3.2.2009
Location: Einstein Brothers Bagels, Columbus, OH
Pages: Atop an Underwood, Kerouac
Ears: M. Ward, End of Amnesia

It has been just over a month since I quit my job.  I’m about to turn 25, I have an engineering degree, two albums under the name “Trains Across the Sea,” two years work experience (engineering), a 2002 Honda Civic with 98,000 miles, a motley collection of instruments (borrowed, used, etc), the same nine shirts I owned four years ago, this laptop, and absolutely no idea where my next source of income will be.  The economy is apparently in the shitter, nobody pays money for music anymore, and I pick this exact time to walk away from what modern society defines as “success.”  This is either the dumbest or best idea I’ve ever had, but, either way, it sure as hell is exciting right now, not knowing what will happen, sitting in coffeeshops all day trying to live exactly as I see fit, with all that American energy chugging behind me, full-tilt head hanging out the window at top speed, tongue laughing in the bitter cold air, throwing all the carefully learned caution of the greatest generation behind me and writing my own damn rules to this lifegame.

But a bit of background before we get carried away bastardizing the stream of Kerouac’s consciousness:  As hinted at above, I received an engineering degree in December of 2006 from The Ohio State University.  I realized about a year and a half into the degree that it definitely wasn’t for me, but at the time I was going through that “college is a degree factory anyway” phase we occassionally find ourselves in, and decided that delving indefinitely into student loan debt until I “find my calling” wouldn’t be prudent for young Andy.  So, I stuck it out, racked up a couple thousand in credit card debt eating pasta and traveling the country, finished the degree and grabbed any “engineering” job I could get so I wouldn’t have to move away from the great friends I picked up (figured any job I got now would suck, so might as well get out of debt more quickly with this engineering racket and still able to drink with the same people in the evenings), and paid everything off as quickly as I could.  I’ll go into further detail about the job later, but suffice it to say it wasn’t for me.  Apparently, I ain’t the desk-sittin’ type.

Which brings us to a little over a month ago, my last day at work (they bought me a cake!).  I haven’t worked in a month and have honestly never been happier.  I ran this decision by a good cross section of people in the weeks leading up to the day, and reactions were predictably mixed, from “you gotta do it before you get too old” (yeah grandpa!) to “IN THIS ECONOMY?!?”  As of now, I think it’s the greatest idea in the world (I told many the logic in my head ran as such: go to high school to get into college, go to college to get a job, get a job to pay off college, retire), but that’s easy for me to say now.  I’ve got the world on a string.  My bank account isn’t dead yet, I’ve got plenty of friends and plenty of things to do, and I am, at least for once in my life, truly living it all as real as I can.  But this is the easy part.  Any fool can have fun on vacation; a wise man knows how to continue that joy throughout his life.  It’s the coming months that are the real interesting ones, as the zealous idealism of youth slowly confronts what so many people hilariously title the “real” world (really, shouldn’t the wild beasts of the land, air, and sea diversify their portfolios already?), and I begin again to earn some sort of living, hopefully straying less far from my ideals as the career track in the oil and gas industry I very narrowly rescued myself from.

Andy's Old Desk and New Desk