Dear Universe (Because, yes, I'm at that point tonight),

I need a job.  It's been five months.  I am ready to work.  I was watching the "Mad Men" finale the other night and my big takeaway was, Gosh, wouldn't it be nice to have a career.

Universe, I have searched, I have researched, I have soul searched, and I have applied.  My God, how I've applied.  I sometimes wonder if online job applications go to the same place in the North Pole as letters to Santa.

I am more than the sum of my resume.  Kids, be careful the jobs you take in your life because people will generally only expect that your past is all you're capable of repeating.  As much as your heart may lead you to zig and zag, the working world would just as soon prefer that you zig, zig, and continue to zig because, well, you have no zagging experience.  Never have I worked a job that, despite the steepest of learning curves, did not become second nature without the proverbial house burning down.  Granted, I have never worked in neurosurgery.  I'll give you that one; it could very well be over my head.  But, for the most part, I've found the actual work to be pretty easy, or at least easy to figure out.

Please, Universe, don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed the time off.  I've decompressed and re-inflated with the air of a broader perspective.  However, that perspective, which values family, home, travel, and creative and artistic exploration, requires the benevolence of funding.

Of course, it's bigger than that, if size matters here.  I would like to regain some semblance of direction in my life beyond this aimless, rudderless, powerless drift, seemingly random as a Roomba.

Dear Universe, enough is enough.  I'm ready.  I have a lot to offer.  Please, help me find the right buyer.

If it doesn't work out, I'll be okay.  With new albums from James Taylor and Indigo Girls on the way, I'll have a very big June.  I'll take each of them for a long drive so we can get properly aquainted.  A jobless July will afford me the family trip to South Dakota I've missed out on for the last five years.  Should August (And Everything After?) arrive without the hope of work, it will at least be USC football season and I am pretty sure I still have at least a year of eligibility left.

But yeah, let's go for the job, huh?

Yours Truly,

John