Adventures In Unemployment

 February Edition

(September Edition is here.) 

Wake up when husband gets up, even if that means insomnia only allowed for two hours of sleep. I sit on the stairs in my blue nightgown as he puts on his shoes. Here is the space of our day: work, errands, brief meals, and back again to blue gowns and warm pajamas. I kiss him goodbye at the door.

Drink coffee that is a lukewarm cup of sanity.

Open the blinds and catch the winter sunlight.

Look at crochet patterns on Pinterest. Stumble upon this image:

Imagine myself saying to her: "No, baby. It was never crochet or music or whatever that saved your life. You did. You were the strength. Your fingers may have woven a pattern from bits of yarn, or your heart may have felt the song, but you were the one to pull yourself up. Own it. And know if you slip and fall, you can do it again."

(Yes, again and again, as many times as a stitch is needed.)

Mid-morning the phone rings and it's a job agency. It's one of four agencies that call occasionally, and at each agency there is a Shondra, a Debra, a Marta and I never remember who is with what agent.  It doesn't help that the numbers are saved in my phone under the titles: "That Job Place," "Job Me Maybe," "Job Me Maybe 2."

It used to just be, "Agency," but my purse had a nasty habit of calling people, alphabetically, when I wasn't aware (and my poor friend Amanda received most of those muffled purse calls). Now all my contacts under A are titled: "Aaaaay here's your voicemail," "Another voicemail," "And yet again because AAAAA."

It's Shondra this time. She asks if I have a job yet? Of course not. Will I speak with so-and-so company? Of course, yes. I'm leaving in about 2 hours to do an interview for a magazine article I'm writing, but until then, I'm free, I'm free, call and ask me anything. Email my resume, my writing samples, a cover letter. Never heard back. No email, no call.

While waiting, realize the decision to follow the board Men In Kilts on Pinterest was a solid one.

Recycle, take the time to sort and load the car with the plastic bags and paper bags with rope handles to drop-off in the proper bins by the grocery store.

Freelance work: Wear grown-up clothes for interview. Forgot to paint nails, feel self-conscious. Interviewees always stare at the hands writing their words.

 
Tweet to world: "Oh, what, you don't own a vintage velvet blazer made in Japan in the 1970s? I feel sorry for your life choices." (Do not add #swagger, but feel as though it is justified.)

Text to Matt: "The cute barista girl just gave me 50 cents off my drink! Flirting?! Are we flirting? I can't tell!" (No. Probably not.)

Buy: Milk, bread, soda, the flesh of a poor pink trout from the butcher, a box of Muesli on sale.

Realize that in suburbia, backward and forward may be the same.

Realize that if I did have a 9 to 5, I would desperately miss the freedom of sitting in the car until the song playing on the radio ended; the same way I now desperately miss the rush and bustle of working full-time.

If there is a balance, it isn't found in blog posts.

Unload the groceries, clean up the kitchen, inspect the small, curled spiders that dwell in high corners.

Crochet with thick blue and beige yarn until Matt's car pulls into the drive. Rumor is that those stitches may be the start to a bold new life.