin to feel quite comfortable. Soon enough, being lazy could become a lifestyle. I used to think about people that didn’t work and think, “How is it possible? Aren’t they bored?” No. No they’re not. Relaxation is hypnotizing. In a very short period of time, you start to wonder how you ever even had TIME to work. You think, “How did I ever cram 8 hours of work in between all of this lovely relaxation?”

So maybe that’s why I don’t like not working, or not knowing when my next day of work will definitely be. It’s not that I necessarily want to work. I’m just worried that that I’ll be so seduced by a new way of life that I will never want to work, or travel, or do anything remotely cerebral again, and I’ll toil my summer days away in a chaise longue with sunglasses on my face, spiked lemonade in my hand, and not a care in the world.

These are dangerous times.