When you forget to eat lunch

Stomach makes noises;
It even wakes up the cats.
Forgot lunch again.

Coffee, all I had
Not enough to fill me up.
Gimmee those chips now!

How did I become
very distracted today?
I forgot to eat.

The act of writing

I've been writing. Just not a lot here. I'm trying to get a project finished and I promised myself 50,000 words, but I'm only at 10,000. It's not as easy as one might think, forcing words out of one's head. Heck, it's damn near impossible here, and I'm usually fairly happy with 100 or 200 words here.

What am I thinking, taking on a project like that? It's self-imposed, which seems to make the task that much more daunting. Even worse is that I am hell-bent and determined to write when every instinct rebels at the very idea. I should be spending most of my spare, waking moments looking for work. Having a job will help me keep a roof over my head, which is more of a priority to me than most things at this moment.

If I'm not actually scanning the want-ads for viable work, at least I feel as if I'm somehow being more constructive if I write rather than watch television. I'll never make a living this way, but I do feel superior if I can say that I have done more in my day than simply trying to find something good on television.

So, what is this project, you might ask? Even though there are only one or two of you out there who may actually read this, I'm still not going to say. I don't know why I won't say. I guess it makes me feel vulnerable and selfish. How dare I think I can actually make something of myself by writing.

But if I can't get more than one person to read when I pass along my ramblings, I shouldn't worry about much. If I have fun and get something out of the action, then I suppose it's all good.

Being unemployed

Five months in and I'm still looking for work. Not that I'm surprised. There are people who have been doing this for years. It's becoming demoralizing, though, now that I've filled out at least several hundred applications and the two calls I've received have been less than inviting. They obviously haven't led to interviews or I would have been so dazzling as to be currently employed now.

I just found out that my comrades at Pearson have been hit by another series of cuts. The company has literally decided to decimate it's work force. That means world-wide they are eliminating every 10th employee. The Roman army would do that when soldiers committed certain infractions - they'd go through and kill every 10th soldier, whether he was guilty or not. Bad for the guys designated to be decimated, but what do you imagine that does for the people remaining? I know I felt relieved when I was left to carry on, but also very resentful.

So where does that leave me now? Resentful toward my former corporate masters, certainly; angry on behalf of my old comrades who have just recently found themselves adrift without a job and without a plan; happy for those friends who still have a work to go to every day, though I know they're walking around today looking like the piano missed dropping on their heads by mere inches.

It isn't all misery, though. I have to say that I have enjoyed my time off. I had a brief stint as a temp for another corporate giant. (Good people to work for, though customer service has got to be the single most thankless part of working for any corporation.) I sleep later than I should and I feel guilty when I don't spend as much time in front of the computer looking for work. One part of me thinks I'll miss something but the other part of me knows that the opportunities, such as they are, will still be there tomorrow.

I get to spend more time at the gym. I probably spend way more money than I should on Wawa coffee. I have all the time in the world to work on my hobbies and go to the library. If I was independently wealthy, I'd add a couple of vacations in there, too. But I'm not, so I have to settle for the rare day-trip into NYC to explore with friends who have never been or who haven't spent nearly as much time there as I have.

I spent too much time on social media and I have spent entirely too much time contemplating the pending Presidential election. I need to find a job and I'm even thinking that I don't care so much what that job is. I'm even to the point where I think someone out there somewhere might actually give a crap about what I write here.

The money worries are getting to me, but the boredom is going to kill me first. 

End of Summer Haikus

Hot and disgusting
Summer air; heavy, humid
Autumn please come soon

The bright sun beats down
Turning my skin to leather
Melanoma, ick!


Knit sweater weather,
Woolen,s and tights under skirts
A chill in the air


I want snow and cold
I want crunchy orange leaves
I want Halloween

What do I want to be when I grow up?

When I was little, I wanted to be a princess like Cinderella. She was my favorite. We weren't inundated with Disney princesses the way we are now. I believe Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty were it. We didn't yet have the mermaid or the thing with the genie, and there were definitely no talking snowmen.

It didn't take me long to understand that "princess" is not a viable job description, so I moved on to something more practical. I used to think I wanted to be a reporter, and I actually tried that. It was never really fun, but sometimes interesting work. At least I wrote on a regular basis, AND GOT PAID for the effort. But the money was shit, and so I moved on.

I've been a mall Easter Bunny. I've cleaned toilets in a public restroom. I've slung chicken for fast food. I've sold retail and I've gutted lobster in the basement kitchen of an expensive East Village restaurant. I still haven't been able to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I don't know what I can do for the long run that will pay me and not make me unhappy.

I think that actually being happy at a job is almost too much to ask for, let alone hope for. I think that right now I know exactly one person who loves what she does for a living. But she's still new at her job. Her feelings could change at any time.

I would absolutely love to work at a job that I don't hate. 

Too Much Spare Time

I am currently unemployed. The choice wasn't mine; my corporate masters decided for me. But it's OK. I hadn't actually taken a vacation of any note in more than two years. I was overdue for a break. And so far, I'm not unhappy. Of course I'm not being as productive as I would like to be, but to be honest, it's taken some time for me to get my head around this having nothing concrete to do everyday thing.

I imagine running a multi-national corporation isn't easy, and I know that my corporate masters had faced some pretty big hurdles. It really must be hard to maintain those multi-million dollar bonuses, and educational publishing in the U.S. has been slipping these past few years. Schools simply don't have the money to buy books. But let's face it. They never really have. How many of us had 20+ year-old books in school? So what if the Soviet Union and countries like Yugoslavia no longer exist? The books still give the proper shape of the European continent, right? Who cares where East Timor and South Sudan are anyway?

But to get back on track, I was laid off over the phone. This is proof about how morally bankrupt some people truly have become. I was called on my work-at-home day and told that after 16 years my services were no longer needed. Of course they wanted me to come in to finish up any outstanding tasks, to clean off my desk, and to turn in my laptop (I will miss my Mac Book). And though my last day on the books was a month away, I was at least given the flexibility to decide when I would be finished, done, and outta there. My treatment was decidedly more generous than other people received that same day.

I'm not actually complaining, even though it may sound like it. I had begun a job search on my own because it had become apparent to me that my corporate masters and I had different ideas about how editing and writing should be done. I personally favor a hands-on approach, whereas my former masters prefer to outsource the work. Administration and paper-pushing is not what I signed up for, hence my discontent.

So, here I am, cut adrift as it were. I am lucky enough to have a severance package that will keep me out of the unemployment office for a few months. I have spent a couple of days at the beach. I have gone camping. I have mostly spent my time decompressing. But I still wake up every morning by 6. I have yet to decide if that's good or bad. 

My Mighty and Faithful Steed!

It was four months ago today that I lost my conveyance. 

To my 2003 Buick Regal, you were a mighty and faithful steed. On the day I picked you up from the dealer I swore that I would never trade you in and that I would drive you until your gaskets leaked and I couldn't squeeze another mile out of you. You had well over 250,000 miles and I expected you to go at least another 100,000 more because GM instilled in you that kind of can-do spirit. 

But you sacrificed yourself so that I might live, and for that I will always be grateful.