I’ve been having a week-long discussion with my Dad wherein I sit quietly and he lists all the things I’m doing wrong.

I have big ego problems, so it’s basically like having bamboo shivs stuck under my toenails again and again and again. I tried to tell him this — I’m not being dramatic, that’s a clinical opinion — but I’ve learned the long way around that materialism seems to count as love in our relationship and psychic factors count for nothing.

I just bite my tongue, bandage my toes, try my hardest not to interrupt, and focus on the happy list, like Bilbo Baggins: “Eggs and bacon. A good, full pipe. My garden at twilight. Cakes…”

Today on the ride back from his office he got generational:

My generation defined themselves in terms of a couple of things. You were your job, your wife, your kids, and to some extent your house and car. You guys don’t seem to work like that. Your generation seems to think that what you do and who you are is entirely separate.

“Whoa,” I thought at that point, “He’s trying to figure us out. That’s weird.” I realized I still think irrationally, like a kid, with respect to Boomers: They’re the adults, they know what’s going on and just won’t tell us. I keep forgetting that no one knows anything gnostic, we’re all playing it by ear, all trying to figure it out, all doomed to fail.

Anyway, in this case I hope he’s right (aside from the slight implication that I don’t exist).

I’m being sent by my extended family to interview with an investment management firm tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m trying to keep a positive frame of mind but stocks and bonds are just GAAP-compliant lies wrapped in legal fictions. Still, man shall not live on the Word of God alone, but on every bit of bread that proceeds into his mouth.

I’m also thinking of slangin’ coffee or working for the government. The balance there is which earns me enough to rent, which leaves me lucid enough to play poker, and which gives me the best mental terrain to write from (I write best when I have shitty jobs).

The next law school intake is Sept. 2010 and I’d like to pay my way without material support from my family (I’m trying to run a multilevel takeaway on them, for those of you who knows what that means). That’s right: I’m slowly becoming Matt Damon, except I’d have called Gretchen Mol a bitch and taken Famke with me to Vegas. Any girl that gets off on discussing WSOP final tables is hot as a Doukobour’s dipping butter as far as I’m concerned.

Trick is I still can’t get student loans, another “fuck you, Jack” from the tax man.

I seem to be stuck in a weird eddy where the social safety net keeps ass-raping me. You should hear the language the young lady from MSP used last time they asked me to pony up for socialized healthcare, just before I canceled my cell because $30 per month was $30 too much. She shrieked and threw feces like a haranguing monkey.

Girl: Hey, this is Robin! Is Jack there?
me: Speaking.
Girl: Why aren’t you paying your MSP bill? Don’t you like free health care?
me: Uh, yeah. It’s great, sort-of: Let’s just say yes. I’m broke though, so it’s free. Right?
Girl: Well, according to this you make twice what I do.
me: Oh, yeah, your records are out of date, I..
Girl: Oook oook ook! Ahhh! Ahhh! Ahh! Pay up, rich man!
me: [click] Fucking harangutans. Stupidity is why communism failed.

Here’s the clue, free of charge: When my employer stops paying my MSP, that means I’m no longer employed. Yes, I know that because you’re pathologically lazy you only update employment information once annually but frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.