Your Unemployed Daughter

You know how I only use you for “networking” and to keep in touch with my numerous important friends (386 and counting!) around the world? And for photo storage purposes, and so people can contact me easily about jobs, and as a means of getting out the word on certain important things, like voting for Obama, of course.

Well, now that I’m unemployed, things are a little different. I have come to realize that you offer more. So much more. For instance, if I want to check on that former boss who used to be employed by my former employer and hasn’t defriended me yet to see what she’s up to, I can do that. If I want to feel bad about how little I have in my jobless life, or if I want to feel good about how amazing my life is compared to those poor schmucks still working at TK-named company, you are there for me. If I need to find out who from Jon & Kate + 8 I would be, if I were a member of their family, you will tell me. If I need to take a bogus IQ test to confirm that indeed, there is a reason I am without a job, and that is because I am only passably intelligent, you will provide one for me. If I want to stalk an ex, you give me that freedom.

But I notice these days maybe you aren’t feeling so hot. You seem a little … sluggish. Face it, you’re slow. Are you hungover or something? Do you have swine flu? Cause I expect you to be on top of things. I expect you to at least load. I mean, who else is going to tell me that my former designer is now doing her laundry, or that that reporter slept 10 hours last night, or that that girl I went to high school with and was never really friends with at all but sometimes you need to beef your numbers so shoot me just had her annual OB/GYN exam, whoot! When I’m drinking at a friend’s house and we want to see photos of someone pre plastic surgery, we want to see them NOW!

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Thursday's workout (snazzy duds, D!)

In between visiting my parents in Florida and a trip to Jamaica for a friend’s wedding, I have three days back in NYC. (I know this strikes panic in the hearts of many. Not to worry, dear friends, I will be – at least attempting – to post from the rocky cliffs and sun-drenched shores of Jamaica. Apparently they have WiFi in their restaurant.)

Aside: This may be my tannest summer YET since I was a kid growing up waterskiing on the Tennessee River. Already my moon-toned visage has attracted a number of freckles and all the kayaking and biking has turned my arms and shoulders from white to a distinctly beige tone (something I’d never see, you know, if I was spending my time in a cubicle). Not that tanning is good, of course.

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Changing of the Guard

Don’t you find the airport endlessly fascinating? Especially when you are delayed for an hour, and get through the gate more than an hour before your flight would have boarded had it actually been on time? Stranded airport time provides such uninterrupted food for thought (only if you are traveling alone, otherwise you’ll surely be deluged with endless chitchat and meaningless nonsense from your companions who are far less sanguine about their sojourn at PBI, especially as they likely have to get back to demanding jobs and personal lives while your time is an endless sphere from sleep to wake to eat to workout to eat to send resumes and blog post to eat again and drink and then back to sleep. Repeat.)

In such cases, actually, the airport is a wonderful diversion from the mundane. So many people! So many shared restrooms! Such a cross-section of humanity! The airport where I sit, at gate C-5 across from the Miami Subs Bar and Grill, has always been one of my favorites. It’s relaxed and the lines are never very long, people are slow-moving and friendly (we are in Florida, after all, so the median age is perhaps 65), and the sun, visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows, is always out at least a portion of the day, though my delayed departure has to do with one of those daily thunderstorms – it does clear up afterward – that these coastal regions are known for. In addition, there is WiFi! It is a glorious spot, really.

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Hire me, please?

Here is a conundrum for you. When you’ve been a rather anal, overachieving, people-pleasing workaholic for most of your adult life, and suddenly, presumably through no fault of your own, you are canned, do you … Try immediately to find another job, whatever it takes? Take time to sit back and figure stuff out, reevaluating your past and examining your future, to come up with what you truly want to do next? Get frequently, excessively drunk? Go shopping ’cause you finally have time? Burn your apartment down and collect the insurance?

And, if you go the first route, predominantly (with bits of the others mixed in for flavor), when a job opportunity comes up that you feel is beneath you in terms of pay, responsibility, geography, or the like, do you … Take it anyway, ’cause who knows what’s going to come up next and it’s a recession, haven’t you heard? Hold out for something better? Take it and quit when something better comes along? Ask the job offerer in a tone of deep insult, “Do you know who I am?”?

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Have a bite! (I hope you don't choke.)

All hail the humble meatball! A foodstuff more complex and multi-tasking than it seems at first glance, a meatball can be utilized as a protein-packed solo bite, a vehicle for a variety of sauce options, a topping for carbohydrates ranging from rice to noodles, even … a medium of vengeance.

According to the “Neighborhood Post,” a weekly section of my parents’ delightful daily paper, a recent domestic disturbance occurred that consisted of the following: Read the rest of this entry »

Here is one nice thing about work. When you are sitting in front of your computer, perhaps typing, mouse-scrolling, or even just staring thoughtfully at the monitor, people do not generally interrupt you with inquiries as to how much severance “they” would have to offer you for you to actually take it, or offer up their thoughts on how maybe people should just work ANYWHERE if they can’t get a job because isn’t it better to do SOMETHING than nothing, and, one last question, are there any good chick flicks out now that you’d recommend to a group of women?

None of those points of those discussion do I mind, by the way, in themselves, exactly. It’s just … GUYS! I’m trying to write a deeply meaningful, politically astute, culturally solvent post with satirical underpinnings – the one that I know my 3.5 readers have been waiting for since they devoured yesterday’s entry – and it’s really hard when I keep having to turn my thoughts to whether or not Star Trek counts as a chick flick if it has cute guys in it. (It doesn’t.)

However, I really am having a lovely time here in Florida. Today began with a kayak trip (and boy, are my arms tired!) through the mangroves, followed by grilled veggie and mozzarella sandwiches on the beach while observing some pretty dramatic pelican-diving (they dive straight down into the water, beak-first, much like the former employees of a certain company), followed by a leisurely return kayak voyage, a sit on the porch, a light snack…and we’re still beating the rain, though there’s thunder in the distance. So I have little to complain about, and in fact, some (including those in near proximity) would probably say that I am being a bit of a brat.

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Hello, Land of Screened-In Porches

Greetings from Florida! I’ve adjusted to the time difference already!

I’ll stop with the Jon & Kate after this, I swear, but whaddya know, they air that show here, too, and I watched the MOST DRAMATIC rose ceremony EVER (I mean, the FIRST TIME THEY FACE EACH OTHER after Jon’s supposed affair and all that tabloid nonsense) last night, and it was … ho-hum.

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Don't Forget to Hydrate

Last night I met up with a former coworker (there are so many!) for drinks and dinner on the Lower East Side. As is the norm for an evening preceding a morning when I have a flight to catch (why is that always the way?) I drank far too many glasses of white, rose, and red wine, and ate far too few French fries. Despite my own excesses and lack of carbs to temper, I think it’s safe to say I felt better than the guy who kicked this fire hydrant out of the ground last night for absolutely no reason at all. Except that I think he just got fired.

A lovely evening was had by all, if I remember correctly. We coerced a couple of fine young fellows into joining us apres dinner for some drinks at refined institution Donneybrooke (also known as the site of a certain former employer’s faux holiday party, also known as the night a certain former colleague smashed an ornament on my head, also known as the night we danced the dance formerly known as the “Whip” for certain religiously oriented former bargoers.) Oh, memories. Bittersweet, lazy day, unemployed memories. Sometimes they make the heart ache.

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The Hills of Tuscany Bibbiano Bunching Curio

I was watching TV last night (I admit, I went back to Jon & Kate, but jeez…they are weirdly compelling in a “Please never let this become my life” sort of way) and suddenly this Thomasville Furniture commercial comes on that concludes with “and we will make your payments for 6 months IF YOU LOSE YOUR JOB.”

Whoa. Wait a second. Did I actually see that? Rewind, Replay. Yep.

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No babies here!

Saturday is the loveliest day, isn’t it? (Especially when there’s no Monday to contend with.) It’s sunny and 69 here in NYC. There seems to be a Jon & Kate marathon on TV – they’re gearing up for the premiere in which the couple “face each other for the first time” after news of his affair with a 23-year-old teacher – JUICY! But I will be strong and go outside. I think it’s time to put air in the bike tire. And then, the park.

Ah, the park. The park is something truly special to the unemployed, but it’s less evident on a Saturday, when all are free to roam and grass-sit to their employed hearts’ content. Don’t worry, I won’t deny the employed the right to the park (we can share it!) but I do want to point out the difference between the park on the weekend, and the park, say, on a Wednesday.

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