I think what stood out most for me in Generation X - outside of how much I found myself relating to the emotional conflicts, mental despair, and general apathy - were the included cartoons, bold statements and definitions littered throughout the book along the side panels of the story.

I had a quirky argument with my mother on the way home from work today - as we seem to do lately whenever the topic of life is brought up and how each of believes it should be lived - and it made me think about the comic above. We weren't exactly talking about buying a house, per se, but the conversation was rooted in possibly finding the love of my life at some trade show I have to attend for work tomorrow. I scoffed.

My retort wasn't well pieced together, and my logic possibly flawed, but I used examples from the lives of those around me and essentially rebutted by saying I'd rather live life my way than give it up for a man - a concept she seems to throw me at quite frequently over the last little while, which is strange to me since, up until about a year ago, being a relationship was like hanging out with Satan. Or so it felt like.

Regardless, the thought process was:

Meet love of life. Get married. Buy house. Work forever at a dead end job to pay for house. Game over.

"My friends are all either married, boring, and depressed; single, bored and depressed; or moved out of town to avoid boredom and depression. And some of them have bought houses, which has to be kiss of death, personality-wise. When someone tells you they've just bought a house, they might as well tell you they no longer have a personality. You can immediately assume so many things: that they're locked into jobs they hate; that they're broke; that they spend every night watching videos; that they're fifteen pounds overweight; that they no longer listen to new ideas. It's profoundly depressing." (p. 143)

I somewhat explained this concept to her in my own disjointed way, and even though she agrees with this theory, especially in relation to people around us who have done it, she still seems to insist that I do the same. Well, at least, the whole finding a man portion of it. When did this become so important and my independence not so much?

I recall a conversation her and I had about a year and a half ago in which she admitted being afraid that I'd be alone, with no husband or children of my own, when she passes. Apparently, this the most terrible thing in the world that could happen to me. I kind of relish in the thought sometimes.

"Give your parents the tiniest of confidences and they'll use them as crowbars to jimmy you open and rearrange your life with no perspective. Sometimes I'd just like to mace them." (p. 86)

* * *

Fame-induced apathy: The attitude that no activity is worth pursuing unless one can become very famous pursuing it. Fame-induced apathy mimics laziness, but its roots are much deeper.

Option paralysis: The tendency, when given unlimited choices, to make none.

Occupational slumming: Taking a job well beneath one's skill or education level as a means of retreat from adult responsibilities and/or avoiding possible failure in one's true occupation.

So, I find myself suffering from a quarter life crisis, and, truth be told, it's probably been going on for quite some time; I'd say, oh, three years or so.

It's arrival was not planned for since it showed up much earlier than expected - kind of like the friend you can always count on to be late, but then shows up early the one time you need them to be late. It hasn't been warmly welcomed and so far, it's only proven to be the annoying friend that always follows you around asking inane questions. The problem with Quarter Life is that he's asking legitimate questions that have left me wondering if I did myself a disservice by accelerating life the way I have.

Rebellion Postponement: The tendency in one's youth to avoid traditionally youthful activities and artistic experiences in order to obtain serious career experience. Sometimes results in the mourning for lost youth at about age thirty, followed by silly haircuts and expensive joke-inducing wardrobes. (p. 106)

The benefit is that I am not thirty. I have plenty of youth left to experience. The problem is breaking out of the seventy-five year old woman cycle I have found myself in. Go to work. Come home. Eat dinner. Work out. Do some more work. Volunteer time. Go to bed.

I was thinking today about how I've been too hard on myself, discounting all of the things I have done during my so-called youth -- random parties, general tomfoolery, late night street wandering, drives in the middle of the night, etc.

I think where things start to bother me is that all of these adventures stopped after I graduated, and well, I graduated at the stupidly young age of twenty. Youth isn't meant to die at twenty. Hell, it should never die, but that's beside the point. Twenty is not the age in which someone becomes boring and aged. Twenty is only the beginning of life explorations, world discovery, experience hunting, and friendship making.

Four years later and sure, I've gained some valuable work experience and learned a great deal about myself in the process, but the fun just hasn't been the same. It's become very laid back and almost gray. We've stopped having adventures for the sake of having adventures - everyone now is much too focused on their jobs, buying homes and potential marriages. Whatever happened to waiting until our third decade for things such as mortgages and marriage licenses?

I picked up Generation X at the right moment in time, for most every page drips with what I've been feeling lately. Sometimes, I think I was born about ten years too late.

I read about Sundays at Tiffany's on a book blog somewhere over on LiveJournal and decided to pick it up based on the endearing concept of the novel. I was a wee bit hesitant, knowing full well that Patterson is apparently some crime/thriller novelist guru, and well, although I wasn't disappointed necessarily, I wasn't wowed.

The novel read easily and I finished it over three, one hour sessions on the treadmill. Although the story gives you everything you need to know about what's going on, it doesn't exactly leave you feeling full. It was as if I got a taste of everything, but never had a whole course.

The story was predictable, and Patterson's (or Charbonnet's) attempts at tricking the reader into thinking it would end differently, I felt, were just thrown in for that purpose. I rolled my eyes and kind of thought, really? We could do without this part. Who're you fooling, kids?

The copy didn't wow me. There weren't lines upon lines that I needed to highlight to remember. It was light, fluffy, and I do not regret reading it; it simply wasn't a substantial literary dinner.

One concept in the book I did find myself relating too, however, was main character Jane's tribulations with her position in life. A little over the age of thirty, stuck in a job she dislikes, kept under her mother's thumb, and feeling herself to be in a permanent rut, I sympathized.

Michael, I could not. His life as an imaginary friend just seemed peculiar to me, and the process not well explained throughout. It was as if both author's took a fabulous concept and kind of murdered it with their execution (no pun intended). That must always be the biggest disappointment in a novel - a good concept with a poor plan.

On the redeeming side, I particularly enjoyed:

"Honey, I don't want to ride the train. I want to drive the train." (p. 11)

Drive on, monkey. Drive on.

"I wish I could love," cried Dorian Gray, with a deep note of pathos in his voice. "But I seem to have lost the passion, and forgotten the desire. I am too much concentrated on myself. My own personality has become a burden to me. I want to escape, to go away, to forget." (p. 291)

... Dorian Gray developed this problem, whereas I, well ... I was born with it. Welcome to Only Child Syndrome folks, where the only person in existence is me. We never seem to grow out of the phase that, you know, people seem to dissolve a few months after leaving the womb.

Then again, I refused to leave the womb to start with and they ripped me out, much to my dismay.

It's all beginning to make a lot of sense.

Tomorrow, we move on, because I already started and finished the other book and have started on the other other book. Reading on the treadmill, once again, really helps to amp up this book eating thing.

I've been thinking a lot - my past time of choice lately. I spend more minutes in a day contemplating the meaning of life than I seem to contemplate anything else anymore. This hasn't exactly led me to cheery, rosy patches of thought, but it has led to me to insight ... or perhaps, insanity.

I've rewound my own personal footage and vicariously lived through myself - the self that once was. I've thought about things I've done and then wondered why I did them in that particular way. I've come to some pretty funny conclusions about certain things -

"But Venice, like Oxford, had kept the background for romance, and, to the true romantic, background was everything, or almost everything." (p. 235)

I used to be a dreadful romantic. I think, to some degree, we all must be whether we admit to it or not. We're so bombarded by images of the idealized romance and perfect relationship that the message must be creeping into our collective conscience. On the same token, we're all also very bitter probably.

Regardless, I used to be a romantic. My teen years were very typical in that I swooned over boys, both celebrity and non, and imagined picture perfect romances with every single unrequited love - and they were all unrequited, believe you me.

Then, I grew up a little, and I'm not nearly as adolescent stupid as I used to be. Reality has smacked me a couple of times, warning me of the limits of romanticism in real life. I'm okay with this. On the other hand, I can't help but also continue this farce of a life I lead - one in which I seem to continuously pretend is a movie rather than, well, real life.

While on the treadmill a day or so ago, I was thinking about a relationship I was in a couple of years ago: very high school, very cute, too sweet for life. It ended abruptly, as most relationships of that nature do, but truth be told, I had seen the end coming long before it actually showed up on my door step with sparklers in hand.

The night That Boy and I broke up was not a shock to me at all. We had just experienced yet another quasi-awkward evening, not really speaking to each other, nor really looking at each other - something that had become commonplace over the last weeks of our "relationship" - and when I had finally gotten back into my car to go home at the end of the night, something in me snapped. I decided then that enough was enough and we were simply going to end it, once and for all.

I marched back up to That Boy's house, rang the bell, and plainly asked, "What's going on with us?" when he opened the door. With a big sigh, and a shake of his head, he said, "I don't know," and so, our conversation began.

The thing that amuses me the most, is how much I manipulated that situation to be something out of a film. I knew we were going to break up at some point soon. I saw it coming, and had already accepted the fact. I initiated it, wanting to no longer be part of something so dead and heavy, and yet, what happened during The Talk makes me chuckle in sick pleasure.

... I cried. I sat on his stairs, and whimpered like a teenage girl, my actions only encouraging him to put his arm around me, rub my back, and whisper, "I'm sorry." I let tears flow down my cheeks without saying a word. I stared blankly at the floor, my feet and the wall ahead of me. I took on this role of subdued drama queen, soaking up the moment for all that it was worth.

It was all fake, and yet, I did it anyway. I played it out the way it's scripted in movies and on television. I made it out to be the most cliched moment in existence, and today, all I can do is look back and laugh.

I don't know if I knew it at the time, but the past is always 20/20.

The only unfortunate thing is, I haven't done that kind of thing in a while. I haven't played out a moment like a movie in what feels like eternity, and perhaps that's a good thing, or perhaps that's why I'm feeling kind of indifferent to everything. Life has become very life-esque lately, and I'm bored.

I miss my bad habits -

"Of course married life is merely a habit, a bad habit. But then one regrets the loss even of one's worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one's personality." (p. 301)

I finished Dorian Gray the other night, after having worked through each page at a pace so much slower than normal. Regrets? None. Looking back over every page that I folded over and highlighted made me only love the book more, despite not having actually loved every page of prose.

I've since moved on to something so much lighter and fluffier and despite how easy it is to read through, it doesn't pose the same challenges. It isn't offering the same kind of spring board for random life ramblings. One hundred pages in and I only have two pages ear marked in my new novel. Dorian Gray annihilates that number by one hundred percent or more, with quotes such as:

"He was prisoned in thought. Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away." (p. 267)

The last few weeks have appeared challenging from a nostalgic perspective. I have romanticized the past, wishing only to return to minutes that I felt better equipped and prepared for. I have tangoed with previous experiences, and have contemplated how things just do not feel the same, but, at the same time, do.

I've seemingly allowed myself to look, and then fall, into a pit of nostalgic quicksand. I'm sinking, folks, and my struggling is only making it worse.

"Each man lived his own life, and paid his own price for living it. The only pity was one had to pay so often for a single fault. One had to pay over and over again, indeed. In her dealings with man Destiny never closed her accounts." (p. 270)

I often think about times when I felt as if I had more drive to achieve the things I still dream of today. It's almost as if the older you get, the more that will gets sucked out of you. I'm not sure where the blame lies - soul sucking jobs, the routine of a nine to five office ordeal, the aging process, or ourselves.

My mind involuntarily rewinds to a time six years ago when I had the option of doing something more than I did. So often I want to go back and just kick that girl in the shin for the decision she made because, at that point in time, she was too lazy to take Route B when Route A looked so much brighter and faster.

I'm paying for that decision every day, and although it has led me down an interesting path and offered its own experiences and wisdom, I'm almost positive I could have also done without. Sure, I wouldn't be who I am today without those instances, but on the same token, I've only just rediscovered the girl who used to exist; the one with the drive and aching will. Everything in between only served to destroy that, which only makes me wonder, what was the point?

"You always want to know what one has been doing. I always want to forget what I have been doing." (p. 258)

Time comes and goes rapidly, and lately, I feel like it's going more than it's coming. I'm also forgetting a lot of what has been going on lately, illustrated on Saturday by my inability to recall for one friend why another had been with me on the subway previously (he hates the city and the subway system and I could not, for the longest moment, remember why he had agreed to join me).

Time ticks by, but on the plus side, I am nearing the end of Dorian Gray. So far, a journey that has ruined my mind on many levels. Sure, my brain has been ravaged by work and the fact that there is too much metaphoric food on my metaphoric plate of things to do (eat), but the ideas read are only perpetuating the things I already have tucked away.

"Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book. There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his conception of the beautiful." (p. 209)

One thing I have always failed to mention is just how pleasant Oscar Wilde describes the gentleman in Dorian Gray. Certainly, this only happens in the beginning of the novel, but I was quite pleased at how beautiful these men were made out to be - personally and physically. Of course, there are all those rumours about Wilde that would justify his phrasing, but we'll ignore that for the sake of simply appreciating the portrayal.

I must say though, Wilde falls victim to the same shared characteristic of all classic writers. I found my eyes crossing in frustration when he began to over describe parts of the book that I felt to be unnecessarily spoken about for so long. This wordiness drives me nuts, and while I understand why the material has been published as such, it still drives me bonkers.

I think this fact means I fail at literary life, all around.

Welcome to Your Quarterlife Crisis ... Thanks, I think.

I get a weekly email alert from EyeWeekly - a free indie paper in Toronto - and normally, I skim through the message in a couple of seconds, not really finding anything that grips my fancy enough to want to read on. This week, as soon as I saw quarterlife crisis, I was sold, and in it for the long haul.

I've always been fascinated by the concept of a quarterlife crisis. Since it's still a relatively new life "crisis" recognized as fact, it somehow always helps me to feel a little better whenever an article about it creeps up. Well, helps me feel better or worse, depending on the day. I think in this case, it only made me feel worse.

I read through the article, agreeing with every word - the confusion, the lack of direction, the fact that having too many options is the reason for not choosing an option in the first place. I can't fathom the number of times I've ranted to someone about the fact that we have too many options now-a-days; we don't know what to do because we can do anything.

Quarterlife crises generally begin hitting people in their mid-twenties, shortly following graduating when you've spent a few years in the work force and begin to wonder, "Is this it? What's next?"

Unfortunately for me, I graduated at the ripe, young age of 21 and began to feel the pangs of Seriously? a couple of years ago. Unfortunate, again, is the fact that now I am only 24 and everyone around me is getting married, buying houses, and considering children - generally things saved for the latter half of someone's twenties. By default, I've been thrown into a full blown quarterlife crisis because everyone around me - and I suppose myself, included, to a degree - have chosen to accelerate our lives. The only difference is, whereas I only chose the shorter schooling route, everyone else chose to accelerate the rest as well. I am the only 24 year old I know who still wants to have fun, experience life, travel and not shackle myself down to a mortgage, children and one job for the rest of my days. The disconnect between myself and my friends seems to grow more and more every day; they don't really know it, for they don' feel it in their happy, little lives, but I feel it for I have none of these things, except ambition and drive.

It's an interesting thing, my generation. I don't understand when the rush factor became so prominent as to take over our lives. Here we are, following a generation of individuals that chose to delay marriages and mortgages in favour of jump starting careers and delaying hard work in favour of travelling and experiencing the world. We've seemingly done the opposite.

I don't fit in with the way everyone around me has chosen to move through the motions, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't make things, at times, more challenging than they need to be. Disconnect.

Funny how that's the way I typically feel, day to day, when recently, at work, we've launched a new brand wholly based on connection. It's hard to market something when you're not feeling it.

"I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us." (p. 13)

Being "mysterious" has always been my shtick. I never really let the cat out of the bag or necessarily share too many details - with people who are not my closer friends, of course.

It's interesting to me, then, to observe people who do not maintain that air of mystery. For example, my manager loves to share a plethora of stories with us, as well as rants and raves. There is nothing wrong with this, of course, but when her and I were busy packing up boxes today, she began telling me her epic wedding party story, and in the back of my mind, I couldn't stop thinking about how I probably would never reciprocate.

But perhaps that's just because I've previously gotten too close with managers, and as such, effectively ruined the Boss/Employee relationship. That's never a good place to be.

Regardless, staying on mysteries and secrets, I have a Lavalife account. Shh, it's the most dreadful and embarassing of secrets. Only, it's really not, because I don't use it. Well, not traditionally.

It's an entertainment device - I log in once a day, check out the ridiculous chat messages and emails left for me, delete any smiles and move on. The sheer volume of pathetic pick up lines or attempts to get your attention by playing off your already quasi-joke profile (though, they don't get that) are too hilarious to pass up.

I've seen it all. I've had the sickeningly sweet, right down to the "doctor" who rudely told me my standards were too high and I would never find a man -- this was the first thing he ever said to me. He was basing this opinion off a profile where I state that I love the arts, my friends and family, and that describing oneself in a short number of words is impossible. Yep. He must have been reading between the lines to pick up on my ridiculously high standards. Smart man. (cough)

The best encounter occurred yesterday, however. Some random guy sent me a chat message, complimenting me on something or other, which I thanked him for. I rarely stick around to actually chat with people and so, logged out before he could reply. When I returned the next day, he had responded, making a comment about how I sounded older than my years. I simply replied by saying that that wasn't the first time I had heard that and again, promptly logged out.

I returned last night to:

I think you need braces.
I still find you charming though.

... This, coming from a guy whose profile is nothing but a soapbox rant about how shallow the female population is on Lavalife. Not wanting to miss the opportunity, I called him out on it. There was the chance of a good internet scrap, and I wasn't going to pass it up.

He pegged it on me by blaming me for focusing on the braces comment, rather than the compliment he had given me prior to that. Oh, right, pardon my error. You like my face, but you also think I need to fix my smile. That makes perfect, mathematical sense.

Again, I called him out on it. His reponse?

I'm growing rather bored of this.

I've never (internally) laughed so hard. In fact, I think my brain exploded a little at the sheer audacity of it all and complete brain dysfunction. If Lord Henry were my friend, we'd share a good chuckle over it --

"There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating - people who know absolutely everything and people who know absolutely nothing." (p.123)