Subterranean homelife blues part 2

I mentioned previously that I live in my parents’ basement.  That’s the life of an aspiring librarian: 30 and in a basement.

I’d like to talk a little more about what it will actually be like for you when you’re living in a basement, waiting to find a job that will employ you at least half-time after you get your MLIS.  If you predict that it will suck, you are so incredibly correct.

I recently came to realize that I’ve been living in basements for 12 years now.  As an undergrad at the age of 18 I moved into my grandparents’ basement to be close to my school (I didn’t have a car then), and watch their place when they were away traveling for months at a time.  After my undergrad days I moved back with my parents while getting my MLIS, and have been here since.  My old room was now my sister’s room, and my sister’s old room had been converted into a computer/study room, so I got the basement. 

12 years spent living in ugly, smelly basements.  Basements are going to be ugly and smelly no matter how you dress them up, that’s just the way it is.  You can dress up a pig, but… it’s still a pig, isn’t it?  You know what else a basement is like?  Cold.  Freaking cold.  As I type this it is late Spring, and Spring is actually the coldest time of the year for me.  Winter isn’t that bad because the heat is on, but come Spring the heat gets turned off and I’m sitting here wrapped in blankets, wearing sweatshirts, shivering.  No one as hot as I am should ever have to be this cold.  There are people who have literally frozen to death who have never, in their lives, been as cold as I often am in the Spring.  The only time it’s really nice is Summer, when I’m actually cool while everyone else is suffering from heat stroke.

I could deal with all of that… I mean, it’s not awesome, and I’d still walk around with a general sense of sadness on the inside that has leeched into me from my dank surroundings, but you know, I could deal.  Except for the other thing that is a common fixture of basements that you just can’t fight no matter how much carpet you put down…

Bugs.  Fucking bugs.  Running spiders as big as your hand.  Centipedes.  For those of you not “blessed” to live in a region with house centipedes, just imagine someone took ten long-legged spiders and glued them together.  That’s pretty much a house centipede.  I’d link you to a picture, but then I’d have to see it myself.  Even pictures of them make me uncomfortable.

I have always had a psychotic, paranoid fear of bugs.  I cannot live with having to share a planet with them.  The very thought of it makes me want to cry.  There’s only one thing that gives me just enough peace of mind to sleep knowing those things are skulking around: I sleep with a bug net around my bed.  Well, sort of.  It’s really less of a bug net and more of a pretty princess/harem girl kind of thing, but whatever, it does the job.  I’ve only seen a spider inside the net with me maybe two or three times in these past 8 years.  More often than that I see them outside the net.

I always have spray within reach at all times.  For the past 12 years I’ve been spraying powerful bug poisons near my bed, and I’m not sure exactly how well ventilated these basements are.  And I don’t care.  Lex Luther wore a kryptonite ring until he himself got cancer from it, because he hated Superman that much.  I don’t know how many years I’ve taken off of my life, but it’s something I need to do.  I said I can’t live on the same planet with bugs, and I meant it.  I will slowly kill myself to take as many of them with me as I possibly can.  And yes I realize I’m the supervillain in that analogy, and I’m ok with that.  What, am I going to pretend that someone who has declared all-out war on all bugs—and actually believes that the bugs are aware of this and are fighting back in coordinated efforts—is all that sane?  So sure, I’m the bad guy, I don’t care.  Say hello to the bad guy, you cockroaches.

But God damn, am I ever sick of living in basements.  More than a decade of this… success is really this impossible?  This is the new American way? 

Those of you who are just getting your MLIS, I hope you’re less afraid of bugs than I am.    

What's so happy about it?

As of a little over a week ago, it is now finally official.  I am the quintessential go-to example of a loser stereotype.  I am a 30 year old living in my parents' basement.

I explained the whole parents' basement thing in this old post:

http://failedlibrarian.blogspot.com/2012/10/subterranean-homelife-blues.html

And now I've finally hit the "big" 30.  I don't see what's so big about it, though.  The only difference seems to be lower car insurance rates, and the sudden inability to eat pizza before bed from now on.

But that's neither here nor there.  The point is that I am 30, have had my MLIS for almost 5 years, and have yet to find any employment in my field that even qualifies as half-time.  Anyone surprised?  Show of hands?


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Yep, that's what I thought.

Subterranean homelife blues

You may now be wondering, if I’m really making so little money, how is it possible that I’m, you know, alive?  I wouldn’t be a proper failure if I couldn’t tell you, without a trace of jesting, that I still live with my parents. 

I am 29, nearing 30, and live with my parents.  That doesn’t make me sound like a failure yet?  You say there’s an increasing trend of adults post-college who are being supported by their parents, and I’m in fairly good company and not completely pathetic?  Ok, wait a second.  Let me be more specific.

I’m currently 29 years old, almost 30, and I live in my parents’ basement.

I have no idea why living in their basement makes me a bigger loser than living with them in general.  I know it does, but I’m not sure why, and I find it interesting that it works that way.  When I meet people I will tell them without hesitation that I live with my parents.  Might as well, you know?  But if I even remotely care what that person thinks of me, I will intentionally avoid giving them any kind of indication that I live in the basement.  There are people who have known me for years and know that I live with my parents, but still don't know I happen to be underground.

It’s not like I’m in the basement because I happen to think it’s good to be there or anything.  It’s just that after I initially left during college, my sister got my old room and her old room became a computer room.  The basement is just where there was room for my bed, that’s all.  Not that I’m making excuses, it's just a fact.

And it's not like I spend all of my time down there taking drugs and playing video games, as per the stereotype.  I've never so much as tried illicit drugs, and.... ok, I do enjoy video games, but not at the expense of having a job or trying to have one.  I play when I have time, and it's not that often these days.  I still realize that doesn't make it sound any better.

Either way I live with my parents because I’m a grown adult who is more or less a waste of a life.  Would this situation really be improved if I slept across the hall from them rather than downstairs?  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about the perception, I’m just wondering where it comes from.

In any event, that’s my life.  I work as an instructor at a college, then I come home to my parents’ basement and grade college papers.  Imagine if my students knew that.