A few notes about the changes I’ve been through over the last year:

1. I made less money than you might think as a strip club DJ.  And it was the most heartbreaking job I’ve ever had.  The patience and kindness of the few girls to whom I could relate on a personal level was the only thing keeping me sane.  For about 6 months, I hated myself and everyone around me.  Working at a midwestern titty bar is an endless funeral procession.  The people you see are by turns loathsome, lonely, beaten, and ethically bankrupt.  The men (almost without exception, the people in positions of power here are swinging-dick new haircuts who are old enough to know better) who are making money from this sort of gig are little more than slumlords, gangsters living on the hairline border of legality.  More on this in a future blog entry.
2. Unemployment makes you feel like the worst person in the world, especially when people are depending upon you to pull your economic weight.  As though I didn’t already owe enough to Wife-Face.
3. Nothing makes you appreciate retail management as a day job like coming back to it after a year of sex-industry demoralization and unemployment.
4. My father is doing something terrifying.  He’s rebuilding his life.  Check out The Trifling Blog to track his progress.

More coming.  Autumn just fell hard on Ohio, and my life feels strangely exhilerating.  I’m going to the Halloween store now.  Smell you jerks later.