Your Unemployed Daughter

photo credit: Liz Wong
Northeast, we’ve had a hard time these past few days/weeks/month, haven’t we? (Pardon me, I missed out on the first part as I was busy jetting from Florida to NY to Jamaica and back to NY. Unemployment!) But I hear from those around that it’s been pretty tough. Bleak. Damp. Constant, bizarre downpours. A monsoon season, if you will.

When I got laid off, everyone said, “Oh, you’re so lucky to get laid off in the summer. I’m sooooo jealous!” Driven by their words, I admit I perhaps naively flashed forward to September, when my tan would be savage, my psyche relaxed, and the perfect job suddenly available after my 3 well-deserved months of fun in the sun.

But this is not going to turn into a weather rant, oh no. For as much as people are bored/sick/depressed about the weather, claiming we now “live in Seattle” and running out to stock up on sun lamps and vitamin D, as one wise blogger said, “The only thing worse than constant rain is people constantly complaining about constant rain. Whining won’t bring the sun out, I promise.”

Or will it?

Current Weather-Related Facebook Status Updates
how the hell am I supposed to look cute in this weather?
Rain Delay at the U.S. Open
If your anti-depressant is not working to its full potential, consider moving to a place that doesn’t look like the Lord of the Rings’ set every day.
will feel the rain on my face tonight with Lauren Conrad.
urghhhhh what a yucky day.!!!! not moving from bed,calm and relaxed today
We’re back in Brooklyn. Nice day out there.
so this is the awful NYC weather everyone is talking about…??!
Tell Mother Nature off here.
my life will get a lot better when monsoon season ends
is so sick of this weather.
is wondering if she should start building an Ark
Taxi weatherman: “It’s humid out there.” You don’t say …
sees that it’s raining again, feels weary.

Are we at all single-minded?

At any rate, unemployed friends, we must strive not to be boring, for the good of our own self-worth as well as to maintain our invites to much needed sustenance-providing cocktail parties and dinners. We are the fun ones!

And really, as an unemployed person, you should be free of these petty complaints. You don’t have to go out in the rain at scheduled times! You can stay home and watch the Real Housewives of New Jersey finale that you DVRed two nights ago but have been far too busy to view. You can read the sequel to The Alienist, which is sitting right by your warm and cozy bed for you to finish. You can reupholster a chair, or fill up all the holes in your apartment with polyurethane foam so the mouse doesn’t getcha. You can consider the fact that you ate baby eels last night, and remember how surprisingly delicious and pasta-like they were. If you insist, you can do freelance work.

So I urge you. Get over it. Stop turning obsessively to the Weather Channel or pricing airfare to Costa Rica. Someday soon it will be July, and then August, and it will be 105 degrees, and you will think fondly, bittersweetly, of waaaay greener pastures, the days the rains came, and how safe it made you feel to be inside, protected and dry in your little unemployed hovel, writing your blog posts. And how much you saved on air conditioning!

Topics to Turn to INSTEAD of the Weather
Can a woman really restore her own virginity?
After all the layoffs are done, who fires HR?
Why is Better Than Ezra on tour?
Is the only difference between Thai food and Chinese lemongrass?
What kind of a name is Jillibean?
If you were Patrick Henry, would you have had the balls?
What ever happened to those Pace commercials?
Wouldn’t this be unfortunate?
What is picante sauce supposed to taste like?
What is Ramona doing right now?

Think you have a better idea? Write me! YourUnemployedDaughter@gmail.com