Hanging out on Madison

There’s gotta be a name for it. That period where nothing is going right, but nothing going horribly wrong, “horribly” being a completely subjective word. I mean, you haven’t won the lotto, but you haven’t lost your wallet or locked your keys in your car. You haven’t gotten that great new job, but you haven’t been fired from your current one either.

I’m in that period right now, that limbo between shouting “Wow, I can’t believe this has happened! Terriffic!” and yelling “Mother-FUCK this shit!” over and over again. If it was a series of bad things happening I would have a name for it: a string of bad luck, a dry spell, etc. And if things were hunky-dory, I’d have words for that too: batting 1.000, on a roll, in the groove, etc.

But I don’t know what to call this period, where things are just….there. For instance, I’ve been lucky enough to get a few freelance graphic design jobs on the side, apart from my regular job. But I haven’t been paid for them yet. So I’m not sure what category to put it in: good luck or bad luck. Or is it something different altogether. I’m behind on a few bills, but not so much that I have to panic; they’ll get their cash in a few days. And there’s this woman I’ve been hanging out with who sort of fun and it’s something to do to keep me from flipping through the TV channels on the weekend, but she doesn’t want to get “involved” with me “that way” and I figure why hang out with her, but I do. So what the hell do I call that?

And don’t tell me to call it just “life”. That’s too generic and dime-store Zen’y. The other occurrences are “life” too. I need some thing new. Is limbo OK? Midfield? The ozone? Maybe I can say, “I’m just hanging out on Madison right now,” Madison being the midpoint in Chicago separating the north and south sides of the city.

Yeah, I’m hanging out on Madison right now.