Your Unemployed Daughter

photo credit: specialkrb

I’m heading into the office shortly, and I must say, this part-time schedule is quite delicious. It forces me to plan my days to some degree (gym at 8:30 am, for instance—my most dramatic arrival yet!) but allows for plenty of freeform behavior, all at the same time.

I may be involved in the worklife equivalent of the mullet: That’s right, business in the front, partaayyyy in the back. So to speak.

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photo credit: crumj

I’ve been having weird dreams about my past. In one of them, I was about to marry the boy who lived across the street from me when I was in 5th grade.

In real life, he was notable for the trampoline in his backyard, and, in middle school, after he and his family moved from our block to another block that was still in my school district but less alcohol-friendly—presumably retaining the trampoline—for performing “Nothin But a Good Time” with his buddies to an audience of admiring 7th graders.

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photo credit: morebyless

Regardless of what happened when I got “let go” from my last job, I have always known that I worked with some fabulous people. Smart, funny, sometimes bizarro people of the sort that, when you bring them out to meet other friends, your friends wonder incredulously, “How do you meet such great people?”

Because as we all know, a lot of people are … not so great.

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Ah, tis good to be home after my week of flagrant vacationing.
Yes, I had views like these.

© Tisha Clifford

© Tisha Clifford

But now I have views like these:

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Alas, returning to society today, via bus, train, and likely automobile (or MTA, should I become inspired). Boo.

Back when I was a high schooler, I always thought I wanted to be a big-time New York City lawyer, or a novelist living in a cabin in Maine. Instead I became a “big-time” (ie., small-to-middling-time) New York City magazine person. And then a New York City unemployed person.

Something in me still loves the idea of hunkering down in a little house through the dead of winter, writing mysteries a la Jessica Fletcher, but a little less Lansbury, and surviving on stew and red wine—and, of course, biking into the village to take yoga classes and shop for fresh bread and organic veggies and chat up hunky fishermen.

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photo credit: Articulate Matter

I have no idea how this picture relates to this post. Perhaps I am the squid chasing his escapee prawns, or maybe I am the leader in the “out of the pot” charge, or maybe I’m just stirring the pot. But it’s weird enough to love, no?

Anyway, I have a confession: I missed a post!

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photo credit: Tundra Ice

Day 2.5, Chatham, Mass.

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous—I caught Dad calling it “summer,” and it’s the best kind there is: sunny, warm, no humidity, clear skies in which you can see for miles. A perfect day, in fact, for a 26.5 mile bike ride on the Cape Cod Rail Trail.

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photo credit: Curious Expeditions

We wake and count the empty bottles. There are 6, plus a box of wine that is near empty and said to contain as many as 4-plus, originally. Oof. Never let it be said that we can’t hold our liquor. We hold it and we drink it, too.

It took us a couple hours to get here yesterday from Boston, and the rains were incessant the whole way. When we arrived at the house (an adorable cottage right on the water) we found the doors locked and no sight of a key (except for a random, ancient one that my dad discovered in the garden), even though instructions had indicated we would find the doors open and the key on the table.

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photo credit: Premshree Pillai

Currently, with brother and sis-in-law-to-be, pondering how completely terrible mornings would be without coffee. Imagine, friends (and substitute tea if you must, or a sip from your flask of Jack D.,) but … a morning without your desired caffeinated beverage, pouring down rain and chilly, where you must put a bike rack on a car and motor away to coastal portions of the state? Unbearable.

Thankfully, we have real, whole bean coffee, ground and prepared for easy brewing in the gray am, and the results are delicious. No Splenda; instead, I am partaking in real sugar, but that barely makes a difference enjoyment-wise (frankly, I prefer Splenda because it’s so much more efficient—I only need 2 packs, while with sugar, I just can’t perfect the measurements.)

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photo credit: St Stev

On the train. This is the second time in about a month—and I have yet another trip booked via rail before September is out. Seems to be becoming a habit, perhaps for good reason—train travel is so much more convenient and relaxing and hassle-free than plane travel these days (see Airlines, Delta).

Even unemployed peoples, if you plan ahead by 14 days (hard to do being as carefree and fly-by-the-seat-of-our-unemployment-jeans as we are), but if you can manage it, tickets to Boston and Washington DC and other Northeasterly places somewhat nearish NYC are just $50 each way.

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