What's the point?

Did ya ever have one of those lives? You know … one of those lives where, no matter what you do to change things, the pointlessness of it keeps slapping you in the face? As much as I hate to admit it, that’s pretty much the definition of my life – absolutely pointless… It’s actually rather funny (not so much funny, “ ha ha,” as funny, “interesting…”) in a way. I mean I’m trying – oh my god how I’m trying – to find some point to my existence but all I seem to be able to find is more and more pointlessness.

Now don’t get me wrong here … it’s not like I’m giving up all hope or anything. I’m just curious as to when the hell it’s going to be “my” time? Or perhaps I’m mistaken in thinking that others in this world have somehow discovered reasons for their existence. Is it possible that all of us are walking around feeling as useless as me? I doubt that… It seems to me that most people have something (a family, a job, friends, a bloated sense of self importance, etc…) that keeps them chugging along. What, exactly, is it that keeps me going? Is it the challenge of making the best out of the endless bad circumstances that I, myself, seem to be getting in to? No – there’s no fun in that … take my word for it… What is the “light at the end of the tunnel” that I am trying to get to? Is there even an end to this tunnel…?

Let me back up a bit and explain how I got to contemplating my existence. I’m not going to reiterate everything from my past (unless you are new to reading this blog, you already know that most of that was covered on here about a year ago…) however I feel that I need to update you a bit on my present. Here’s a brief (well, how “brief” it will end up being is currently unknown … I’ve been known to ramble at times…) synopsis of my California trip…

I came to California in mid October for money – nothing else, just money. You see, if you’re going to live in a capitalistic society, you need to be making capital. Unfortunately for me, I have been unable to find work in Colorado for the last couple of years and have therefore been forced to take contract jobs abroad in order to earn enough money to support my extravagant lifestyle. And by “extravagant lifestyle” I’m referring to plain old survival… I’ve acquired a few “things” in my life thus far (a house, a few cars, a few computer systems, home theater equipment, etc…) and I’m in the standard position of supporting these purchases now. This, of course, makes it necessary for me to make money and my latest quest for this needed money has landed me in California – not by choice, mind you, but by pure need…

The job I landed is in Thousand Oaks. I therefore found my initial housing at a furnished apartment in Thousand Oaks. My idea was to pull this contract job off “European Style” and try to accomplish what I did in Germany – no car … transportation by foot (and possibly public transport) alone. I figured I’d save some money and hassle by not needing to rent a car and get some good exercise as well. My plan lasted about a week and a half. Survival in southern California is far different than Europe – a car is mandatory. I ended up purchasing a rather run-down 1990 Toyota Corolla from some guy on craigslist for $750…

So I bought the car which made my next move finding more reasonable housing. The furnished apartment that I was in was not cheap. In fact the phrase that best describes it would be “outrageously overpriced”! They were charging me $89 (I actually talked them down from the $110 they wanted to charge) a day!! This, of course, comes out to about $2700 a month!!! Now, for a guy that is out here for nothing more than the money, paying $2700 a month for lodging is not going to work. That cuts into my profits enough to make this trip damn near pointless. Once I bought the car and was able to find housing a bit further from the office, I began my search for more reasonable accommodations. I headed back to craigslist to see who was looking for a roommate…

That’s the great thing about craigslist – you can find anything on it, and I do mean anything. For this task, I was looking for reasonably priced temporary housing in Ventura County and quite a few prospects were available. There were listings for furnished and unfurnished apartments, condos, town houses and guest houses; however I quickly realized that finding a place of my own wasn’t going to be cheap so I chose to look for shared housing instead. I responded to many postings where people were looking to rent a room with mixed results. I am, after all, a male that smokes and you’re far better off being a female non-smoker if you’re planning on moving in with others. I had a close call with one lady in the city of Ventura but missed out on that when she cancelled our initial meeting a mere few hours before I headed up there – I guess she decided against having a guy move in at the last minute. There was also a room in Moorpark (another female looking to rent out a spare bedroom) that fell through at the last minute – she decided to rent it out to a non-smoking female instead… It wasn’t looking good for me. Luckily, I was able to find a guy living on the CSUCI campus that didn’t let the fact that I am a male that smokes sour the deal. I moved out of the overpriced apartment and onto the CSUCI campus last Friday…

So I’ve found myself temporary housing that will be saving me a couple grand per month. This is good. It goes a long way in helping me out with why I’m here – the money – and the dude I moved in with seems to be cool enough. Of course I haven’t actually “lived” with him yet as he was gone for the entire weekend. I basically spent the weekend in his house by myself which, I must admit, felt a bit strange… It did, however, give me an opportunity to explore my new surroundings alone and pretty much got me to questioning my life a bit…

You see, I am now living on the CSUCI (as some call, the “C-Sucky”) campus about a mile and a half outside of Camarillo, CA. It’s about a 20 minute drive from here to my job in Thousand Oaks. Unfortunately that’s pretty much the only good thing I can say about my new location. CSUCI (California State University Channel Islands) is a rather new campus – about 5 years old from what I’ve been able to gather. Before that, it used to be the Camarillo State Hospital – the home for some of California’s most mentally insane. From 1936 until 1997 – when the hospital’s doors were closed for good – this place was home to thousands and thousands of alcoholics, pedophiles, and people with mental illness and retardation. Apparently the place is said to be haunted and the back entrance to the campus seems to be quite the magnet for unexplained phenomena as it has hosted numerous unexplained car accidents – one that apparently claimed the life of one individual whose autopsy showed an otherwise healthy woman who just happened to suffer a freak brain embolism.

So that’s where I’m living now and the “haunted” aspect isn’t even the worst part about it. This campus and the nearest city (Camarillo) are best described as “dead”. I moved in on a Friday evening and decided to scope the place out a bit. Nothing was happening on the actual campus. I think I noticed a total of something like five students walking around but there appears to be absolutely no place to “hang out” on the campus. And all this time I thought Wayne State was bad … I’d take it over CSUCI any day of the week now… Well, the lack of anything happening on campus lead me to drive into Camarillo to see what was happening there. I ended up stopping at this sport’s bar for a beer however didn’t stay long. There was a decent live band; however the 5 to 1 ratio of guys to gals didn’t really make the place all that inviting to me. I actually ended up heading back over to the TGI Friday’s in Thousand Oaks. At least I kind of “know” a few of the bartenders there…

This brings me to the “social” aspects of my California life – or, more to the point, the lack there of… You see when I was living in Thousand Oaks the social events were a bit of a roller coaster ride. I came out here hoping to experiment a bit with breaking out of my shell – I’ve never been a very socially proficient dude and it’s always been a problem that I’ve been hoping to solve – and I think I was able to make a little progress. I think… Of course I suppose when looking at the events on more of the macro scale, no progress was actually made. I got a fake email address from one girl, crashed a costume party in Santa Monica with these guys I met, got an actual number from this really cute 21-year old who has since apparently decided that I was no longer worth communicating with and became pretty much a regular at the TGI Friday’s in Thousand Oaks. There is more to most of those stories, but that pretty much sums up the big picture. Bottom line is that I’m living out here as a friendless dude that hangs out at the TGI Friday’s bar quite a bit and getting to that outcome didn’t require any progress.

So … I’ve been wondering just exactly what all this is about… What am I trying to do? Where am I trying to get? Anywhere…? I mean what the heck is the purpose of all this? It’s not like I’m out here panning for more golden life stories to astound others with … nobody’s interested in hearing them anyway… No … I’m just, as always, alone on yet another journey. Heck, if I’m lucky, I’ll even be able to make enough money to pay my taxes…

bis später,

Coriolis