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10 o'clock in the a.m., I'm swinging a set of keys in my hand as I walk towards Smith Center. The keys I just picked up from the PSU security office, the keys that will allow me access to the radio station in the sub-basement of Smith Center. I find this hard to believe. Not only am I the official "morning guy," for the station (until we decide to start broadcasting before 11am) but I'm also responsible for unlocking everything two days a week. I'm not irresponsible; I've just never had the opportunity to be responsible before. Any employer I've ever had that could have warranted me some degree of responsibility always passed me over for some one less intelligent and more docile. Now I have this, the keys. I laugh at this funny little duty because it is so new to me.

When I get in, I discover that somebody has turned off the computer that catalogs all of the CDs. I have keys to all of the CD cabinets, but I do not possess the password for the computer containing the spreadsheet that makes sense of their filings from 1 to over 12000. Frantically, I look through the cabinets, trying to remember where I found things, trying to amass an hour worth of bebop, or cool jazz, or jazz funk, or whatever will fit before my show starts at 11. Angelo arrives near 11, and tells me that the password is written on the side of the computer, which should have been an obvious place to look.

It turns out to be a good that I overlooked it, because in my random CD search, I realized that in a month's time, I've memorized the location of most of the good jazz recordings in the station. It was pretty easy, because the station is lacking on any kind of good jazz recordings. This leads me to ask Angelo how it was decided what CDs we would get in our collection, which leads to him appointing me as the jazz director, with authority to order my own CDs. I should remind you that I know next to nothing about jazz, but this still makes me the most qualified one at the station for the job. It doesn't pay anything, but I'll get free stuff.

Taking notice that I am now a director of something I know almost nothing about, I hop on a bus that evening and go to southeast Portland, or SE as the street signs call it. My old roommate Will knows a great deal about jazz history, and has a very nice CD collection to back up his knowledge. He hands me a stack of plastic jewel cases, and tells me to give them a listen. (As I type, Sonny Stitt is Taking a Chance On Love.) He gives me a little info on each artist, but mostly we talk about comedians and current events. We have a little bass and guitar jam session. I've instructed Will incorrectly on when to change chords in my song, but I'm compensating for it nonetheless.

Shayla, another former roommate, looms around the corner, listening. Shayla actually told me when I moved out, that I shouldn�t take it personally, but living with me made her feel like she was in college again. She said it with her condescending, elitist tone she uses towards all of humanity that doesn�t know famous people (or who she thinks doesn�t know famous people.) What she must not have noticed is that she is in college again; she�s in a college that is very much inferior to the previous one she attended. I miss a chord change, at which point she pops out and smiles. Go suck a cock, you hipster bitch.

I've never liked being in that house filled with people brooding over their wasted potential, angry with my youth and all the opportunities it brings me. I am always happy to leave.

A number 9 brought me here, and now a number 14 brings me back. My tired body rests on the bench securely fastened to the inside of the bus until it is time to get off and take a short trip on the MAX train. The doors slide open and I recognize a face, a sweet, virginal face attached to red hair pulled back in a ponytail. I worked with her one day of that three-day job I just quit. She always smiled naively at everyone. I mistook her for being one of those sheltered girls that has no contact with the real world other than her job. Then, I saw her smoking a cigarette out back at work, and that idea changed. Now, she's pushing a baby carriage, and her entire life comes in to focus before me.

I walk past her and sit down. I'm not trying to be rude, I just don't see any point in conversation. I do think of her, of the horrible life she must be trapped in, enslaved to her job and her child. I'm sure she tells herself that these both can be rewarding things, but if she could afford to be honest, she would express the urge to free her self from her life and go find one that doesn't involve pediatricians or employee uniforms, but it's too late, she already has a responsibility she can�t escape from. At the next stop, she gets off, pushing her baby carriage into the store where Boyd works, the one that's crawling with every weirdo this side of the Willamette, especially at night. It's like I told my manager of three days when I quit, "Your employees are brave people. I can't be that brave."

It really was just a bunch of lip service, and completely out of character with my usual style of raising hell when I quit my job. I was actually considering jumping up on the counter, lighting a joint, and reading excerpts from Fast Food Nation. That would have required sticking around until I could get some pot and reading that book. I couldn't wait for that, and I don�t really like pot, so I just quit as quietly as possible. But one part was true; I can't be as brave as that girl, because I really don't need to be. Nothing has ever deemed me responsible for such courage.