You can also submit directly to some publishers. At some point, life may be too short to continue, but I'm not so sure that you really are there yet, based on your message. Sell a book. Once the offer of a contract is in the post, contact your favourite agent by phone and ask if he'll represent you in the sale. There's a good chance he will - if you've sold the book first.
Agents have no such power.
They can help, but only after you've sold that first book - and, in most cases, many more books than that. I guesss this is the only place I can put this. I'm not technically signing in, but you might call it moving my name off the disabled list. I think the last time I posted here was late last year sometime, and it's been about that long since I wrote anything of any substance or length. I could say I had some issues to work out, but I certainly haven't the foggiest what those issues are, so the excuse breaks down.