May 2009
70 posts
Unemployed, Day 46: Anniversary Edition
One year old wedding cake tastes like freezer and bellybutton lint. I don’t remember it tasting like a moldy plastic freon pipe when we had it at our wedding. Weird how something so delicious can be destroyed by sitting motionless in harsh environment for a year. Marriages are the same way, too. Gotta keep it fresh. Every day. Fall into a motionless routine and you’ll end up tasting...
Unemployed, Day 44
My house smells like rotten eggs. Only get a whiff here and there, seemingly out of nowhere. Then it’s gone. I want to blame the dog, but he looks as startled by it as I am. I’ve done the walk-through-the-house-sniffing-every-corner-and-crevice dance, but can’t find the source of this nasty smell. I hope it’s not a dead possum or something. Or a ghost making deviled eggs....
Unemployed, Day 43
I went to the neighborhood pool this afternoon (because it’s a Thursday afternoon. What did you expect me to do? Cut the grass? Yeah, I did that, too) and overheard a neighbor (who is also unemployed) tell another neighbor that her new job starts on Monday. I can’t help but think that she is the reason that I haven’t gotten a job yet. Because she got the job instead. Every one...
(just a story I'm working on: an excerpt)
I stood in silence; gingerly sipping the hot coffee I had poured myself in my Grumpy the Dwarf mug. The living room was dark, save for the new day’s first rays of sunlight weaving their way through the maple trees in the front yard and into the big picture window, dispersing through patterns made by the thinning 10 year-old curtains and illuminating random spots on my face and bare chest. I...
Unemployed, Day 41
Woke up frowning. One of those days when I need something substantial to do. I feel the creativity and potential stirring inside me like a firefly trapped in a jar. When I can’t relieve the pressure, I become restless. The restlessness turns to anger. Anger and guilt. Guilt and frustration. Frustration and sadness.
I’ve applied to 3 new job opportunities this morning: one here in...
Unemployed, Day 40: Memorial Day Edition
Another wave of nervousness and anguish hit me yesterday. Every now and then the reality of the joblessness sets in. Usually when I see the unpaid stack of bills on my desk or my empty fridge. Yesterday, the raw emotion hit me in the car on the way to my mall job. I hate when it catches me off-guard like that. Speeding down the highway, your mind zones out and focuses on the whatifs. Except the...
Reflections on Swimming
Summer never came soon enough. Where we lived, winter overstayed its welcome, until finally giving up its snowy grip around Easter. Spring was a fleeting week or two when the snow melted, making the air smell like thawing mud. May would arrive with yellow dandelions and a few honeybees buzzing around your head. When mom put the first tomato plant in the ground, you knew swimming was right around...
Unemployed, Day 38
First, I want to make it abundantly clear that the enchiladas I ate for dinner last night were delicious. If I had a pile of them in front of me right now, I’d go to town on them all over again. However, going to see Star Trek at the theater right after eating said enchiladas was probably a bad idea.
Other than the occasional butt-clenched mad-dash to the bathroom, I thought Star Trek was...
Hey guys. Simplify Media? We still doin' that?
Because I’m home all day today and would like get my face rocked off by your awesome music collections. I’m mattonfire on SM.
Add me if you haven’t already and we can share like brothers. Or something.
Unemployed, Day 36
I think I jinx myself when I write about the job opportunities that come my way. The most recent one (and the one that I felt the most positive about) fell through. It was a spirit-breaking phone call, to say the least.
Company: Yeah, well, we really liked you and thought you’d be a good fit for us. Me: Great. Company: However… Me: Yes? Company: One of our friends recently lost his job...
Unemployed, Day 35
For someone who doesn’t have a job, I sure have been busy the past few days. I did some honest-to-goodness manual labor yesterday. Well, I helped move pool furniture at the country club where my wife works. But it was a lot of pool furniture. Whatever, I’m sore & sunburnt today, so I count it as exercise.
Here it is, Wednesday, and I still haven’t heard anything from the...
Bad Joke Tuesday?
Two pretzels are walkin’ down the street. One of them is assaulted.
- It’s better if you say it out loud. Okay, no it’s worse. Sorry.
Unemployed, Day 32
Oh, hello. You thought I forgot about this little blogthing, didin’t you? I didn’t. I’ve just been busy. You know, with all the fun stuff unemployed people get to do. Sitting. Reading. Eating. Sleeping. Dog-walking. Eating. Bike-riding. Eating. Eating. Eating.
I’ve worked the mall job for the past couple of days. Learning my way around a retail environment. Big fake smiles...
Unemployed, Day 29
What’s that? My interview? It went well. I think. No, I’m pretty sure it went well. Yeah, I did good. So… it went okay. I hope to hear something from the company by Monday. Or Tuesday. Really, I just hope to hear back from them soon. It’s a completely casual and relaxed environment. The people I met seem cool, nay, normal. I could absolutely see myself working there.
With...
Unemployed, Day 28
After this morning’s coffee tsunami (at least that’s what my esophagus calls it) and after the brisk walk around the neighborhood with a 90 lb. dog attached to my wrist, I settled in for yet another long day of job hunting and article writing. Okay, so I wrote one article. About window treatments. That’s all I could pull out of my brain today.
I’m getting excited for...
TUMBLR CONFESSIONS
elizabite:
zolora:
Same goes for Zooey Deschanel. She’s beautiful, but I might never be able to forgive her for her mindblowingly-awful acting in Tin Man. Sorry, lady, but you are not my quirky girl messiah.
I agree. I love Zooey, but goodnight, her turn in Tin Man was horrendous. I hope that it was just the vapid dialogue and silly plot. I still think she is beautiful though..
...
The comic meme
Just so you know, I’ve been busy tonight. I hope the fill in the blank comic meme is still going on tomorrow, because I’m gonna run it.
We've lost a friend.
giromide:
I regret to write that Jamie Leigh Dyer Dordek, known to many of us as yellowsuitcase and @jamield, passed away on Sunday. Her death appears to be related to a blood clot from her fall in Ireland.
This news was passed to me on Sunday evening, and I still cannot entirely process it. She and I became fast friends on the internet. We have no exact memory of when or how we connected on...
Why is it...
… that if I tweet something of local interest, a mass of followers from regions far away suddenly unfollow?
I say one thing that doesn’t involve your community and suddenly I’m wasting your precious twitter space? Fine. Unfollow, you self-centered, self-important ass clowns. Now back to my regularly scheduled tweets about balls and poop.
Has anyone else noticed this?
Unemployed, Day 26
What up, tumblronis? Welcome to Monday, AKA Day 26 of my descent into the spiral of insanity. Today has been a great day so far. Sent out some more resumés and got a call this morning from a someone I contacted last week. They sounded interested in my skills and what I could do for their company. Interview scheduled for Thursday. Blah-dow!
Mall job is going about as well as one can expect. Got...
Unemployed, Day 24
My wife is the smartest woman alive. Today she graduated from University of Richmond with her teaching license. Well, technically she graduated back in December, but today was the commencement ceremony. So I give her props. If her life was like tumblr, I’d hit the ♥ over her head. I would. I’ve never seen someone work as hard to accomplish a goal than my wife has worked for the past...
Unemployed, Day 23
Friday, Friday, Friday. Doesn’t really hold that awesome connotation for me as it does for the rest of the working world. I mean, it did when I had a job. The anticipation of having just a couple days off to blow off steam, see some friends and get all sorts of drunk was what made the work week bearable. Now, I see it as the start of a two day job-hunting hiatus. No potential employer is...
A good way to lose twitter followers:
Tweet something about Angela Lansbury standing nekked in a windstorm. Apparently, the twitter community holds Ms. Lansbury in high regard and will not tolerate blatant Angelasphemy, as evidenced by my sudden drop in followers.
