Your Unemployed Daughter

photo credit: Jeffrey Guterman

Today’s morning: wake up, make bed, don workout gear, consume coffee, attend spin class with mom, eat, shower. Since then I’ve been holed up in my room trying to get some things done lest next week is a total nightmare. Work, work, work. For an “Unemployed” person, I sure have a lot of work.

But the presents are wrapped, and there is turkey in the oven, and good smells in the house. B&S are here, and there is a general feeling of goodwill and resistance to snap judgments in the air, even if last night I did drink too much wine and made at least one error in judgment, snap or otherwise.

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photo credit: Carly & Art

I’ve been bad. The sleep-creep has started up again. Remember my 4 am-1 pm sleep sched back in the summer of neverending consequence? Ah yes, well, it’s back with a bit of a vengeance.

I blame this in part on some really good books I’ve been reading at night. The kind of books that keep you up until 1 am and when you look at your clock and find you’re not tired (the books are that good/exciting/compelling/insomnia-inducing), you just keep reading.

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© The Discarded

Not sure what to do with that pile of business cards the company had printed for you a week before your layoff? Check out The Discarded.

Michelle and Mike, cofounders of the project (they’re also, sweetly, a couple) want to humanize the “6.7 million unemployed people” statistic. As a physical representation of that number, they’re collecting the defunct business cards of as many folks as possible, and will feature those cards, along with individual people’s unemployment tales, on their website.

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photo credit: jaymzx

Here’s an Unemployment Mix submission from one D.H., who recently moved up to the big city from down South and has endured his own bout with unemployment, most irritatingly being turned down for work due to “lack of NYC experience.” Which is not very constructive, potential employers!

At any rate, D.H. has since prevailed and joined the ranks of the employed, and now has taken some time out of his busy workaday schedule to put together a list of tunes for the rest of us.

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photo credit: hawaii

A friend of mine recently brought this to my attention, and I think it may be the perfect solution for what to do when all the magazine jobs are gone:

Want a job you can really relish? Do you have an appetite for adventure, a friendly personality, and boundless enthusiasm? Do you want to become a goodwill ambassador for Oscar Mayer, helping to organize promotions and even pitch TV, radio, and print media? If the answer is “Yes”, you could qualify to be an official Oscar Mayer Hotdogger. Read on for all the juicy details.

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Future's So Bright

Oh, no, it’s the moon, hanging all low over my East Village street, lackadaisical, pretty lit, just like … an unemployed person?

But look how bright and golden and shiny it is! How full and perfectly round! Look at that potential!

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photo credit: Dark Botxy

We unemployed people are in a precarious position. On one hand, we’re free as the bees’ knees; without jobs to go to the next morning, we can party and dance on bars and drink and stay out late, sleep til 2 the next day, no problem, no worries. And some of us do.

We also desperately crave attention and conversations and people interactions, particularly if we are, say, former managing editors. And we do not get those things when we are home alone working on freelance item #7 or blogging all day. It is a vicious circle. Some might say we have become needy exhibitionists. That is the worst sort.

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Poor high-fructose corn syrup!

I feel bad for you. You and I have a lot in common.

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photo credit: gettyam
Remember when Magazine Editor was like, the dreamiest dream job around? The one that all the rom-com characters in movies (the pretty, smart, successful ones who dressed well and had handsome boyfriends and really tricked-out day planners) were assigned?

Whatever happened to THAT? Did we writerly folks do something to deserve this “media apocalypse”? Did we fly too near the sun, in too many pairs of Christian Louboutin heels? Are editors now paying some karmic debt to society?

Shouldn’t that be Madoff’s problem?

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photo credit: ryan_fung

Hey Jon,

I saw you on TV tonight. Your hair plugs are holding up well – good choice getting them when you did. And props on your use of product. You’re rivaling your wife these days. Er, former wife.

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