Gitter-fiddle.

I have tried to learn that instrument for 22 years. It might as well be the Holophonor.

And life.

At this point my once-six-figure-salary career is dead; my peer group has all but disintegrated; I am estranged from my family; my knees and ankles are not working enough to label them "knees and ankles"; and I am a de facto alien parent that gets told "you aren't my parent" (like no shit you 12-year-old-pissant ... took four years of me in your life to figure that out?)

None of that was in my plan(s) A through J. I have since given up on making so much of my plans. All of the above things are still true, and I am still a grump.

But I am having fun being an curmudgeon.

You get to use canes and "hurmmphh" at youths, and soon enough I'll be rolling in senior citizen discounts. Maybe I'll get a fake ID so that I can start that ball rolling.

and just to be straight: my career is dead but my partner's is taking off so I am a househusband at my partner's request.

Peers get married and move, but I still have one or two close compatriots. My family and I ... well yeah that kinda sucks. The pain is taken care of via the dispensary system in my home state. And the 12 year old can be cool at most times.

Life is something that I am so ugly at that perhaps it is my version of some outsider folk performance art. So ugly that is has wrapped all the way round to beautiful.