Hi. I'm Wes. For those of you who don't know, I've been working a temporary full-time position at the local community college since last September, minus February to mid-April. It's the same position title, but it's actually been two positions in the same office. From Sept. through Jan. I filled in for an employee who was on extended sick leave, and apparently I did alright because when another employee left the office, they asked me to fill her position on a temporary basis until they officially posted it in a permanent capacity again. Yesterday, I took the paperwork for the terms of reposting it over to the personnel office, and several employees have reminded me that it's going up and urged me to apply for the permanent position. I'm considering that.

On the other hand, I really do want to get the hell out of here. I hate this area; I hate where I live. I don't hate the job, per se, but I don't particularly enjoy what I'm doing, and if I were going to have a job like this I'd at least like to be living somewhere that I enjoy, so that at least my days didn't consist of misery compounded with more misery. So that said, I've got several options and I'd like some input if you've got any suggestions.

I could...

1. ...not apply for the position, which would entail the end of my employment here once they've hired someone to fill it on a permanent basis. Afterwards, in this scenario, I would kill myself, effectively putting an end to my lamentable existence.

2. ...not apply for the position, which would entail the end of my employment here once they've hired someone to fill it on a permanent basis. Then, free of obligations, I could head to NYC, take up temporary residence at the YMCA, and look for work in the city, with the goal of getting a good enough job to move to an apartment in the near future. Of course, this would entail my leaving the Internet and becoming virtually unreachable (no cell phone, no laptop, etc.), so that would make it kind of difficult for potential employers to get ahold of me. It would also mean the indefinite hiatus of Scary-Crayon (which would be much sadder, to my mind, than the definite hiatus that would attend my death). 🙁 Additionally, unless I showed up at Tuesday Night Trivia or was sighted in town you'd have no idea whether I'd decided upon this or the previous option. Ha ha ha ha...!

3. ...apply for the position and keep working here indefinitely (I've been doing the job for a while now and, as far as I know, the people in the office like me, so I'd pretty much be a lock for the job) and saving money for an eventual move to the NYC while continuing to apply for jobs in the city, much as I've been doing for the past few months. Works in theory, but with this plan there's a huge chance that I would get fed up and snap one night and go ahead and kill myself anyway, making it almost indistinguishable from option 1 -- except that when I died I'd have more money in the account and therefore more money for my mother to spend on food and refreshments for various family members whom I've never even fucking met once or met once and don't care about to gorge on at my funeral, since they go out of their way to go to the funerals of people they barely know -- not out of sympathy or kind feelings for the deceased, but for the fucking food. We have family members who will come to town for a funeral, stay in the hotel room during the actual ceremony, and then show up at the reception ready to eat. So really, I'd prefer option 1 to this.

4. ...apply for another job with the same hours and paying (I think) the same amount at an extension center with the college, which is roughly where the bookstore was, which is like a ten minute walk from the house. Assuming I got the job (I'm sure the folks here would put in a good word for me, but it's not like I've actually been working with the people over there since September so I wouldn't necessarily be guaranteed to get it), this wouldn't be all that much different from the scenario described in option 3, but it would cut out the two hour (give or take) morning and afternoon commutes, effectively giving me about four more hours of free time to unwind and work on SC, my novel, etc., not to mention spare me such unpleasant experiences as the one detailed in the previous post. And, natch, I'd still keep applying for jobs in NYC with the intent of picking up and heading to the Big Apple sometime before the year's end.

And those are my options -- advice welcome. I'm thinking I'll probably apply for both positions and then go from there (most likely taking whichever job is offered to me first, unless both are offered to me at roughly the same time, in which case I'd take the position in option 4). So I've kinda thought about this, but I'd still like your opinions -- especially if you'd like to argue in favor of the second option and can make it sound more palatable. Of all four, it's the only one that doesn't foreseeably conclude with my bathtub electrocution.

Anyway, thanks for reading all of that crap. Ja!