The Truth of the Matter

"Babes...."
"Yes love?"
"Why are we special though? What makes us so special that we don't have to work when everyone else is?"

The babes used to be ironic. When we both had media jobs, darling, it was a little nod at the ridiculousness of the industry that we felt we were above. Now that we're both unemployed the irony has dissipated slightly, but it's become habit.

The problem with being jobless in the summer is that it starts to feel like a holiday. You're sat in the park with Dick and Nicole Diver, a vanilla latte in one hand and a cinnamon swirl in the the other, a copy of the Guardian sat waiting to be perused and it's hard to remember why, exactly, you need to work anyway. I mean there's always the question of funds, but more often than not there's a parent or a government handout to answer that for you.

My biggest downfall in life is that I have the perfect temperament to be an artist. Living from hand to mouth, working when inspiration hits me and greedily absorbing all other cultural forms on my time off, I don't need structure and security to be content. A writer sat at my antique roll-top desk all day writing a novel that will become the voice of my generation - it's where I've always seen myself.

Although between the endless Twittering and Facebook updates, I'm not so sure my generation needs another voice.

There's just one fly in this fantasy ointment, one hitch on the ladder up to cultural significance - I'm not talented. I never have been. Oh, I'm certainly intelligent, and I have a good eye for other people's work, a certain 'je ne sais quoi' when it comes to writing a witty email; but genuine, unmistakeable artistic talent? Unfortunately not. Which begs the question - what is a middle class girl to do when she realises that she's too flighty to succeed in the corporate world and just too average to succeed in the arts?