Mostly Harmless Drivel

700 Hoboes: Lord Dan X. Still Standing.

2012-01-16T20:52:00.007-05:00

The next hobo on the list is Lord Dan X. Still Standing, and writing about him is extremely exciting to me. This is because he is number seven on the list (yes, I'm still going through the names in order), so when I finish talking about ol' Dan X, I will have achieved the call-your-mom-and-tell-her-to-turn-on-channel-four-worthy milestone of one percent completion of this ridiculous project. Which reminds me -- any new readers (haha - I just launched an outward-bound spray of Patron Resposado, nasally. New readers. I slay me.) should note that I did not make up these marvelous hobo names. They come from John Hodgman's hilarious book "The Areas Of My Expertise," and I do not have his permission to use them. I figure if each and every one of you nice readers were to run out and purchase a copy of this book, it would make him just that much less angry with me, should he find out about my use of his list.

Lord Dan X. Still Standing was one tough hobo. He rode the old Union Pacific rails throughout his 20s and 30s, during the '20s and '30s. His toughness was not an innate characteristic; it was a trait made necessary by his own inflated sense of self-worth. For a while, he had tried to call himself Czar Dan X, but when the great hobo known as Czar King Rex The Glorious Leader caught wind of it, well, that was the end of that.

It probably isn't fair to call Lord Dan X self-important; he was really more of a know-it-all. He was at least somewhat noteworthy in that he was one of a small minority of hoboes would could read and write, beyond the cryptographic signs and messages his kind left for one another on telegraph poles and such, and he mistakenly thought this skill could help him lord over his boxcar brethren with his fantastic knowledge of everything. He was wrong - on a couple of levels.

There were many things hoboes hated - yard cops, winter, padlocks, debutante balls - but the two things they most reviled in each other were literacy and bossiness. Lord Dan X was just literate enough to be exceedingly bossy. He would read a found bit of newspaper and instantly become a leading authority on world events (in which hoboes had absolutely no interest), or baseball, or the weather. He corrected his fellow hoboes' grammar, lectured them on politics, told them where and when to camp to avoid weather or cops and harangued them about their health and hygiene - all with an utterly intolerable air of intellectual superiority.

As a result, he was beaten up a lot. He was beaten with sticks, rocks, stop signs and cans of beans. On several occasions, he was nearly beaten to death. But he always got back up. Before long, he added the defiant "Still Standing" to his moniker. He didn't learn anything from his beat-downs. He never stopped trying to impress and control his fellow drifters with his vast knowledge. The beatings continued. He kept getting up. In 1940, he became one of only a few hoboes to successfully leave the vagrant's life behind. He won a seat in the Texas State Legislature as the last Tory candidate in our nation's history. His bossiness continued in that venue, as did the beatings.

But he kept getting up. He was Lord Dan X. Still Standing.

700 Hobos: Jack Skunk's New Year

2011-12-30T23:20:00.010-05:00

Jack Skunk wasn't the worst-smelling hobo. He wasn't the second-worst-smelling hobo. Jack wasn't even in the top eleven worst-smelling hoboes. Such was the magnitude of the hobo stenches with which he had to compete. And yet, the man had a stink about him. Riot-police-grade, eyeball-melting, gag-inducing fumes emanated from his wiry frame at all times. He had few friends.

Somehow - and no one who knew him was quite sure how - he had a son, about fifteen years his junior. He didn't smell at all. At least, when in the company of his father, the boy didn't seem to have any odor. He was a Skunk, however, and his smelliness was assumed. They called him Jack Skunk Fils.

It is a well-known fact that many, if not most, hoboes embraced their meager and difficult lives as penniless drifters. Some of them, before the hobo wars, even chose to drop out and ride the rails and sleep under the stars. Jack Skunk was not such a hobo. Jack had returned from The Great War after surviving two years in the mud and blood of France, only to find that his job at Walton's Hinge Pin Factory in Evanston, IL was no more. He had held a half-dozen jobs across the Midwest over the following year, before finally losing his home, his wife and his hope, and taking to the rails with three-year old Jack Junior.

By 1931, Skunk and son were expert hoboes, not merely surviving, but thriving along the high steel of the Grand Trunk Railway, the Chicago and Northwestern and the Detroit, Toledo and Ironton. So at home as railroad vagrants were they that the onset of the Great Depression had taken them months to notice. They had gradually realized that there were more hoboes, and that the ones who could stand the elder Jack's stench long enough to converse with them had stories of bread lines and massive unemployment in the cities.

Jack Fils was about twelve years old as 1931 drew to a close, and his father was annoying him. It had become an odd tradition for Jack to annoy his son at the end of each year. Between the hobo Christmas parties to which they were never invited and the hobo New Year's parties to which they were never invited, Jack Senior moved the two of them as far east as he could, working along the Pennsylvania Railroad - sometimes even the Baltimore and Ohio - until December 31st. This New Year's Eve found them in the woods near a Pennsy yard in Wilmington, Delaware.

"Are you happy, Pop? Delaware. I don't think we could get any farther east without taking that miserable short line to Atlantic City - and we'd probably have to walk the last fifty miles." Jack Skunk Fils poked at the campfire as it struggled against a mixture of snow and sleet.

"It'll do, son. It'll do." the old man of 27 years sighed. "You gonna stay up this year, or should I wake you?"

Jack the younger grunted. "Can't I just sleep in? Or better yet - just freeze to death and be done with this stupid life?"

"Don't talk like that, boy. This is the one thing - the one thing - I ask of you each year. I've never made you eat a vegetable - ever. I let you stay up late. You've been drinking hobo beer for two years, already! Stay up with me."

"Come on, Pop. Why? Every year you drag us east on these railroads we don't know. Every year we get our rear ends beaten. We get chased by yard cops. Last year, we got arrested and held for six hours. And for what? So you can freeze us nearly to death all night, trying to stay awake for the 'first light of 1932' or whatever you call it. Why? What's the big deal?"

Jack Skunk shook his head sadly. "Never mind, son. Go to sleep."

Jack Fils happily complied, crawling under their tattered, leaking tent, wrapping himself in shreds of burlap and disintegrating Army blankets and passing out almost immediately. He slept for no more than half-hour stretches for the rest of the night, as the sleet changed to rain and eventually ended. Each time he woke, he peered outside the tent to confirm that his father was, indeed, still clinging tenaciously to consciousness, drinking hobo coffee, slapping himself or just letting the cold rain drench his face.

Eventually, the black sky turned to indigo, then to purple and finally it began to glow. Jack Junior grudgingly joined his old man by the fire and watched the sun creep over the horizon, painting the thinning clouds in blazing pink and orange as it rose. He watched his father, watching the sunrise. He had done this every January 1st for nearly a decade, but had never fully understood it - until now. This year, having been a hobo adult for three years already, he saw it. It was obvious, now. He started the declaration that his pop usually uttered, "We are very likely the first hoboes to see the dawn of 1932..."

Jack Skunk looked at his son for a moment, then smiled at the morning sky. "...Anything is possible," he concluded.

Young Jack was connected now to his strange, annoying father, united in a single emotion. It was in the man's eyes at every New Year's dawn. It was hope, and this was the one moment each year when it dared show itself. The world was born again. There was hope. The hardships and struggle of the road could end, and it could happen in this new year. A job, medicine, food, a home, a stink-free life - it was all possible.

"Anything is possible, Pop," he repeated.

700 Hoboes: Holden The Expert Dreamtwister Bothers The Rza

2011-12-18T22:25:00.005-05:00

Holden The Expert Dreamtwister raced from the hobo camp, chased by a stick-wielding and enraged The Rza. "Take it easy, Rza! I didn't touch you or your stuff!"

"You know what you did, you dreamtwisting little sorcerer. I told you if you did it again I was gonna kill you - now you gonna die!"

"I didn't do it, this time! I swear! Back off, man." Holden had done it this time. He felt bad for swearing that he hadn't. He was in no immediate danger, as The Rza was not built for extended foot pursuits, what with his ingrown foot, and all.

"Liar! One second, I'm on the beach at Fort Lauderdale, untying Elizabeth Banks' string bikini. Next thing I know, I'm being tried for high treason, and the judge is a six-headed hamster..."

"It's not my doing, Rza. You got weird dreams. Some kind of issues with y'all's subconscious, I bet."

"You go to hell, you evil wizard! I know it was you. My dreams never do that. I get the girl. Every time. You done twisted that dream and you know it. I mean, those six heads. What was that? Laraine Newman? Falcor? Dean Rusk? Jack Pardee? Wendie Jo Sperber? And Judge Judy - how nice. You're the one with issues, you dream-ruining freak of nature."

"Okay, okay, okay. I'm sorry. I twisted your dream. I heard you mumbling in your sleep about 'the back door' and I lost it. I can't help it. It's not like I do it on purpose. I really am kind of out-of-body when it happens." Holden stopped and held up his hands in surrender.

The Rza paused, but kept the stick raised, ready to do some serious braining at a moment's notice. "You got memory problems, bro. You already told me how you do it. You even told me why you do it. Last year, at the Hobo Christmas Sing-along, Rhea Perlman Lookalike Contest and Lint-swap? You got drunk on hobo wine and told a bunch of us all about it. About how you can't dream for yourself, so you mess up everyone else's dreams, on account of how you can't stand to see anyone have a good dream. You told us how you pitch your voice just so and talk all low and clear and gentle-yet-authoritative into the ear of some poor shlub who's at just the right stage of shuteye. About planting characters or settings or plot devices into whatever the guy is dreaming. Any of this ringing a bell?"

"No," Holden lied. "No it's not."

"Liar! You gave us a demonstration! You found that yard cop in Cumberland, asleep in his chair, and you went up and said all your hokus pokus in his ear, and he woke up thinking he was being buried alive in Betty Boop dolls by all the US Presidents of the 20th century as Stooges and Marx Brothers. When he regained his wits, he said he had been dreaming about Betty Grable and his mother's apple crisp. You goddamn told us, man! I'm sick of it. Leave my dreams alone! They are all that I have."

"I'm sorry, Rza. I won't let it happen again," he lied. "I promise."

Over the following two and a half years, The Rza's path and Holden The Expert Dreamtwister's did not again cross. When at last they did, at a small hobo encampment outside of Gary, Indiana, Holden once more succumbed to his dreamtwisting impulse, turned The Rza's nocturnal vision of boozy hotel saloons and chorus girls into some wretched nightmare involving pickles, a dental drill and Ovaltine, and promptly died of a crushed skull.

The Rza had resumed his slumber before Holden's body was cold.

700 Hoboes: Cholly The Yegg

2011-12-02T22:25:00.007-05:00

[Note: This is the second of what may or may not eventually be seven hundred stories, tidbits and interesting facts about author (and professional writer) John Hodgman's 700 hoboes. The list comes from his hilarious, completely inaccurate almanac, "The Areas Of My Expertise," and I do not have his permission to use them. I'd like to think he'd be cool with the idea, but let's not tell him yet - I'd like to get through a few more names, first.]

Cholly the Yegg cracked his first safe when he was nine years old. His father, the manager of the Topeka Bank and Trust, Textiles and Feed Company, locked Cholly with a basket of bread and a quart of bourbon in the bank's vault one Friday afternoon, closed up shop and disappeared forever. Young Cholly (given name: Chollendrical Abernathy Section) was discovered Monday morning by the bank's president and caricaturist, Howling Jim Steeb, but not in the vault. Cholly had managed to defeat the locking mechanism on the vault door, and he had passed out on a desk full of bread crumbs in his father's office. Mr. Steeb promptly adopted him.

The boy didn't know much, but he quickly realized that he could not live with Jim's howling, so after a month, off he went, riding the rails in the direction of Santa Fe. He lived by his wits, moving from town to town, ingratiating himself to suckers for free meals and the occasional real bed, and stealing. He took pride in his pilfering. He made sure he stole at least one thing in every town. By his sixteenth birthday, he had mastered defeating safes and vaults from the outside, and found himself in the employ of a band of train-robbers. He plied his trade with great skill, but unfortunately for him and his mates, it was the 1920s. Trains had become well-guarded fortresses. Train robbing was a thing of the past. Cholly was obsolete.

It took getting shot by a US Marshall, captured and spending seven years in Leavenworth Prison for him to accept that those days were gone. Three days after his release, he successfully emptied the vault of the largest bank in St. Louis, making off with nearly $100,000 in cash and bearer bonds. He hit the rails again, at first as a paying passenger, and later as a penniless hobo.

The hobo years were Cholly's happiest. He was revered by most members of Hobo Nation, not merely for his thieving past - most hoboes had thieving pasts - but for the fact that he had stolen from The Man. Like most hoboes, Cholly spent much of his time alone, but when they gathered in groups, he was King Hobo, and was given the large can of beans and extra moonshine. The only other significant skill Cholly ever picked up was only useful at Christmastime. He made the best hobo eggnog anyone on the Santa Fe Railroad had ever tasted. They called it Yeggnog.

He lived to be at least ninety - a rare feat for a hobo - but no one knows his final age. He walked off into the woods outside Kansas City one fall day, and was never heard from again.

700 Hoboes: Stewbuilder Dennis

2011-11-28T22:04:00.008-05:00

Okay, before I start on my ridiculous, doomed-from-the-start quest to tell the stories of all seven hundred of the Hoboes on this list, let me say this. The list of hobo names comes from John Hodgman's incredibly funny book, "The Areas Of My Expertise." I could not and did not invent these awesome names. Further, I have not contacted Mr. Hodgman for permission to use them. Obviously, if he catches wind of this and isn't as happy about it as I hope he'd be, I'll cease and desist. In the meantime, please buy this man's book. It's seriously funny. And yes, he's PC from the Mac vs. PC commercials. Yeah - he's pretty gifted.

[Oh, and yes, I am aware of the 700 Hoboes Project, where cartoonists illustrated all of Mr. Hodgman's hoboes. Google it. It's brilliant. I'm just not linking to it or the book here in an effort to minimize my exposure to lawyers and such.] Okay. Here we go...

So. Stewbuilder Dennis is probably not the best hobo to start this project, what with his not having anything to do with stew - or building - his name being not at all Dennis and his not being a hobo. Apart from these facts, he's perfect.

His name was, in fact, Mort. He claims not to know where Dennis came from, though it is widely believed that his mother had been a tremendous Styx fan, and had renamed him when she got home from a rollicking "Paradise Theatre" tour performance in Chicago.

The Stewbuilder moniker was the result of an uncanny resemblance he shared with Stewbuilder MacKenzie, a true hobo who was renowned for his ability to turn an old soup can, some rainwater and toad stools into rich, fabulous soups. Dennis' supervisor, a skinny fifteen-year old zit with feet named Caleb, was a hobo culture aficionado - or "Hobophile" - and had noticed the physical similarities immediately. "It's not just the face," he had said. "It's the limp, the distended belly, the missing hand, the flies. It's like looking into a time machine at ol' Stewbuilder MacKenzie, circa 1909." Dennis-- Mort? Whatever; didn't last long at Best Buy, which to him was only a desperate means of paying his bills in the months between his layoff from CitiGroup and his six-figure sales job at NetSatWebSoftWhatnot, Inc..

It was during his years at NetSatEtc. that he inadvertently earned his hobo reputation. His sales territory included the whole Northeast Corridor, and as Dennis was stricken with a paralyzing fear of airplanes (not of flying, mind you - he loved hang-gliding, ski-jumping and helicopters; he was actually afraid of the planes themselves), he traveled exclusively by train. By the time he got transferred to the deep south region - where he continued to move between appointments only by rail - he was known as the hobo Stewbuilder Dennis.

He retired in 2008 to live with his third wife, Lucille (what else) and their dog, Commission III, in the hills above Chattanooga. He never set foot in a library.

See? I told you he wouldn't be the best hobo to start with. But he had the one thing that most hoboes share - a great name.

699 to go...

Lost In Translation With Bill and Scarlett -- And My Dad

2011-09-29T21:28:00.006-04:00

I'm pretty sure my Dad knew what Bill Murray whispered to Scarlett Johansson at the end of the movie. I'm also acutely aware of the fact that he probably forgot it moments later.

I have the movie Lost In Translation on DVD, but can't watch it. I have the soundtrack CD, too, but when the music comes shuffling by on my iPod, I can't listen to it. Both are inexorably linked to a memory, and even after eight years, I'm just not sure I'm ready. And I'm not usually like that. I am a very nostalgic person. I don't just remember the past; I wallow in it - the good, the bad and the ugly. I can remember the song that was queued up on the tape in my car when Lisa#1 dumped me in March of 1986 in Carlisle, PA (it was Fishbone's "Party At Ground Zero"). I remember the song playing on WHFS when I left Lisa#2 in my rear-view mirror for the last time in May, 1989 (Romeo Void's "Never Say Never"). I have no problem listening to either of those songs, or any of a host of others that are linked to traumatic, sad, stressful or otherwise icky times.

Lost In Translation is different. It's not that I can't listen to the music, and it's not that I can't watch the movie. I don't want to. My memory of the day I took my father to see that movie is a sad one - or at least bittersweet - but I like it.

In October of '03 my dad was about to turn 75. He had retired from his beloved analyst job at CIA over a dozen years earlier and despite rebounding rather well from his 1995 stroke, he was by the early 2000's - well, fading. He certainly had dementia, and by 2003 we were sure he had begun a final disappearing act into the mists of Alzheimer's.

He was actually doing better than any of us could have hoped, at this stage. Apart from failing to get dressed and eat and take his pills without being reminded, he got through his days in one piece. I don't think he had any of those traumatic episodes of wandering off - except that one time in Rehoboth Beach, and I don't count that because it was a hot day in a strange location (okay, I count it a little bit).

Still, as my dad's short-term memory deteriorated, my mother - recently retired herself - managed an ever-expanding litany of nursing duties, and she needed a break. So there I was, taking my 75-year old father to the multiplex on a gray October Saturday. That's it. That's pretty much the story.

Okay, not really. I knew - feared, really - that this little excursion had a good chance of being my last constructive or remotely coherent one-on-one time with my father, so I was a little nervous. I gave him the option: "Lost..." or "School of Rock" or "Kill Bill Vol. 1," and he chose "Lost..." It was set in Japan. He had lived in Japan in the aftermath of World War II, while his father helped maintain order or whatever. Done - two, please!

His reactions to the movie, like his reactions to everything else, were muted. Tokyo looked nothing like the Tokyo he had known in the 1940s, but he knew enough Japanese that he could decipher some of the various loudspeaker announcements in the movie. "That's Japanese," he would whisper, more to himself than to me (he was already beginning to lose track of who was with him - mainly when it wasn't Mom).

He seemed to recognize the temples. "That looks like Kyoto" was repeated several times. He scoffed at the odd relationship between Murray's aging character and 20-year old Johansson's. He chuckled at the fish-out-of-water, tall-American-among-short-Japanese gags. He winced at the in-your-face strip club scene and its blaring hip-hop soundtrack. Great. Gratuitous Japanese nudity - he's gonna have a heart attack and die, right here and now. Mom will never forgive me.

Mostly, as he had for the past couple of years, he just sat there and smiled and took it all in. It was just stimuli. I know now that he was probably well aware of how much he couldn't remember, but as deeply pragmatic as he was, he oscillated between faking it and just going with the flow, living in the now. I never heard him complain about his memory loss. He just sort of kept going.

Driving him home, I was ten years old again, searching for ways to engage my father in conversation. I asked about the movie. He remembered we had seen one, but his vaguely, generically-positive assessment of the last couple of hours made it clear that he couldn't recall what we had seen. I asked about his time living in Japan, and his thoughts crystallized. He shared in vivid detail a memory of seeing the Ama pearl divers.

I asked what he thought about the Bush Administration's role in the outing of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, which at the time was widely believed to have been a deliberate punitive action by the President's inner circle - retribution for Mrs. Plame's ambassador-husband's public contradiction Bush's arguments for US military action in Iraq. I didn't then, nor do I now, know enough about that story to converse intelligently on the subject. I just wanted to get him talking. I was taken aback at the clarity and intensity of his response. I won't rehash it all here, because it's political, but despite not being fully aware of the identity of our nation's President, he had a keen sense of the fact that there was no "administration," but rather simply a collection of cronies, half of whom didn't know what their ol' buddy George had put them in charge of (see FEMA Director Brown). He didn't know their names, but he was dead-on. I didn't realize until well after his death in 2005 just how accurate, how incisive, his analysis had been.

I left him in Mom's capable hands that afternoon and headed home, with my notions of Alzheimer's and its effects completely scrambled. He could recall 55-year old scenes from Japan, but couldn't remember the last scene of the movie. He couldn't keep track of which of his offspring was with him (he kept calling me Andrew), but he had an accurate and scathing analysis of the political scandal of the day. I was at a loss. He seemed happy enough. He was much more comfortable once Mom got home, of course, but he had spent the entire afternoon with a look of slightly-confused wonder. Upon hearing what movie we had seen, Mom rolled her eyes. "He saw that with me last week."

This was one of the last times I was alone with my father for more than a few minutes, and certainly the last time I heard him speak coherently and with conviction. From time to time, I wish I had tried some other tack to get him talking, but it's cool. I saw that spark. I heard that professional analyst's voice one last time. His opinion of the issue is neither here nor there, now. He was there, with me, sharing his thoughts.

I'm sure some of it was lost in the translation, but that's okay. Alzheimer's or no Alzheimer's, he still had words to share. I only wish there could have been more.

The Final Expletive - Steroid Joe's Last Will And Testament

2011-07-24T18:35:00.005-04:00

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming. My name is Lawyer D. Esquire, and I've been retained by the family of the deceased to execute his Will, as it seems no one else would agree to do so. Your presence at the reading of the Last Will and Testament of ... [looks at notes]... Steroid Joe, was requested because each of you has been named in the document. Now, I have been briefed on the incident - for lack of a better word - that took place at this man's memorial service, and I just want to implore all of you to behave civilly. I've just had my office redecorated, and I would like to avoid any damage, if at all possible. Okay, let's begin.

"I, Joseph Userov Steroids, being of sound but rage-y mind and body, do hereby declare this document to be my Last Will and Testament, blah blah blah." It actually says 'blah blah blah,' ladies and gentlemen. "I officially, lovingly and not at all sarcastically do hereby bequeath the following:

My collection of-- Please don't interrupt; I don't see anything about a Camaro. Okay. My collection of 277 vinyl record albums - to my mother. They're in your basement anyway, Mom. Might as well keep 'em.

My driver's license - to my brother, Andrew. You can use it to get into bars, just like old times. Don't tell Mom.

My collection of DVDs - to my electronic and possibly nonexistent Oklahoma friend, Melanie, with the following exceptions:

"Hairspray" and "Moulin Rouge" shall go to my niece, Elizabeth, because she's a DANCER. There's a note here that says "Lawyer must read 'because she's a DANCER' the same way John Belushi says the final line of the Saturday Night Live film 'Schiller's Reel: Don't Look Back In Anger.'"
Also, my copy of "Hamlet 2" goes to the Ecker family, so that they can perfect their "Rock Me Sexy Jesus" routine.
Finally, my 'Futurama' DVDs go to my brother, John, because he's probably the only other person I know who appreciates that show.

My VHS-- No, I still don't see anything about the Camaro. Please let me finish. My VHS Rocky and Bullwinkle collection, as well as my Christopher Moore, Douglas Adams and Mark Leyner books - to my friend, co-conspirator, chemist, mason, kiln operator, spokesman, designated driver, reverse ghost writer, mentor, student, manager, bail bondsman, fry cook and guru, Godfrey Ozzenbarq III (not his real name). Mister Ozzenbarq (not your real name), whether or not that is, as you say, bullshit, is neither here nor there. I did not decide who gets what. I am reading what your friend wrote.

My cameras, lenses and accessories - to my beloved [Maris], because she's the only person I can tolerate taking pictures better than my own.

My collection of Lionel trains - to my nephew Kevin, but if he starts deliberately wrecking them, Aunt [Maris] is hereby directed to take them away from him until he is 30 years old.

Ladies and gentlemen, please stop shouting 'Camaro' at me. I am reading exactly what is on these pages. Please.

Any Patron Silver that survives me - goes to my old BossLady, who is responsible for introducing it to [Maris] and me. In the highly-probable event that she doesn't show up for the reading, give it to [Maris]. Actually, never mind - just give it all to [Maris].

My photographs are to be divided between my beloved [Maris], my mother and my sister, Mary. [Maris] is to receive any pretty ones in which the sun is shining, and Mom and Mary are to receive in equal shares all the dark, foggy, rainy or otherwise gloomy ones.

Again, if I see 'Camaro,' you all will be the first to know. Please let me continue.

The comic strip 'Adventures of the Weak, Scared Bug,' which I produced in 8th grade - to my nephew, Danny. If anyone can take that crap and make it work, it's Danny.

My collection of, I don't know, a thousand CDs? - to my friend Jill, because I know she's probably the only one of you who won't just immediately throw 90% of them away, or sell them for $.49 each on eBay.

My various neon, strobe and laser lights - to my sister-in-law, Debbie, because I'm pretty sure she harbors a secret dream of creating a disco in her basement.

People! Please! I can't do this with you chanting 'Camaro, Camaro, Camaro' at me! Thank you.

My red Swingline stapler - to Carrie, because she resisted the urge to steal it for over 3 years, and that can NOT have been easy.

My book of Zombie Haiku - to my friends Trina and Jefferson. Trina gets it on odd-numbered days, and Jefferson gets it on days that end in Y.

My HP Pavilion notebook computer - to my friend Stacy, because her fiancé is an I.T. expert, which will come in very handy since the damn thing has Windows Vista on it.

My old police radio scanner - to my nephew Matthew, because let's face it - if there's anyone in the family who needs to know when the cops are coming, it's Matt. There's a smiley face here, in the margin. What's that, Matthew? Yes, well, he also wrote 'hang in there, buddy,' if that helps.

Okay, the next person who utters the word 'Camaro' is going to be removed. Seriously. Geez. I don't see what all the fuss is, anyway. I'm a Mustang man, myself.

To my sister-in-common-law-if-they-had-that-in-Maryland-but-they-don't, Angela - I leave my margarita glasses, because I don't have any martini glasses.

My tools, power and otherwise - to my nephews Patrick, Timothy and Peter. The three of you are each to select a tool. You will then be locked together in a room. The last one of you who remains standing gets all of the tools.

My 2000 Chevrolet Cavalier Z24 - to my brother-in-law, Tom, because I have every confidence that you can get another 150,000 miles out of that car.

Finally, ah - here it is. Finally, my 2011 Chevrolet Camaro convertible - to my brother-in-law, Mike, because he really likes it. Due to his height, he will only be able to comfortably drive it with the top down, but it'll still be totally worth it.

Okay, now I asked you people to be civil, so please stop swearing at me and put me down! Please! There's more! Please?

Thank you.

In conclusion, I, Joseph Userov Steroids, do hereby officially say 'PSYCHE!' All of the above mentioned stuff - everything I left behind - every last bit of it, goes to Real Joe. Duh. Who did you think would get my stuff? And if Real Joe didn't get it, wouldn't it all just go to [Maris], anyway? What's wrong with you people? Serves you right for being greedy. Good day."

Ladies and gentlemen - please calm down. Okay, Miss Collins, call 911.

A Eulogy For Steroid Joe, and A Letter From The Dead

2011-07-01T16:31:00.007-04:00

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. If everyone could please take a seat. Amy and Lara, please don't fight. Everyone will get a chance to spit on the casket once [Maris] and I are done.

Thank you.

Now, I know some of you were reluctant to come to this service, but I for one am glad you did. I also know that-- okay, family members, you're not going to be allowed to remain in the front row if you continue to throw things at the casket. Nice touch with the rotten eggplant, but please, just let me get through this.

Thank you.

Where was I? Yes, I also know that many of you are uncomfortable with having me, Real Joe, eulogize our departed friend and loved one, Steroid Joe. Yes Carrie, we all know he was a dick. But he was part of our lives for over four years, and we're going to be respectful. Stacy, please lower the crossbow and douse that flaming arrow. There's a bucket of water in the back of the-- what? That's manure? Really? Okay, who brought manure? MOM?? Wow. Okay. Mom brought manure to her own son's memorial service. Yes, I know he wasn't your "real" son, Mom. Settle down.

Thank you.

Now, I'm going to try to keep this brief and-- Jeff I am not fooling around - put the noose away! He's dead already. What? For dragging the corpse through the streets? No. We're not doing that. Gross. Look, everyone just sit down and give me five minutes, then you can do whatever you want to the body, okay?

Thank you. Okay, Steroid Joe died as he had lived. Fighting. It took nearly two hundred stab wounds to kill him. I know. I counted. But I think we all know that he was tormented, and that his hateful agitation with the world around him was simply a matter of chemistry, and . . . okay, I tried. He had his moments and you know it. He's gone now. Rejoice. Defile the corpse. Do whatever makes you feel better. But while you do what you gotta do, I must - in accordance with Steroid Joe's dying wish - read aloud this letter to Prednisone, his most loved and hated drug:

[pandemonium ensues]

"Dear Prednisone,
Hi. How are you? Sure is hot, here. Ha Ha Ha! Seriously, though. I'm sorry you're still in jail because of our little spat at the house. Maybe if you hadn't actually spat at the house...
Anyway... As I lay in this ditch, dying from a couple hundred stab wounds, some shrapnel and more than one boot in my butt, I have been given the gift of what I think must be clarity. Unfortunately, it's a clarity that escapes description, but I'll try to put it into words for you.
First, it hurts to have to say this, but I don't think I ever really loved you. I needed you. I used you. I was sick and I was scared. I'm sorry. I honestly thought you knew the score. You're a drug. I was a patient. It seemed pretty cut-and-dry to me, but obviously you did not see it the same way, and for that, I apologize."

[chaos and violent epithets aimed at the dead fill the chapel]

"Second, I'm sorry I burned all your stuff after the cops took you away. If it makes you feel any better, I received a citation for having an open fire not properly contained, and the fine was like fifteen hundred bucks. Ouch, right?
Finally, thank you. I will never forget what you did for me. Sure, I bitched up a storm over your side-effects, but they were nothing, NOTHING, compared to what I was facing without you. You are a complex drug. That's what I plan to say if anyone asks about you or our time together. I can't ever speak badly of you or color you as some sort of monster. You healed me. I am grateful. You must move on and heal others.

Now, you know how fond I am of Peter Murphy. I leave you with this, from his "Cascade" CD:

Hark and be well
Go catch the light in every cell
Let the fire take the fire, and the rain wash the pain
May your soul's waters never wain

Make Eden here
Send angels' prayers
May your garden be sweet
Let the fire take the fire
Let the fire take the fire, and the rain wash the pain

(Okay, I guess I loved you a little bit)

Fondly,
Steroid Joe

[Silence]

Who Will I Be? (Please Say Bradley Cooper -- Or Whoever Married Zooey)

2011-06-22T21:17:00.007-04:00

What has taken longer than "Double-barrel Unemployment," dates back to the midpoint of GWB's second term in office and is about to end? The few of you out there who know me-- who am I kidding - that's pretty much all of you -- know that my weird little midlife array of illnesses - and the subsequent chemical regimen used to treat them - is coming to an end. Specifically, after four years, two months and twelve days, my love-hate relationship with Prednisone is ending. Friday, July 1st will be my first steroid-free day since April 17, 2007. Yeah, I know - Don't Put Deadlines On Your Dreams. Whatever. It's totally happening.

Reading about someone's medical stuff when that someone isn't, you know, you is ghastly boring and downright uncomfortable. "A rash where a sexually-inactive person ought not have one," you say? Wow - that's TWO things I didn't need to know. Whoa - 11:00 already? I gotta... Um... Okay bye. So I won't bother you with details. It's a long time to have been on this stuff, getting weaned off of it is rough, blah blah blah... [yawn, pass out, hit head on kitchen table, slip into coma, end up on news when [Maris] tries to honor my wish not to be kept alive in a vegetative state - like Texas! - ZING!!]

The simple fact is that I have been Steroid Joe for so long, I don't remember how to not be on Prednisone. I have been fixated on - at times utterly consumed by - my ongoing battle with 'roid rage and all those damnable side-effects and my quest to get off of the stuff for over four years. When 7/1/11 comes and I no longer have that war to fight, where will I turn my focus? What excuse will I have for being a thoroughly dark, mean person then?

Who will I be?

I kind of already know the answer, but what fun is it to just blurt it out and say goodnight? So, let's start with who I hope I won't be.

I hope I won't be that guy who can speak of nothing but his triumph over lung disease and Prednisone. That guy is BORING. Plus, I know I could have triumphed over scurvy, explosive hemorrhoids and three kinds of cancer, and the guy next to me at the bar would scoff at my paltry victory and proceed to describe how he beat a cobra bite, five cancers and a cannon wound in his everything - and all without any sissy drugs. So let's not do that.

I sincerely wish not to be a Kardashian. Especially the fat one.

If at all possible, I would like to avoid awaking next Friday morning to find that I'm still sick. OMG can you imagine the profanity!

I don't want to be a guy with a lot of responsibility - or ambition, for that matter. I just don't think I have the energy, right now.

So. Who will I be? Will I be so overcome with joy and relief that I dance from person to person giving out hugs and giggling at everything and soaking up every good atom I can find, humming and singing and smiling like a lunatic, just thrilled to have been given a new lease on life - and pissing off everyone who sees me? Maybe.

Will I be (dun-dun-DUNNNNNN) The Same Raging Asshat I've More Or Less Been For Over Four Years? Yeesh - now we're back to who I don't want to be. It's possible, though.

Will I be David Hasselhoff, sitting shit-faced on the kitchen floor eating manwiches in front of my webcam at 3AM? Hmm... I could kind of go for a nice meat sandwich, right about now. Or a grilled cheese. I'm nothing if not easy.

Will I turn into a mature person - the adult I've yet to blossom into - full of wisdom and a calm, confident balance and, well, grip on the situation? One can dream, can't one?

Maybe I'll be Anton Corbijn or Godfrey Reggio or some other master of the visual arts. Then I can be a little "off" and nobody can say boo to me about it. Again - a man can dream.

Secretly, I'd kind of like to be Russell Brand. Not because of the career and money and pinup girl wife - although those are all selling points - but because he appears to be fairly intelligent and STILL comes across as just constantly having a simply wonderful time.

Here's the answer, though. Two answers, really. I've known them all along. In the immediate-term: I will be on Friday July 1st exactly the same man I was the night before (although possibly a little hung-over). In the longer term: I will gradually just become my old self again.

Maybe a little wiser.

Maybe a little more appreciative of my life and wife and health and the little rabbit that lives in our backyard.

Maybe a little more in love with Vicodin than I was before all this started.

But I'll be Old Joe, four-and-a-quarter years older. Those of you who knew him will be relieved. The rest of you - well, I hope you like me.

Domestic Disturbance Results In One Arrest, Bad Singing, Shots Fired, Several French Fries Wasted

2011-06-12T19:12:00.008-04:00

June 12, 2011
Germantown, MD

Local police were summoned to the 5200 block of Marley Drive on the slightly frightening side of Germantown at 2:45 this morning to investigate reports of possible domestic violence or, at the very least, a loud and embarrassing dispute between a man and his long-time, live-in drug.

"When officers first arrived on the scene, in response to a number of complaints about a disturbance, they found the drug on the front sidewalk, next to a large pile of what appeared to be her personal belongings. She was hysterical, and was repeatedly throwing items at the front door and at a second-floor window, shouting nearly incoherent demands that the occupant of the home come out, 'Just to talk, just to talk,'" a Montgomery County Police spokesman told reporters this morning.

One officer, who requested his name not appear in this report, said that the drug - later identified as Prednisone - did not even acknowledge the presence of the responding officers for several minutes and that when she finally did, they wished that she had not. "That pill was bat-shit crazy," he said. "She was hurling all kinds of stuff from that pile at the house - articles of clothing, grilling tools, bottles of Citracal and Diovan, a vinyl copy of Synergy's Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra, Pixie Stix, boots, a lawn sprinkler - you name it, she was throwing it. She did this bizarre Hideo Nomo-like wind-up and hit the front door with a fastball consisting of several of those Hoti medallions that come with bottles of Pyrat Rum, breaking the glass on the storm door."

"That upped the charges from Creating a Disturbance and maybe Harassment to Destruction of Property and Battery Against a Dwelling," said a second officer, also speaking to us on condition of anonymity. "She was wearing a soiled, ill-fitting wedding dress over what appeared to be an Anne Taylor suit. She kept screaming at the house - 'You need me!' 'You'll die without me!' 'I can change!' 'Can't we just talk about this?' 'I love you SO much!' 'I'm sorry I made you mad at life, baby!' 'Get your ass out here - you owe me!' 'I didn't mean to hurt you.' 'If you don't take me back, I will not be responsible for what happens!' and so on. I've been on the force for 21 years, so I've seen some very M.O. people, but this was one messed-up subject."

The Police spokesman reported that Prednisone made several explicit threats against the man, insisting that if he ended their four-year relationship, she would proceed to make him hurt everywhere - not just joints, but muscles, eyeballs, head - everywhere - and that she would make his mood swing from homicidal to suicidal to punchy to melancholy and back again without reason or warning.

"Yeah - she said she would like, hurt him like listening to 71 straight hours of 'mm-bop' and make his lung shit come back and kill him over and over and leave his mangled body in a ditch, and stuff," said a neighbor who witnessed much of the disturbance. "For a while, he was in the upstairs window, all like 'You don't own me so stop acting like you do,' and 'I'm calling the cops,' and 'I thought we could both behave like grownups, but I guess I was half-wrong,' and 'Thanks for the life-saving, but you gotta GO now,' and 'Look - I gave you all the Beastie Boys stuff, can't we just call it even?' and 'Don't! Don't you dare throw that panda at the house! That was a GIFT, you heartless bitch! If you don't want it, just leave it on the sidewalk,' and there was a whole lot of 'Just go away, please,' and 'It. Is. Over,' and stuff like that. And she was all throwing stuff at the house and like 'Ohhh, you need me. You won't be happy without me,' 'You can't live without me and you know it,' and whatever. After a while, he closed the window and turned off the lights and the cops came."

Another neighbor, when asked for insight into the situation, responded with a blank look and "Who? You mean the dude with the convertible who never comes out of his house? That guy? No one here knows him at all."

The official report goes on to detail the tense standoff, including a moment near its conclusion when the suspect held a gun to her head for several minutes, sobbing and declaring her intention to kill herself if he didn't come outside, then spinning in place, shrieking "Be my young lion!" and firing as many as sixteen indiscriminate shots, striking several cars and surrounding homes, but fortunately not causing any injuries to police or neighbors.

"That was pretty intense," reported the arresting officer. "But we still felt we had the situation under control at that point - right up until she started singing - howling, really - 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' at the top of her lungs. I swear, that 'turn around, bright eyes' stuff was cracking windshields on our cruisers and putting my fellow officers directly in harm's way. I knew I had to take action. I deployed my taser device, subdued Prednisone and took her into custody without further incident, although she did resist arrest quite vigorously."

No injuries were reported, and charges are said to be pending, as of press time.

Excerption To The Rule About Not Posting NaNoWriMo Excerpts

2011-06-07T23:54:00.003-04:00

The easiest blog posts are the ones already written. Sure, this bit (haha - BIT!) from my 2010 NaNoWriMo project about undead people eaters needs a little more spit and polish, but whatever. I like it. And yes, Doug is a dog...

He held the cricket bat with his right hand and one of the 9mms in his left, told Doug to stay, then crouched down and crept, cat-burglar-style, across the asphalt to what was left of the body he'd just passed. Please have the keys, please have the keys, please have the keys, he thought. There they were - about five feet beyond the space in which she had fallen and died and been mostly devoured by monsters that until recently had been regular people. Bill tiptoed past her and wrapped his fingers around the keys, scanned his surroundings again and turned back toward the Jeep. As he passed her remains again, he couldn't help but take a closer look at her. That was when he saw it. Beneath her broken, bloody, half-eaten torso - clutched with a mangled skeletal dead hand between her mostly-intact and bloody-sweater-clad breasts - was a baby. Bill glanced around him again, then bent down low and looked more closely. It was wearing a little pink dress and appeared to be in one piece, and it was dead, staring vacantly into the parking lot with dry eyes devoid of life. "Look at that and tell me there's a god," Bill whispered, his voice shaking with a mixture of heartbreak and rage.

After learning that the Jeep had only a quarter-tank of gasoline - since it had become one of his central challenges over the past couple of weeks, Bill had taken to repeatedly saying "gasoline" with an Australian accent, like Mad Max - Bill had siphoned ten gallons from the car directly behind the Jeep. He had brought the small, battery-operated pump from the boat, but still it only had a six-foot tube, so he transferred the gay-zoh-line to the Jeep five gallons at a time, using the big empty paint bucket that had been in the back, behind the baby seat. Actually, it had been full when he found it - just not of paint. It had been full of baby toys.

While the second bucketful of gas was being pumped into the Jeep, Bill took as many of the toys as he could carry over to the bodies of mother and child. He knelt next to them and scattered the toys around. When he reached in to put a ring of oversized plastic, pastel-colored keys under the mother's half-body, close to the baby, it screamed and hissed and wriggled and bit at the keys with ghastly, toothless bites. "Shit! Zombie baby!!" Bill squealed as he jumped back, covering his mouth to prevent any other loud noises from flying out of it. The undead infant was still gurgling and growling as Bill backed away. "Okay, look at that and tell me there's a god!" He ran back to the Jeep, where the pump was sputtering, having already sucked the last of the gasoline from the bucket into the tank. He shut off the motor, tossed the pump and its hose into the bucket and threw put them in the back. The handful of zombies who had been aimlessly stumbling around in front of the convention center was now a fistful of zombies who had heard the baby and/or Bill's screams and now staggered rather less aimlessly in the direction of the Jeep.

Some Notes For Your Next Breakup

2011-06-05T21:51:00.003-04:00

To: prednisone@blessingandcurse.drug
From: joe@mostlyharmless.patient
Date: June 5, 2011
Subject: Things I'd really like you to stop doing

Hey you. How's it going? Sorry I haven't returned any of your calls. You know I totally want to, but I just can't. I know by now you know this is not a drill. I'm not bluffing. It really is *over*. And I know that sucks. I know it does. But we are both adults (well, I'm an adult - you're more of a steroid). If we can't part ways as friends - and it is looking more and more as though we cannot - then we need to just part ways. Period.

You say you want to stay friends. If that is true, then there are some things I really need you to do or, more to the point, stop doing.

If you're going to send flowers, here's a tip: send live ones. The stuff with which you've been flooding my life of late has been shriveled enough to adorn an Addams Family set.
You know I love chocolate. You know from that one Valentine's Day that those sugar-free chocolates are really quite powerful laxatives. Yet, lo and behold, that is what you sent me. I lost a half-day of work and the respect of everyone in my office. Thanks a lot.
Do not reenact the climactic scene from "Never Been Kissed" at the Frederick Keys game - especially on a night when I'm not even there. It's just embarrassing.
I'd rather you didn't drunk-dial me late at night, especially if you're too drunk to hear the beep, leaving a voicemail of mostly dead air and inebriated steroidal breathing. Or if it's karaoke night wherever you are. Or if you're drunk enough to dial my mom's number instead of mine. Just stop. Get a wing-man or something - someone to take custody of your phone until the danger has passed.
You know I love gifts, and you know I like cool toys for my cubicle at work, but seriously dude - a whole case of mortar-and-pestle-shaped stress balls emblazoned with "CADISTA PHARMACEUTICALS" is not exactly going to win me back.
Yes, I loved the 1980s - music, TV, movies, Presidents - you name it. But OMG do NOT stand in my front yard holding up a boom box bellowing as loudly as its D-cell-powered wooferlets can bellow, especially if your "come back to me" songs of choice are The Piña Colada Song or Fat-Bottomed Girls.

So. Just to recap: Stop trying to stop me from breaking up with you. It won't work. There's nothing you can do to change my mind. I get no joy from seeing you suffer, and even less from seeing you make a fool of yourself, but this is happening. PLEASE do us both a favor and move on. Please?

Dear Prednisone - Don't Even Think About Quoting "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" Lyrics At Me

2011-05-30T20:20:00.008-04:00

Dear Prednisone,

I'm no good at this kind of thing, so I'll just come right out and say it. I don't think this relationship is working anymore and I think it would be best for both of us if we just stop seeing each other. I know this is not what you want, and believe me when I tell you that it is one of the hardest things I've ever tried to do, but you know as well as I do that it is time. Hell, we pretty much knew when we started seeing each other that we were never meant to be a long-term thing. Six months to a year - isn't that what EVERYBODY said? And we stretched it to over four years! Impressive.

I'm not going to try to sugar-coat this with BS like "it's not you - it's me," because truthfully, it pretty much IS you. It's you who made me all roid-ragey and emo. It's you who made me gain all that weight - presumably so no one else would look at me. It's you who made me cry at TV commercials, yell at EVERYBODY and everything, and feel guilty and crappy afterward. Did you HEAR some of the monstrous sputum I launched in the direction of my friends, coworkers and family alike? What was that?

Now, I already know what you're going to say, so I'll save you the trouble: You saved my life. Yes, you probably did, and for that I will forever be in your debt. But that does not give you the right to treat me the way you have - especially lately. The minute I hinted that I needed a little space, you went all Fatal Attraction on me. I'm not sure how many of your previous relationships that reaction has managed to save (I'm guessing none), but I promise you that it won't save this one.

Look - I don't want to fight about this. You're an amazing drug, and I have no doubt that you'll find another wonderful patient in no time. Let's just be mature, take a deep breath, and go our separate ways as friends, okay?

Love,
Joe

Don't Put Deadlines On Your Dreams

2011-05-22T21:51:00.007-04:00

Well, the Rapture didn't happen and the world is trudging right along, just as it was on Friday. I'm not here to make a bunch of jokes at the expense of Harold Camping or his misguided followers; that's just too easy and has been done to death already. I'm sure they continue to believe, blaming their massive public failure - as they did in 1994 - on some miscalculation or misinterpretation of the data. They'll go back and recalculate the date of the Rapture and the End of Days, then grow old and die without seeing any such thing actually occur. If they're smart, though, they won't tell anyone the date, next time.

Do NOT put deadlines on your dreams. This Rapture business must be devastating to the people who believed in it. Some of those devotees gave up all of their savings. Now, not only are they broke, not only are they still here, but they're also an international punchline, devoid of any semblance of credibility forever. In a lot of ways, they probably feel as though the Rapture DID happen, but they were not taken, and are now in some sort of hell on earth. It's really hard for me to resist making fun of that.

I don't say this because I don't believe in the Rapture (although I don't), or because I don't think the world will end (it totally will). I just don't recommend giving something so important, so utterly massive, a due date. And not just Judgment Day, either. No good ever comes from declaring that aliens are coming to take you away in exactly six years, three days and seven hours.

A few other important things for which I don't recommend a drop-dead due date:

Don't go through college telling everyone that you will make your first million by age 25. This one is a lose-lose. If you don't make it, you'll think yourself a failure when that might not even be the case. If you do make your million by 25, you'll be a douche who nobody likes. And no matter what the outcome, you'll annoy all of your college friends to no end and they will stop at nothing to keep you from succeeding.

No deadlines on life stuff. You might meet Mr. Right and have a perfect little boy and a precious little girl and live in a darling little house in the suburbs with a white picket fence and a dog in the yard - all by age 30. Then again, you might meet Mr. Right and marry him, only to have him leave you for the grad student he works with at Best Buy. Or you might get stuck with two sons and no daughter. Or it could all happen, but not until you're 39.

You can't just declare that you'll learn to juggle in exactly 60 days. Recipe for disaster.

I can't tell you how many target dates for getting my first novel published have come and gone. I can't even finish reading a book in an arbitrarily-allotted amount of time.

There's no sense in telling everyone that your 1/64-scale replica of the 184-mile C&O Canal, constructed entirely of cherry tomatoes, frilly sandwich toothpicks and half-chewed Hubba Bubba gum, will absolutely, positively be finished before your middle-school "graduation." Heartbreak will ensue, trust me.

I knew a girl in college who, after breaking up with her boyfriend, told all her friends that she would be 100% over him in precisely 30 days. Guess who was still riddled with anger and drunk-dialing him almost a year later.

Two words: World Domination. Sure, it's a worthy and respectable goal, but put a deadline on it, miss that deadline, and watch the field day that Leno and Letterman and Conan have with your sorry ass.

Now, I'm not saying we should never use deadlines for any of our goals. Just try to stay away from assigning them to big, uncertain events. Keep them away from your dreams. You can't just say "I am going to be WELL, and dammit, I'm going to be well in 39 days." Try to be well, as soon as possible. Your body doesn't care one wit about the calendar - never has, never will.

It's also fine to prepare for the Rapture, if that's your thing. Just don't waste your life trying to figure out exactly when it's coming, then tell everyone in no uncertain terms that it absolutely WILL happen on Saturday only to watch as your dream fails to come true. If going to heaven is that important to you, just live your life in such a way that you're ready whether it comes tomorrow, or 540 years from tomorrow. How hard is that to do without a deadline? Is it me? It must be me.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I am stepping down from a multi-year prednisone regimen, and I am going to be done by July 1st. If July 1st comes, and I'm still on the stuff and/or not WELL, I don't know what I'll do.

School Called. Why Must You Always Make Your Teachers Cry?

2011-04-03T19:36:00.003-04:00

Greetings! I found a scene I kind of like, from my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel (first time reading it since I finished on 11/30/09). Enjoy... Or don't. Hahahahaha - no, really. Enjoy it...

One cold 4th-grade morning, we came into our double-wide classroom to find "SPELLING" scrawled on the blackboard. Beneath that, it said "Miss Adams." My chronically-knotted little stomach relaxed a bit. At least for now, there would be no math, and I preferred Miss Adams to Mrs. Martin, whom I found frightfully intimidating. Maybe I could survive the morning.

We sat in a circle on the floor, with all the desks shoved back toward the outer edges of the room. Mrs. Martin was sitting way back in the corner at her desk, grading tests or concocting new ways to torture us or reading a Harlequin Romance or whatever the hell teachers did when they weren't actively making us do stuff we didn't want to do. She was a big, sturdy, pretty woman in her forties, always impeccably and - I realize now - expensively-attired. Her black hair was always perfect and shellacked like one of those new non-stick skillets, and usually featured a bow or ribbon in the same color as her dress. She wasn't mean. She was just strong and firm and a little loud. She was a force in the classroom.

If Mrs. Martin was the bad cop in this double-teacher arrangement, then Miss Adams was clearly the good one. She was at least ten years younger than her co-teacher, and in many ways her opposite. She had a softness about her. She was much thinner than Mrs. Martin, her hair was wavy and usually left to its own devices, she wore simple dresses and occasionally - gasp - pants, and she had a gentle teaching style. Her southern accent probably added to that. She just always sounded sweet and encouraging and concerned. Miss Adams had the patience of a saint, so seeing her there walking slowly around inside the circle of students was comforting.

I suppose public humiliation is just a part of learning, and short of having one teacher per student in private cubicles, there doesn't seem to be any way around it. Spelling was especially brutal. Today, it appeared that Miss Adams was going to go around the entire class, counter-clockwise, starting just a few kids to my left. I could live with that. There would be plenty of little humiliations before she got to me, so any failure on my part would just be one of many by then. It was worst when you were the first kid to spell a word wrong. Looking around the circle, I was confident that at least ten mistakes would be made en route to me.

I wasn't too far off. The very first word given was misspelled by one of the girls, but she was known to be smart, so no one laughed at her. A couple of kids down the line, "mountain" was spelled wrong. To my right, one of my few acquaintances, Lewis Hardy, elbowed me.

"That was a tricky one," he whispered, "but that guy is kind of an idiot."

"Yeah." I laughed a bit too loudly, as evidenced by the glance Miss Adams shot my way over her shoulder. Lewis was the class genius and to this day is probably the most intelligent person I have known, so his casual friendship was both a blessing and a curse. It felt good to know that such a smart person valued my company, but he was extremely quiet and a little too smart to avoid the "weird" label. He was a nice guy and usually exceedingly diplomatic, so hearing him refer to someone as an idiot was kind of a jolt.

Lewis gave Miss Adams a minute to refocus on the boy who couldn't spell mountain, then he leaned in my direction. "Do you remember his Pilgrim hat from art class last Thanksgiving?"

"Yeah," I answered, much more carefully than before. "It was all pointy and cone-shaped, like a dunce cap."

"Right. And how many pictures of Pilgrims have you seen where their hats have big John Deere belt buckles on them?" he sneered.

I had to think about that for a second. I had remembered some sort of oversized buckle on that guy's construction paper hat, but it took my brain a moment to connect "John Deere," a name I barely knew, with the anatomically-incorrect dog-like monster sitting in the middle of that creation. "Is that what that thing was supposed to be? I thought it was a dragon getting blown up by an atom bomb." I whispered. "How about that diorama of the Nixon Resignation Signing he did last year? What a joke."

"I know!" Lewis chuckled. "He had Nixon signing with his left hand, and he put Earl Butz between Ford and Kissinger. Now, I don't know if Ford and Kissinger were in the Oval Office for the signing, but I'll bet you a million dollars that the Fucking Secretary of Agriculture was not! If any Cabinet members would have been there, it would have been Saxbe. What an imbecile."

I let another surprised laugh escape. I had never heard Lewis cuss before, let alone use the F-word. "Right. Saxbe. I mean, duh!" I said.

"Worst diorama ever." Lewis shook his head in disgust.

From my left, Marty Collins, Lewis' friend, interjected. "Don't act like you know who William Saxbe is, James." Marty was another smart one, but unlike Lewis, he always had an irresistible need to make sure everyone knew how intelligent he was. He wasn't brilliant - just a know-it-all, so it made me feel all warm inside when Miss Adams turned and uttered her southern little "shoosh" (She actually said "shoosh." It sounded as though there might even have been an extra O in there) squarely at Marty.

"Burn!" I whispered just as she returned her attention to the spelling torture at hand.

After a few more relatively uneventful stops around the circle of tormented spellers, Miss Adams arrived in front of Lewis. There was an expectant hush, as we all knew she'd give him a really hard word, as she always did. "Lewis, please spell 'scimitar.'"

Lewis sat up and cleared his throat thoughtfully. "Can you use it a sentence, please?"

"The dreaded pirate Blackbeard's weapon of choice was his scimitar." she said.

"With all due respect, ma'am, Blackbeard's primary weapons were the Queen Anne's Revenge and when push came to shove, his pistol." If anyone else in the class had made such a statement to one of the teachers, he or she would have been in trouble, but Lewis was always so respectful, quiet and correct that he got away with it. "May I have the word's origin, please?" he continued.

"This isn't a spellin' bee, sweetie." Miss Adams smiled. He spelled the word. Correctly. My turn.

"James," she said, "Please spell 'plowin'' - as in, 'The farmer was up early, plowin' his field." She winked at Lewis, then looked at me.

"Plowin'?" I asked.

"Plowin'." she repeated.

"P-L-O-W-I-N." I stopped. She looked at me expectantly. I heard a muted giggle from somewhere behind her.

"Almost, hon. Sound it all the way out as you think about all the letters in the word."

I was puzzled. "You said 'plowin'' - right?"

"That's right, James. Take your time." she was very focused on me and doing her best to keep me from getting upset, but it was not working.

"P-L-O-W-I-N." I said, already seeing the disappointment on Miss Adams' face. "As in, the farmer was up early PLOWIN' his field." Another giggle or two, then uncomfortable silence.

"No, sweetie. P-L-O-W-I-N-G." she said.

"Duh!" Marty blurted. A full round of laughter followed, before Miss Adams squelched it with another "Shooosh!" and a wave of her finger all the way around the circle.

"You didn't say G!" I protested.

"Well, sure I did, darlin' - P-L-O-W-I-N-G." She titled her head quizzically, then looked up momentarily, as if the next word was written on the ceiling tiles. "Okay. Let's try another one. Spell 'fishin' - as in, 'Tom Sawyer spent the day at the fishin' hole.'"

I could feel my neck and face flushing with anger. "Fishin'? You said FISHIN' - right?"

"Yes. Fishin'," she said again. Way back at her desk in the corner, Mrs. Martin had stopped working and was watching me intently.

I sighed and tried again. "F-I-S-H-I-N." Sniggering ensued and after another lengthy "are you sure you're done" stare, Miss Adams shook her head. "That's exactly what she said!" I insisted. "I spelled exactly what she said!" This only amused the class more. I'm quite certain I heard the word "stupid" more than once, out there.

Mrs. Martin had made her way over to the circle of chortling cruelty and was standing just behind Lewis, looking at me as though she were concerned that I might have been poisoned. With one sharp little stomp of her heel on the tile floor, she silenced the room. "James, let's try one more. Can you spell the word 'Spellin' for me, darlin'?" Yes, although hers was more aristocratic and a bit easier to deal with than Miss Adams' southern accent, she had one, too.

I was shaking with frustration. I spelled what I heard once more, and as the laughter started again, I looked at Mrs. Martin. She was nodding toward the chalk board across the room, where the word 'SPELLING' had been so clearly written. Just then Martin and at least two or three others started scolding me with "G! G! There's a G at the end, stupid. I-N-G!"

I leapt from my spot on the floor, knocking Martin into the girl to his left. "I know that! She didn't say 'spelling'! She said 'SPELLIN'!' There's no fucking G in 'SPELLIN' Goddamn it!! And I know how to fucking spell 'FISHING.' But she wasn't saying 'fishinG.' She kept saying 'FISHIN' - so that's what I fucking spelled. What is WRONG with you people???"

I was sent to the Principal's office, and later received a week-long grounding from my parents, for refusing to tell them where I'd heard such language because it sure as hell wasn't from them.

Lesson learned. Several, actually. Southern accents are a pain in the ass. Don't trust your ears when your brain knows better. Children are awful little predators who feast on any misstep or sign of weakness. Swearing a lot can make one a little bit cooler, if only temporarily and if only with the tough kids. Finally, it seemed that accuracy and precision were concepts in which I believed much more strongly than anyone around me.

I Here The Writeing's Are On The Wall: A Lurch In To The Dumbening

2011-03-28T20:30:00.009-04:00

This has been a long time coming. I fought. I resisted with all my waning strength. [Maris] did, too. We clawed and punched and kicked and stabbed and slashed, but our enemy has proved far too powerful, too massive, too young and quick and impervious to our feeble blows. We found ourselves backed repeatedly into the corner, unable to escape. Faced with a choice between letting our nemesis obliterate us, or giving ourselves up, we have chosen the latter.

So. Ignorance, Laziness, Marketing: We bow before you, utterly, unequivocally, irrevocably defeated. We will fight you no more. Secretly, we've always wanted to sneak over to the Dark Side, as we have long heard it said that there would be cookies. We'll even join forces with you, and rule the galaxy as father and son! Wait. Not that. But you get the idea. We couldn't beat 'em, and never would, so we're ready to join 'em.

No longer will we bellow at the TV when news anchors tell us about fires caused by shortages in washing machines. We'll ignore stories from highly-respected global news outlets like Reuters and the Associated Press, telling us that Istanbul's main square had been teaming with tourists and shoppers when the bomber struck. We won't even notice when faced with headlines informing us that our recession is to be followed by a mancession, in which men will face more economic difficulties than women will.

We'll buy your insipid products full of cheesy and beefy, and the more modulicious they are, the better. I think, in time, we will even come to compare our fast to yours, and our ready will be more ready than your ready. We will make excellent happen.

But we won't stop there. We will abide by the rules of grammar, vocabulary and spelling in the new millennium, and stop fretting over each and every faux pas that heretofore would have made us bristle with angst. From now on, apostrophes WILL mean "here comes an S." Your and you're will be one and the same. There, they're and their? Why bother with three words, when just one (there, by the way) will suffice.

Now, before you go calling the Spelling Police Police on us -- we're not talking about the safe, silly havens of email, IM, Facebook etc.. We know that the rules have never really applied, there. No, we're talking about media and news and such - the professional communicators. Those are the victors in our little war. We surrender.

Now, if you'll excuse us, we have a bunch of noun's waiting to be used as verb's.

Dunsten Crackbarry in Graduate School

2011-03-03T22:56:00.002-05:00

Another scintillating peek into the twisted - no, mangled - world of Crackbarry and Fleen:

By the time he had slummed and slurped and struggled his way to his 24th birthday, Dunsten's nickname had evolved from "Dun McCrack" to "Goin' Down McCrank" to "Goitervillanueva Cracklinberries" to "Smokin' The Crack" to simply "CrackSmoke." He had arrived at the Lake Wad School of Business Gloaming with an undergrad degree in Clown Arts (minor in Theology) and a burning desire to further his education and master auto-erotic asphyxiation.

He taped copies of his mother's latest letter all over his dormitory room, to inspire and propel him onward toward his goal of becoming Fleen's second-in-command.

"You stupid sod - why are you wasting your father's hard-earned ducats on that stupid circus degree? You'll burn in hell for this, you will! You could have been accepted at the horse
school, or even the sheep college - sea monkeys community institute, at the very least. But no.
We're ashamed to have ever found you by the side of the lane and brought you home to be raised by our dog, we are. Pooey on you, and write back soon, sweetie. Love, Mum" was all it said.

"Aw, sod off, mumsie," Crackbarry would say every night (excepting those on which he was too drunk to see or speak or both, and the rare night when he had co-ed company, or the time he spent the evening in the infirmary with that piece of balsa wood shoved under his toenail - ouch) as he
patted the note with his fingers on his way to bed...

Drop The Tiny Corn And Step Away From The Salad Bar, Al (and I assume your last name is Kada)!

2011-02-16T21:31:00.008-05:00

In the past several years, there have been many things that I've encountered that have sent me scurrying for the comfort of a comically-large rum and coke and my DVDs of Carl Sagan's "Cosmos." In 2008 I sought that solace as my employer vortexed away (yes, I just made vortex into a verb - stick around - who knows what I'll do next) and unemployment loomed. The death of my dad, my own wretched mystery illnesses and the days just over a year ago when my [Maris] was in the ICU (although then, it was a comically-small rum and coke, in case some horrible call came from the hospital), as well as any time I stumble upon footage of Sarah Palin (or, to be fair, Nancy Pelosi) speaking -- all of these trigger my "Cosmos" need.

Most recently, it was the "news," on our local "news" radio station, that Al Qaeda is plotting to poison America with ricin and arsenic. One salad bar at a time. It wasn't even this scary and probably true revelation that spooked me. Listening to this alarmist "news" for the past 9 1/2 years has desensitized me to the threats themselves. I'm sure terrorists are dreaming up all kinds of incredibly inventive ways to terrorize and kill us. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they succeed, blah blah blah. No, what really froze me in my tracks like a kid playing "red light, green light" was what the reporter and news anchors recommended we All Do. Everyone needs to be extra vigilant, they said, and REPORT anyone seen lingering around the salad bar, returning items from their plates back onto the salad bar etc.. Report it? To whom? The sneeze guard doesn't seem interested.

Waitress: How is everything over here? Did you save room for dessert?

Vigilant Citizen: No, ma'am, but I need to report a suspicious subject at the salad bar.

Waitress: A... A suspicious what at the what?

VigCit: A possible terrorist, ma'am.

Waitress: (giggle) A terrorist? At the salad bar? Here?

VigCit: (very, very serious) This is very, very serious, ma'am. Could you please get your manager? Quickly!

Manager: Good evening, sir. I'm the manager on duty tonight. I understand there's a problem with the salad bar?

VigCit: I need to report-- Holy crap - you look even younger than the little girl who's been waiting on us. How old are you, son?

Mgr: Seven--squeak-- Seventeen, sir. Is there something I can do for you?

Waitress: He said he saw a terrorist by the salad bar. You think it's a suicide bomber?

VigCit: I didn't say suicide bomber!

Waitress: You said terrorist!

Mgr: Thank you, Kaytlinne. I'll take it from here. You go on and check on your other tables. Now, sir - you want to report a terrorist at the salad bar?

VigCit: Yes. I think you should do something. He's still here. I can't believe no one else is alarmed. He's got a Turban, for Christ's sake!

Mgr: Um... What did he do at the salad bar?

VigCit: He put something back.

Mgr: Put something back?

VigCit: Yes. It was on his plate. He looked around suspiciously, then he carefully put it back onto the salad bar. It's an olive.

Mgr: Oh my goodness! Now why would anyone put an olive back on the salad bar? That is suspicious. Was it a black olive or a green one?

VigCit: It's a black one, and I can see it from here. He carefully put it in the ice next to the olive bowl.

Mgr: Oh my! Do you think it's a bomb? What should I do?

VigCit: Well, for starters, you might want to keep customers away from the salad bar. And you should probably call the police, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. I can keep an eye on the guy while you do that. Then, I'd be more than happy to help you escort him out, if you like.

Mgr: Where is he?

VigCit: It's the Al-Qaeda-lookin' guy alone at that table by the front window. He's the only one in the restaurant wearing a turban.

Mgr: (gasp) Oh, I see him, sir! He does look awfully suspicious. But...

VigCit: But what?

Mgr: But aren't turbans worn by Sikhs and not Muslims?

VigCit: Boy, you gonna stand around quibbling about what part of Al-Qaeda that guy's from, or are you gonna do something before people start dropping dead from anthrax?

Mgr: Well, I'm going to get to the bottom of this. Nobody puts anthrax in the olives when I'm the manager on duty. (He marches over to the man in the turban. The two begin to converse. There are gestures toward the salad bar, gestures toward Vigilant Citizen, discussion, smiles and then laughter. Vigilant Citizen approaches the terrorist's table.)

VigCit: Excuse me, but is there something funny about this situation?

Mgr: Yes, well, it actually is kind of amusing, sir...

Turban Guy: And quite embarrassing.

VigCit: Son, there's nothing amusing about terrorism! And you - suppose you show me some identification and don't make any sudden moves.

TG:

Mgr:

VigCit: Well?

TG: No offense, sir - but who are you to demand another man's identification?

VigCit: I'm a Goddamn American citizen, that's who!

Mgr: Okay, fellas...

TG: Oh. In that case, I demand to see your identification, as I am also a Goddamn American citizen.

Mgr: See, I think I can explain what happened...

VigCit: You ain't no American. We don't wear that Arab stuff here.

TG: This is a turban. Arabs do not wear turbans. Many Americans do, however. Including me. I am a Sikh. And I was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. My parents were both born in the United States. I'm pretty Goddamn American, and you're starting to piss me off.

Waitress: There he is, officers. That's the salad bar bomber!

Mgr: Now wait a minute...

VigCit: Officers, I saw this man looking around suspiciously and putting food back onto the salad bar. We're supposed to report that kind of thing, right?

TG: Oh you've got to be kidding me.

Officer: Um...

VigCit: It could be poison! Or a bomb!

TG: It's an olive!

Officer: An olive? Black or green?

VigCit: Black! It's still there! Do something!

Mgr: There's a logical explanation, officers. Let me explain...

VigCit: What's the matter with you people? Isn't it obvious? The turban! And look at that shirt, with that Arabic "death to America" stuff on it!

TG: That's not Arab you imbecile! It's Punjabi, and it says "peace!" I told you - I'm a natural-born American Sikh, not Arab, not Muslim and very much not amused!

VigCit: I saw you put that olive there. Explain that!

Mgr: Sir, this is my restaurant while I'm on duty, and I'm going to have to ask you to stop harassing my customers.

VigCit: What?

Mgr: I told you there's an explanation. Yes, you did see him put that olive there. It fell off his plate onto the floor. He didn't see a trash receptacle, and he didn't want to put it back on his plate, but he also didn't want to put it back in the olive bowl. He looked around for a staff member to ask for help and, finding none at the moment, decided to put it into the ice next to the bowl. He's very embarrassed, and he told me all about it as soon as I approached his table, before I'd even said anything. See? It's not terrorism at all. Just a silly mishap.

VigCit:

TG: I am terribly sorry for instilling such fear and trepidation into the hearts of all these good people who hadn't so much as looked at me until you came over to my table.

VigCit:

Mgr: Your dinner is on the house tonight, sir. I apologize for the way you've been treated.

Officers: See ya guys.

TG: (whispering in Vigilant Citizen's ear) Death to America.

Fleen Visits Crackbarry At Gloaming University - Easier Said Than Done

2011-02-05T21:26:00.004-05:00

Hey gang! I think it's time to foist some Crackbarry and Fleen upon your unsuspecting noggins. I have been trying to come up with a nice succinct introduction to this madness, but I can't, so I've decided instead that it will be much more fun (and just as coherent, really) to simply foist away with a random excerpt. I like saying foist. It rhymes with. . . stuff. Anyway, I will say that the characters have a co-creator, and until I confirm whether or not he is actually still living, this sample may be all I will be able to share with you, and that makes it all the more special, non?

News from Crackbarry's dorm room:

Fleen stared at the telly with murder in his eyes. "We're going to make that 2-bit lounge donkey wish he'd never been spawned of the wretchedness of his foul mother and the seed of the murderous dentist. Crackbarry my man, I'm going to need your help. But first, I must tell you what happened to me on the way here from my Auntie Ashlee's summer home in Middle Pussexton."

Crackbarry wiped the Armadillo dribble from his face and listened with rapt attention as Fleen related the story of his short but intriguing journey of that morning. The Ashlee vacation house was no more than five minutes behind him when Fleen had been run off the M5 by a pair of lime green Mini Coopers with fake police insignias on their doors. The entire contents of his newly-opened bottle of Absolut Peach found its way onto the floor mat of his modified, heavily armoured Hummer (which he lovingly called Betsy-Wetsmee and to this day, no one knows why) as it left the road and went briefly airborne, landing in the cornfield of one Roberto "Flaxseed" McManus. In the course of the wreck, Fleen's ever-present spice pipe (today he was smoking a mixture of cumin, sage and oregano, but the oregano was way too dry this time,
which was a bit of a buzzkill) fell to the floor and immediately ignited the vodka-soaked carpeting.

The flames of the polycarbon carpet fibers, spices and booze had created a sweet-smelling but powerfully hallucinogenic smoke which quickly filled the interior of the Hummer, and Fleen was overcome within a few breaths. He tripped all over the landscape of his cerebral cortex. He saw himself torn to bloody shreds by the girls of Miss Pinklebaum's kindergarten class, the pieces carried off by Australian parakeets, all to a soundtrack of "White Light, White Heat." The
expression on his face in this image confused him, as it was a pre-adolescent smile of sheer glee. There was a scene from "Too Close for Comfort," only the Ted Knight role was played by Fleen's first romantic conquest, Kiera Pukingintheskya, and her Russo-Yapese broken English was here more menacing than funny.

When Fleen had emerged from his peachy fog, he had found himself sitting on the living room sofa in the frighteningly country home of Mr. McManus. "Hey Flaxseed. Sorry about your fence. Where might I find my pants and an Atari 5200 with a pair of joysticks that fuckin' WORK?" The farmer's wife, a giant mannish thing named Bobbi, stopped Flaxseed's cross-living room lunge with one of her hairy arms, clotheslining the man and sending him to a gurgling unconscious spell on the floor. She seized Fleen by his elbow and led him to the barn, where her three strapping sons had already returned the Hummer Betsy-Wetsmee to a close approximation of road-worthiness. Fleen had lost several hours of his life and some good vodka and admittedly sub-par spice, but still managed to make his way to Crackbarry's dormitory by mid-afternoon.

"Well, that explains the news reports and that weird peachy pizzeria scent coming off your smoky clothes." Crackbarry chuckled. "Now what do you need me to do to this Crustedseabass bloke?"

Coping Mechanisms - Like Carl Sagan Making Whale Sounds - Or Creating Drinking Games

2011-02-01T23:22:00.006-05:00

"Life is a shit storm, kid. And when it's raining shit, the best umbrella you can buy is art."

So quoth the Peter Falk character whose name I am too lazy to look up, from the underrated movie "Tune In Tomorrow." I'm one of approximately seven people to have seen this picture, and that includes the entire cast and crew and all the mothers thereof.

Anyone who knows me - or has had the incomparably down time to actually read this blog, specifically the "Double-barrel Unemployment" posts - can surely tell you that my past couple of years have been a bit of a shit storm. Okay, maybe not one of those early June end-of-the-world shit downpours, but a shit shower. A shit drizzle, at the very least. And yes, I definitely turned to art on more than one occasion to help get me through that creepy darkness in one piece - if you can call [Adult Swim] cartoons, "Sunny in Philly" and "Surf's Up" ART. I use those so frequently that their collective medicinal value has started to wane. "Wane???" Yeah, it's waning. Same goes for ATHF, Futurama, Archer, Tom & Jerry and Hoarders.

But you know what hasn't waned? The soothing, healing, rejuvenating power of Carl Sagan's PBS series "Cosmos." I can't exactly explain why this 30-year old series has such an effect on me, and some would say that pretty much defeats the purpose of this post. So, those people are hereby excused from reading any further. We'll wait. We'll wait a couple of minutes, apparently, as one of those people seems to think this is his personal chat room. Hang on. (sigh) Any time there, buddy. Don't worry about the half of the class that is staying, legitimately interested and anxious to hear about Joe's depression/anxiety and how "Cosmos" coats it in a cool, soothing, protective salve. Really? Gonna take that call here, are you? Okay. I guess we're all invited. Your girlfriend wants to see other people? Oh dude - that is tragic! Well, it would be tragic, if you hadn't taken that call here, in our room, in front of us, as we are all clearly waiting for you to leave. "Let's see other people?" You know what that means, don't you, bra? It means, "I'm already seeing other people and I've already decided you're not cutting it so goodbye." Ha! Yes, that's it. Move along. Scat. We have ancient TV miniseries to discuss. Buh-bye.

Okay. Where were we? Oh yeah - Cosmos. How can a nerdy science series, produced around 1980 by an admitted carbon and water, how-can-we-be-alone-in-such-a-vast-universe "chauvinist" possibly be the slightest comfort to an overwhelmed person in 2011? Dr. Sagan's presentation oscillates between too-elementary and too-M.I.T.-Grad-School, and his perception of the cosmos (everything that is, ever was or ever will be) and our place in it is at once heartening and bleak. Bits of it are empowering and comforting and can make a math-averse non-scientist feel like a peer of the best and brightest in earth's short history. Other parts, late-1970s-special-effects notwithstanding, can instill feelings of massive, overpowering insignificance and futility. The universe doesn't know or give the tiniest rat's butt about the earth or anything or anyone that has ever happened here. And so on.

And yet.

And yet, when my best job ever was going to hell and we all knew we would be on the street in the middle of the worst employment market since the Great Depression... when my soul mate was in the I.C.U. with an unidentified infection trying to kill her... when she and I were both unemployed simultaneously... and other times of indescribable stress and anxiety (like when they canceled "Wonderfalls")... I have resorted to dusting off the old "Cosmos" DVDs and falling asleep to them, night after night, until the storm clouds have passed and the sun returns - however briefly - to warm my cheeks and make life once again worth living - to gently coax me back in and off the ledge.

Maybe it's the material itself, telling me that I'm tiny and that's okay. Maybe it's Sagan's optimism, his irrepressible glee at the fact that our country at that time had begun to land exploratory robots on other planets. Maybe it's the effects, technically limited, but artistic. Maybe it's the music - an eclectic blend of classical and 1980's most ethereal electronic compositions by the likes of Tomita and Vangelis. Maybe, it's the reverence with with Sagan approaches the subject matter. Maybe. I know it's a combination of all of the above. I can watch the episodes wide awake or I can fall asleep before the opening credits end - it doesn't matter. Life makes more sense. I am closer to being at peace. I can cope with the stuff with which I need to cope, and I can let go of that which I can live without mastering. It's like a drug, only it's good for me.

Sure, the next morning, it all comes crashing down and the guy in the car next to mine - the guy who clearly has never seen "Cosmos" - is just as capable of ruining my fragile little day, but for an hour at a time, I cope. I deal. I survive.

I survive. Thanks, Dr. S. And thanks also for creating a show with several built-in drinking games. I'll share just one, the most obvious: Every time Sagan says "billion," drink. You won't make it through the first episode.

Sorry I Got All Bloggy On You - It Probably Won't Happen Again Until Next Time

2011-01-24T22:06:00.012-05:00

I don't wanna get all bloggy on you guys, but well, here we go...

Most of the time, [Maris] and I feel like the only sane people in a lunatic asylum filled with 7 billion patients and no doctors. In recent years, we've come to understand that in reality, it's the other way around. It is we who are apparently defective, in so many ways. Either way, we are now fully aware that we do not belong here. You know, like, on Earth, with you nice people.

Exhibit A: We don't like coffee. At all. I know! Somehow, with both made it through college and retail jobs and decades of being complete night-owls and beyond our thirties without developing a taste for - let alone addiction to - coffee. Caffeine - yes! Mountain Dew for [Maris] and Coke/Lime Diet Coke for me. But not coffee. Just to add some weird sprinkles to the weird frosting that is our coffee-free existence, [Maris] absolutely adores the smell of coffee beans. Walks down the coffee aisle at the grocery store, just snorting the aroma. Brew it up and place it before her, and it's hemlock. "It tastes like burnt dirt in water."

Exhibit B: We don't watch "reality" TV in any form, including the "talent" competitions. We used to watch "The Soup," because Joel McHale and his writers are brilliant, but a couple of years ago, it reached the point where sitting through the clips from the actual shows became so unbearable that we couldn't even get to the funny stuff. What's new with The Bachelor? How's that new kid who can more or less carry a tune doing on A.I.? What happened in that cliffhanger on The Kardashians? Don't know. Don't care. If we had known that all it took to get rich and C-list famous was to do a sex tape or whore ourselves out in a scripted show with a bunch of narcissistic 15-minutes-of-fame-seekers, we could have done all of that and more. Well, maybe ten years ago. Not that we're bitter. Hey, if it's what you want and the machinery is in place for you to make it happen, who are we to stop you. Just please, go away. Soon. You're taking up valuable airtime that could be occupied by more interesting things. (watch for a future post about the downfall of western civilization, wherein "reality" TV will play a central role.)

Exhibit 3: We cringe at the sight (or sound) of bad grammar, made-up words and the abundance of other evidence of the death of the English language. Sadly, that somehow makes us the defective ones. Yeah - we're the weird ones. But just being grammar Nazis doesn't make us that odd. It's the fact that one minute, we'll be bitching at a commercial featuring subject-verb disagreement and the word "deliciocity," and the next thing out of our mouths will be some abomination of English, lifted from "Family Guy" or "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia." Wait. That just makes us hypocrites. That's not weird at all. That's the norm, today! Okay, never minds Exhibit's 3.

Exhibit D: We don't fight. I know, I know. Lots of couples think they don't fight. Seriously, we simply don't. It's not because we agree about literally everything, or have an unhealthy aversion to marital conflict; we just have neither the time, nor the energy for fights. We were already in our thirties when we married, so we have to use all our minutes being smug about our happiness together. Fighting is not on the schedule. It's not like we don't want to fight -- we do! But we can't think of anything to fight about. I'll just stop now. I can hear your skeptical harrumphs. It's true, though. Sorry.

Exhibit E: We love kids, but don't have or want any of our own. This is obviously big enough to be its own post. Hell, it could be its own blog. It's complicated, and don't even start with us because we've heard it all before. Our child-free existence is not a condemnation of almost every other couple on the planet. However, more often than you might expect in 2011, we're thought to be selfish, stupid or utterly insane for not wanting to procreate, and we're perceived as child-hating, anti-family assholes who stand in judgment of all parents - as if we are "right" and everyone else is "wrong." It's not really okay, but we understand. Anyone who deliberately does something differently is automatically seen as disapproving of your way, and by extension, of you. We're the ones going against the grain, here. I just marvel sometimes at the giant toes that surround us, just waiting to be stomped upon. We love kids, and we're not having any, and that's okay. And you're okay, too. We're all okay! Except you English ruiners. We hate you guys.

Cardboard and Apathy: A Love Story

2011-01-18T23:04:00.018-05:00

Miss Ann Thrope: Are you feeling any better?

P. Paul Hader: (scowl, chew chew, gulp)

Thrope: Now, now. The face? Even after pizza and beer? Really? Ouch.

Hader: Okay, I'm less stressed and suicidal- no, homicidal, but mostly I'm just full of cardboard and apathy, now.

Thrope: Easy there, hater. It's not that bad.

Hader: What's not that bad? My situation, or this Italian culinary abomination? (air quotes on "Italian")

Thrope: Well, both. I guess. What's wrong with you? Do you just hate ALL pizza? Why do you even eat it?

Hader: Listen, Ann - I adore pizza. I love pizza more than I love my kids I don't have yet. Pizza is evidence that God loves me and wants me to be happy. I just happen to find this pizza to be an insult to me, and an affront to all that is good and kind and just in the world.

Thrope: You're an affront!

Hader: That doesn't even make sense. Wait. Urine in front? Oh, that's not urine. That's grease from this so-called pizza!

Thrope: Don't be gross. And it's not that bad, you balcony Muppet everything-hater! I like the sauce. Reminds me of Pizza Oven.

Hader: Okay, I like "balcony Muppet."

Thrope: Nice, right?

Hader: Very nice. But please do NOT compare this corrugated Amazon box with Pizza Oven. I grew up on their pizza. I was eating that stuff before I had teeth.

Thrope: Can you believe there are millions of people growing up on Domino's, Pizza Hut, and Papa John's?

Hader: That's just sad.

Thrope: I miss Godfather's. Remember that place?

Hader: Oh my God you are freaking obsessed with that place. It's been, like, decades. Let it go, Ann. Let it the hell go.

Thrope: You used to love Godfather's!

Hader: Their pizza was 80 percent corn meal for some reason. It was almost as bad as Chuck E. Cheese!

Thrope: You're just saying that because ol' whats-her-face broke up with you there, in front of the whole floor hockey team. The pizza was fine.

Hader: No, you're just saying that because you had your first sexual experience there.

Thrope: WHAT? I did NOT!

Hader: Babe, come on. It was at the goddamn table, in front of the whole team. Did you and old what's-his-name seriously think we wouldn't notice when his entire right arm went missing somewhere in your lap, leaving him fumbling lefty with his pizza for half an hour while you turned all red and pant-y?

Thrope: Excuse me - "panty?"

Hader: I know! It's funny 'cause it means here two things - closely-related though they may be.

Thrope: You're gross.

Hader: Oh, but I believe that it is you who are gross. Is gross? Am? Be. It is you who be gross!

Thrope: You all saw that?

Hader: Yup.

Thrope: And NONE of you ever said anything about it to me! Shit, that's a better vow of silence than the one in "I Know What You Did Last Summer!" I'm impressed. And mortified, of course.

Hader: Don't worry about it. I just know I was so jealous of what's-his-name that I could have killed him with a straw.

Thrope: You're sweet. Oh well. Pizza was good.

Hader: It was okay. It was no Nick's.

Thrope: Oh, here we go...

Hader: We can't talk about pizza without giving a shout-out to Nick's. Voted Delaware's best, you know.

Thrope: I know. It was what made Rehoboth Rehoboth. It was a religious experience. You cried, you moaned, you got a little bit hard. It was the best pizza in the universe, blah blah blah.

Hader: It was all of that and more. I'm tearing up, just thinking about it.

Thrope: But don't you find it at least a little bit ironic that Nick's pizza was made by a GREEK?

Hader: Nope. Just made it that much more impressive. Don't fuck with Nick or I will not hesitate to cut you with this plastic knife.

Thrope: Crust was too thin.

Hader: You watch your mouth! It was New York style. The crust was perfect. And it wasn't the only thing that made Rehoboth Rehoboth. They had arcade games older than we were - probably older then than we are now.

Thrope: Okay... Um, Ocean City had that, too. And the Dough Roller had great pizza. Why are you such a Rehoboth snob?

Hader: I'm not. Come on -- you have to admit, Rehoboth's arcades felt old-timey and fun, and O.C.'s arcades felt like there was always about to be a stabbing. And the Dough Roller? I'd rather eat a sweat-soaked odor-eater that's been in buried with Louie Anderson's foot in it since - well, since whenever the hell he died.

Thrope: I never saw anyone get stabbed! It was happy kids, as far as the eye could see. Except that one time, when my sister and I saw that girl beating the hell out of her boyfriend. Did I tell you she was using a Dr. Scholl's Exercise Sandal? Those things were like little wooden mallets!

Hader: Yeah. You've told me that one. How classy. A kid drowned at Rehoboth the day we got there, one year. His body didn't wash up until a week later, and it washed up late at night, right at the end of our block - right where we--

Thrope: ...had just been throwing glow-sticks and poking at washed-up jellyfish to see the electrical charges pass through them, and it was totally scary and it kept you and your brothers up at night and was the creepiest week at the beach ever. Yeah. And you remember when Funland built the Haunted Mansion, and it was torture that it took them a year-and-a half to finish it, and you loved all the mini-golf places, even though O.C.'s were totally superior, and you still miss the spin-painting, and you and your brother used to totally whale on that black-and-white Rip-off game, and one year there was a construction site across the street from the beach house, and one year your brother's friend had a nightmare and screamed bloody murder and the whole town heard because everybody kept their windows open at night, and one time you and your other brother were allowed to stay at Funland until it closed, and you used your last quarter to buy a Coke and you drank it and jumped up and down and burped as loudly as you could, all the way back to the house, and the doughnuts at that doughnut shop were the best anywhere ever on earth and the line went out the door every morning but no one minded the wait because they were that good, and your Dad told your sister's friend that the lights of Cape May were actually nuclear waste in the Atlantic, and she bought it - and none of you told her it wasn't true, and the only good thing to happen to the town in the past 25 years is Dogfish Head, and 90 percent of your happy childhood memories are from your Rehoboth vacations, and you can't imagine taking our own kids anyplace else.

Hader: You don't have to mock me.

Thrope: I'm not mocking you, but I don't have time to sit through that litany of awesomeness again. Are you still full of cardboard and apathy?

Hader: Um, yes.

Thrope: Well, maybe try to make that cardboard and overwhelming joy, because guess what I'm full of.

Hader: Stop it.

Thrope: I will not stop it. I'm full of pregnant.

Hader: Check, please!

Thrope: What's the rush, Mr. Apathy?

Hader: I'm gonna cry, and I am NOT going to be seen crying in a mall food court.

Thrope: Aww... You're going to cry? Really? That's so sweet.

Hader: Yeah - this cardboard pizza monstrosity is making me sick!

Thrope: Nice.

Wrapping Up Double-barrel Unemployment. In 1 Hour. Because I'm Missing My Cartoons.

2011-01-09T21:57:00.006-05:00

Hi! Tonight, we're going from Day 432 to Day 700 in the next hour of distracted, half-TV-watching 38 words-per-minute typing. Unless I'm not done after an hour. If I'm not done at the end of an hour, I'll just stop wherever I am and wrap up the rest of the story in one succinct and awe-inspiring sentence. K?

Here we go...

Day 432 - [Maris]'s first full day home from her adventure in Intensive Care, tubes, wires and machines that beep all the time and keep the sick people from sleeping. Also, it snowed approximately seven hundred thousand inches. Ha ha ha! No it didn't, but 2 1/2 FEET of that crap did fall on us that day. More than another foot fell some four days later. We had 54 inches of it within 12 days. In suburban Maryland. Not funny. Moving on...

Day 445 - Headcount reduction. I'm unemployed AGAIN after only 3 months on the promising contract job that was supposed to last at least a year. I wouldn't shed any tears over the loss of the hellish commute, but SWEET ZOMBIE JESUS! [Maris] and I were not going to last long with neither of us earning more than unemployment insurance. And needing to drink more than ever at a time when you can't really afford to? That's just cruel.

Day 470 - [Maris] has a new hobby! It's a big Excel spreadsheet, on which she dissects deliberately and unnecessarily complex, misleading and often duplicate medical bills and attempts to reconcile them with deliberately and unnecessarily complex, misleading and often duplicate explanation-of-benefits forms. It's like a shell game, but with math. The numbers are staggering. Our health insurance provider had covered like, not very much. Managing, minimizing and stretching out this new pile of debt during our time as a couple with dual lacks of income became a major project, and a priority equal to that of finding new jobs. Awesome.

Day 480 - I had an interview! I tried really hard, too. I learned all about the company, I prepared questions, I wore a suit! I didn't say anything Tourettesy or insult anyone or fall down or tell them about my loathing of hard work, of what they do, of the name of their HR guy. I kept my clothes on and didn't even ask if I was getting paid for today. I still didn't get the job. Weird.

Day 500 - I cut the grass!

Day 521 - After two visits to a really cool nearby employer, interviewing (very well, I might add) with five different people, I get the "it came down to you and another candidate and it was really hard, blah blah blah, but we're not hiring you" call.

Day 522 - For the first time in this whole ridiculous story, I moped. Ha ha ha! It looks like I just typed moped, as in the little scooter/motorbike thingies that were all the rage in the late 70s and early 80s. Remember those things? Ha ha ha! They were tiny and weak. If you hit a squirrel with a moped, the squirrel would totally win.

Day 547 - [Maris] is working again! It's terrible and clearly not a long-term solution, but it's a good-paying job in a putrid employment market, so she gladly takes it and quietly keeps searching for a better gig. The stories she brings home are awesome, but sharing them is out of the question. Sorry kids - I ain't gettin' sued. Let's just say she boarded a sinking ship of bigger fools than either of our previous Vortexes (Vortices?) of Doom. Yes, I realize that the only truly "double-barrel" unemployment we experienced was from Day 445 to day 547. So what. Shut up. It's my story and I can call it "monkey calculus and zen garden hoe design sparkle pancake bunnies" if I want to.

Day 588 - [Maris] is working again! At a job/company so good, she took a pay cut to go there from the ship of fools. I knew she could do it. Strangely, as much pressure as her re-employment took off my search, in some ways, I felt even more pressed to find something. From May until October, I could hardly get so much as a phone interview. Some funny stuff probably happened, too, but I only have seven minutes left, so I'll save any of that for later posts.

Day 680 - I had interviews at TWO DIFFERENT companies. I know! It was like an episode of "Three's Company" when Jack has two dates on the same night, like at the same restaurant and everything! I scampered back and forth between the two buildings, making up excuses about emergency phone calls and car alarms and things that they'd have to believe, like loose stools. Ha ha ha! It was fun! I kept talking about the wrong company and calling the interviewers the wrong names and stuff. I was pretty sure they knew what was up, but they played along.

UNTIL...

Day 697 - One of them got wise and broke it off, and the other one HIRED ME!

I'm out of time, but we're pretty much done, aren't we? WOOHOO!! After 700 days, Double-barrel unemployment is over. It didn't kill us! It tried, but it failed. Epic failed. We live to work and earn another day. And another and another and another and another and untold thousands of additional others forever, just as it should be.

We know how lucky we are.

Joe and 2010 have "The Talk"

2010-12-31T16:29:00.005-05:00

2010: Hey baby. I was hoping you'd call.

Me: I thought we had established that you wouldn't call me that anymore.

2010: Aw, come on. Don't be like that, baby.

Me: It doesn't matter anyway. I know it's really uncool to do this over the phone, but I think we both know it's time we had a little talk.

2010: Do what over the phone? Wait. You're not breaking up with me, are you?

Me: Well, yeah. I am. I'm sorry.

2010: But I love you, ba-- sorry. But I love you SO much. You can't leave me.

Me: I have to, '10. I just have to. You know it's not working. We're obviously not right for each other. I'm really sorry, but I know this is for the best.

2010: But what about all the great times we had? You're willing to just throw it all away?

Me: Let's not do this, '1o. Let's just part as friends and move on.

2010: Remember the Olympics? That was pretty cool.

Me: I remember a nice kid from a small town died on the first day and there was no snow for most of the Olympics. And while we're on the subject, what was with the twin blizzards a week apart in DC? Was that a "great time?" The little five-inch snowfall that came between the two storms would normally have been our biggest snow of the winter, but this year it was nothing!

2010: I love snow. I wanted you to love it, too.

Me: But I don't, and I won't. See? That's what they call an irreconcilable difference. It's not your fault, but it does pretty much make us incompatible.

2010: But...

Me: And you thought it was funny when that five inches of snow fell while I was visiting [Maris] in the damn Intensive Care Unit! Remember that? Was THAT a great time? You almost killed her!

2010: She's all wrong for you. I can make you way happier than she can.

Me: No, she's not and no, you can't. I knew you would get like this. I should just go.

2010: No! Wait! What about all that leisure time I gave you? That had to be fun.

Me: I got laid off three months into what was supposed to be at least a one-year contract job! And with [Maris] out of work, that made our unemployment DOUBLE-BARREL!! That was NOT fun! What's wrong with you?

2010: Okay, so I screwed up. But you're just remembering all the bad times. What about Stephen Strasburg? Remember Stephen Strasburg? His debut was one of the best DC sports events ever! 14 strikeouts in his first game! 102-mph fastballs! A sold-out, standing-room crowd cheering its collective head off! It was magic!

Me: Yes, it was amazing, and I'll never forget it. It would be a much better memory if you hadn't blown out his arm a few weeks later, ending his season and his next season and possibly ruining him before he even got started. Remember that?

2010: Yeah. That was my bad.

Me: Look, it's just not working. You know it as well as I do. You've been trying harder in the last couple of months, but it's too late. It's time for us to say goodbye.

2010: Wait! That's right! I'm doing good things. You're getting healthier, [Maris] was employed by June, and well-employed by mid-July. You have a job - a good one! I made the cowboys suck, I kept those foul, evil yankees out of the World Series, I kept hurricanes off of US shores. I'm really trying to be better!

Me: Yeah, but the overall picture is kind of jacked-up. [Maris] almost died, we spent most of the year with at least one of us unemployed, my cousin had to fight off cancer, [Maris]'s cousin died way too young, her grandmother died...

2010: But she was very old, and wanted to be in heaven with her husband.

Me: That's true, but it's still sad. And you started piling on. My brother-in-law's mother was awesome and a true force for Good in the world, and having her go from full-speed ahead to gone forever was just cruel - I don't care what kind of cancer it was. And I have friends with their own job worries, and one with a very sick father, at least two with 2010 divorces.

2010: Hey - life is full of stuff like that.

Me: Oh, I know it is. It's just that you brought it in bunches. Not minor annoyances and losses; big ones. One after another after another. It got old. I know things are looking up now, but overall you were just not a good year to me or most of the people I know and love.

2010: I know. I suck. I'm a terrible year. No wonder you hate me.

Me: Don't start that "oh woe is me I'm such a loser" stuff with me! I'll hang up.

2010: I'm sorry, baby. Don't leave me! I can change! I can be the year you want me to be! I love you!

Me: You broke poor Haiti in half!

2010:

Me: In fact, you screwed up Christmas travel with blizzards in the UK and Europe, killed a LOT of people in floods and volcanic eruptions and tropical storms and all kinds of ugly stuff. And there are still like 14 million people in my country who want to work and can't. Look - I didn't want to do this routine. Let's just think of one good memory and say so long.

2010: (sniff) Well... remember the miners in Chile? That was pretty cool.

Me: Yes. The miners. That was awesome! That's what I'll remember. Thanks, '10.

2010: Don't leave me!

(beep)

Me: Okay - I have someone on call-waiting. I gotta go...

2010: No! It's 2011, isn't it? I knew it! I'll kill you!

Me: It is 2011, and she's going to be good to me. Take care of yourself, '10. Goodbye.

2010: Wait! No!

(click)

[Maris] Messes Up Days 422-432 of Double-barrel Unemployment with Her Near-death Inexperience and Mistrust of Tamarins

2010-12-29T22:49:00.010-05:00

1/27/10 - 2/6/10

I know this isn't really about being unemployed, let alone double-barrel unemployment, but it's part of the story, so I have to include it. I fully intend to fictionalize it like, a lot, so that you, dear reader or readers, can get through it without succumbing to the overwhelming urge to pop your own eyeballs out with a plastic spork, puncture your eardrums with fondue forks (which you leave in) and use a Cub Scout pocket knife to carve "Ashlee Simpson is the most brilliant musical talent since David Bowie, and her alleged lip-synching incident on SNL was a meticulously-planned sabotage, flawlessly executed by the Duff sisters with the help of a handful of rogue, well-connected Lenny Bruce fans" on your shin - out of sheer boredom.

In brief (or boxers, but NOT boxer-briefs - seriously dudes - make a choice - either one or the other. some things simply can't be combined):

My long-term contractor job at the smallish office of the massive global company was going fine. I was thrilled with how much actual training these guys provided. The only real complaints, if any, centered around my hellish commute, which was certainly not their fault. Okay, there might have also been a hint of impending doom, as the mountain of work that was supposed to be ours was slower in ramping up than had been expected. Otherwise, things were fine. I also still very much assumed that [Maris], now approaching the third month of her layoff, would find a job before her severance and vacation pay ran out.

But [Maris] had gotten sick. Real sick. She's kind of a man when it comes to going to doctors, so when it took no arm-twisting to get her to visit one, I knew it was bad. Remember the H1N1 swine flu? From October 2009, well into 2010, it was like the second coming of the black plague. People were fighting over the vaccine. It was being smuggled in from Canada in boxes of frozen back bacon. You had to be over 100 and have influenza zombie bites to even get on the waiting list for the H1N1 shots around here.

Guess what she had? "Probably the swine flu," said the guy who went to school for 25 years so that he can bill Aetna $400 an hour to make guesses about why his patients are suffering. It's really bad. We know, because the media won't shut up about it. So we wait it out. It gets worse. We call Doctor Swine Flu back. "Yeah, it's rough. Hang in there." I don't know much about fevers, but I'm pretty sure people aren't supposed to bounce from 105 to 94 and back up to 104 within a few hours. I've watched my soul mate, my raison d'être, my partner in snark, my joy, my fellow criticizing-everybody-and-everything muppet in the theater balcony of life, get sicker and sicker and sicker long enough. Off we go at nearly midnight on January 28, to the shiny new emergency room place mercifully-close to our house.

Guess what she didn't have?

Yep. Not only did she not have the swine flu, but she had rather no flu of any kind. She was, however, nearly in something called septic shock. It sounds smelly, but it's not. It's bad, though. I've been in emergency rooms several times throughout my life, and I've always been taken aback at how unlike TV ERs they are. No one is ever running or shouting or doing CPR or cracking anyone's chest open to massage a heart back to life, and I have yet to witness any Young Doctors In Love. This is precisely why I found all the scurrying about, intensely-hushed consultations and phone calls to Other Doctors so alarming. Apparently, we had sat there letting [Maris] get dangerously close to very serious trouble, with a lot more potential for death than I care to think about now. Who knew? The guy said "swine flu!"

They took her from the Upcounty Emergency Center to the hospital ICU (a 12-minute, $1,000 ride) around dawn on Friday the 29th - running red lights and everything! I followed them there, and arrived about 2 1/2 minutes after them, but then things got all Joe-y. I didn't think I should park in the small lot outside the ER, knowing that she would only be passing through there en route to wherever the ICU was. I headed into the first garage I found, which chose to inform me of its hospital-staff-only-ness by way of the little crossing gate thingy that sat there in the cold refusing to move for anyone not in possession of a hospital staff key-card thingy (while actual hospital staff sit angrily behind you, late for their critical life-saving shifts) -- instead of using the antiquated but reliable "Don't go this way" sign method of communication.

Embarrassed and frustrated, I found one lot or garage in which I didn't belong after another, until finally giving up and parking in the main, front, expensive visitor lot near the hotel-like main entrance to the hospital. This was, of course, a mile and a half from the ICU and [Maris]'s room. By the time I found her, she was fully recovered, had a new perm and a kicky new wardrobe and had divorced me in absentia, remarried and given birth to two lovely little girls, Arielle and Alexandra. Arielle was asleep in the guest chair and Alexandra, now almost five, was showing [Maris] the finger paint Golden Lion Tamarin she had made in preschool the day before. When my now-healthy, now-ex-wife saw me, she took an exaggerated look at the room clock and gave me the "it's about time" face.

"Get me out of here before I am forced to break into the third-floor pharmacy and take all the vicodin they have. Sweetie."

I gave her the "what about them?" face nodding at the two minors.

"They'll be fine. There are toys and coloring books out in the Evergreen Lounge. Let's go. There's a blizzard coming, and I think 'Archer' is new, tonight."

"Okay, but we're going to need a new car. We will never, ever find mine."

There. That's the story of [Maris] almost, but not, dying. Neat, huh? Sure, I left out the odd detail here and there - a couple of which are actually kind of exciting and bloody (have you ever seen a doctor try to get a central-line IV into the neck of a patient with invisible veins?) - but you get the idea. She lived! I still had my job at the end of it! The many thousands of dollars it would cost us, after insurance, would be spread out over a long, long time - and would obviously be totally worth it. Life would march on, and we'd be there.

With all the stolen vicodin we could stuff into our coat pockets.

It's All Fun And Games Until Someone Gets His Neck Bitten Open By An Undead Neighbor

2010-12-20T20:42:00.003-05:00

Hello, my wonderful and loyal reader or readers! Today, I am feeling an overwhelming need to post some drivel here. Unfortunately, I'm also feeling just oh so lazy. Well, not as much lazy as just too busy. So, remember that little NaNoWriMo novel I wrote in November? "Worcestershire In The Embalming Fluid!" Here's another tiny taste, lovingly extracted from an early chapter, long before the main character (or the author, for that matter) has any clue as to what is happening back home...

* * *

Two days later, as they left Magens Bay in St. Thomas, Bill amused himself for an hour by playing with his old AM/FM Walkman. Thanks to a phenomenon called "atmospheric skip," he was able to tune in the all-news WTOP from Washington, DC. He chuckled as Lisa Baden reported on the horrid traffic on the American Legion Bridge, Doug Hill warned of the coming of the first frost of the season and both of them did their best to tolerate the utter inanity of Mike Moss and Bruce Alan. Today, like most days, they were howling with exaggerated laughter at the slightest provocation - intentional or otherwise - by their supporting cast of imbeciles. Kristi King was excitedly, amateurishly "reporting" on the unspeakably alarming outbreak of "some kind of rabies-like disease" among the squirrel population of the Annapolis-Baltimore-Washington region. Speaking to her listeners as if reading a storybook to a roomful of four-year olds, she attempted to explain that similar outbreaks were being reported in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, and that the Centers for Disease Control was investigating. No - not funny, per se, but Mike and Bruce thought it the most side-splittingly hilarious thing they had ever heard in their lives, ever. "Squirrels biting each other - HOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO..." Just as Bill's Walkman was letting go of the signal, he heard Ms. King mention, almost as an afterthought, that at least two people had been bitten in our region, and that one had died.

Bill put the Walkman into his backpack of electronics. (Well?) woofed Doug, returning to the deck from his doggie bed below.

"I got WTOP from home, buddy! I know, right! It's weird to hear their voices down here, looking at St. Thomas. Sounds like there's something wrong with the squirrels, back home." he explained.

"Bark! (Squirrels!) Doug's tail waved enthusiastically.

"Man - I'll bet you miss the squirrels. I hadn't even thought of that, dude. Well, maybe we can hit a couple of nice beaches along the leeward islands, and you can chase some birds or children or something." Bill said, patting Doug's head.

Doug woofed appreciatively.

"Would you like that, Dougie? You wanna go to the beach? You wanna go herd some children and chase sandpipers and run around and bark and jump in the water and (sniff, sniff) ugh - maybe have a real bath someplace, so you look good for the girl beach dogs. And so you don't smell quite so much like a sewer. Sound good? What do you think, buddy!"

Doug barked his approval.

* * *

There. Now I feel like I wrote something tonight. Everybody wins! And no, you may NOT have those six minutes back. Sorry. That's life. I do have a couple of things cooking, but at least one of them is not fun or the slightest bit funny, and that stuff is always hard for me to get up for. But I'll try.

Back soon, but possibly not before Christmas. So, Merry Christmas, reader! Or readers! Peace...

Nothing Says Christmas

2010-12-13T19:29:00.005-05:00

Disclaimer #1: I am not one of those Christmas Nazis who gets all bent out of shape at each and every "Happy Holidays" he hears. I am, however, someone who finds the whole issue simply fraught with opportunities to tear others down.

In the words of the funniest stand-up comic working today (Brian Regan),

"I don't want to step on anyone's beliefs, but well,
here we go..."

So, what's wrong with "Happy Holidays?" Is it an insult to the entire global Christian Faith every time that phrase is uttered by a Wal-Mart greeter or Channel 7 announcer? Is it a big middle finger aimed at the baby in the manger, whose birth we are meant to be celebrating this month? Is Jesus sitting around Heaven, playing "Rock Band" with Father and Holy Spirit (Holy Spirit on drums, by the way), and he feels a disturbance in The Force and gasps, "Did you hear that, Dad? That little heathen just said 'happy holidays' to his customer!!" The Lord stomps a thunderous foot and bellows "Who cares, Son? You're messing up 'Love In An Elevator! Focus, Boy!" Holy Spirit doesn't miss a beat, of course, 'cause that dude is just made of rhythm.

Again, I don't care that much, but here are some problems with getting one's knickers all in a twist over "happy holidays." First, there are other holidays. Sure, one of them was invented in the 1960s and one is considered a relatively minor celebration of an ancient military victory and temple re-dedication, one is astronomical and important only to Druids and meteorologists, but there are several "holidays," so chill, brethren. Oh, and even if you drop Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice from the equation (which you would, wouldn't you?), you've still got the relatively innocuous New Year's, so that poor idiot on WTOP droning "happy holidays" at us, could simply mean "Happy Christmas and New Year," so chill.

Now, I get that the setting for most utterances of "happy holidays" is generally a store or a commercial, and that most gift-buying is being done in preparation for Christmas observance, but if you're truly focused on the birth of a savior, what are you doing fighting with each other and spending the ten percent of your income you're supposed to have tithed on giant trunk-loads of gifts? Because your book mentions Wise Men bearing gifts for the Newborn King? Really? One of those "kings" brought Him gold, but the other two presented bags of crappy spices no newborn should be around. Plus, they gave their gifts to Him. What greedy little priest decided that should translate into giving stuff to each other on his birthday every year, forever?

And as long as we're going to talk about Jesus' birthday, we have to acknowledge the fact that no one is really sure what DAY it is (or even what year, for that matter). If you want to get all solemn and anti-happy-holidays and anti-commercialism about it, you need to spend about half the year "celebrating His birth," because there must be 180 different stories and theories as to just what damn day it is in the first place. ("Dad! That guy just said my birthday might not be December 25! SMITE HIM!!" and The Lord spake, saying "This is my son, in whom I am well pleased, but if he messes up the intro to 'Ironman' one more time, I swear to me I'm going to turn Buddhist!")

Again - I don't really care if you want to say "happy holidays" to me, or exchange gifts with me, or just toast to a better whatever-year-it's-gonna-be with me on 12/31. Just bear in mind the silliness of getting all uptight about "accuracy" here. Most Americans still celebrate His birth, and they do it on December 25. That's cool. I enjoy it, too. I give it some thought around May 20th as well, since that might be His birthday. I simply see hypocrisy in getting all pissy over the details. I should also point out that going out of your way to take "Christmas" out of everything you say in December is just as stupid as insisting on the opposite.

You know what really says Christmas to me? Cards. Specifically, cards that are nothing but a photograph of you and your girlfriend in front of Victoria Falls, or the Eiffel Tower or some tropical paradise. "Merry Christmas - Look where WE went and you didn't!" And nothing says Christmas more than a picture of your children "In honor of the anniversary of the birth of our Lord and Savior, feast your eyes upon our wondrous progeny!" DISCLAIMER #2 - I have many friends and loved ones who do this, and it's fine. You know why? Because none of them are those hell-bent, you-better-say-Christmas-and-make-every-minute-of-December-about-the-Christ people. I love seeing pictures of your kids. Look how big they're getting etc.. It just has nothing to do with Christmas. And no, it is not about family, if you're going to be all Crusaderish about it.

Which, thank Flying Spaghetti Monster, you're not. That's why I love you! (Jesus: "Dad! Holy Spirit! Did you hear who that guy thanked instead of us? He's a non-believer! Get him!!" God: "That's it, son! Gimme that guitar! You're not playing with us anymore. Go play with the iPad I gave you last You-mas!")

Happy Holi-- (ahem, sorry) MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Days 336-365 of Double-barrel Unemployment: A Little Novel and A Scary Preview

2010-12-09T19:39:00.009-05:00

Welcome back, my friends, to the show you know you wish would end...

Days 336 through 365, collectively known as November 2009, of my latest (and please let it be my last) trip through the rainy woods of unemployment were some of the hardest and best of that whole first year. It started with a challenge, and ended with success, good news and an even greater challenge, but no zombies whatsoever.

The challenge, as prescribed, sponsored and professionally encouraged by National Novel Writing Month http://www.nanowrimo.org, was to write a novel of at least 50,000 words in 30 days. Now I know 50,000 words is a very short novel - a novella, really - but it's still tough for a first-timer to crank out in 30 days. I cheated a little by basing it loosely on real people and less loosely on real events from my kidhood, but it was still a lot of work - even for an unemployed layabout.

I knew, I KNEW that committing to this project would undoubtedly result in my landing job interviews and quite probably an offer, before the month was over. I was right. The first two weeks flew by, with words piling up like Tetris pieces on crack. I was still applying to several jobs every day, but because I had long-since given up on finding a good one, it was taking up less and less of my time. I was doing it all willy-nilly style. (I might lose friends for using "willy-nilly" in a sentence in public, but oh well - I'm feelin' bold!) Anyway - still working on finding a job and still being the most awesome house-husband ever (I had gotten really, really good at all that stuff), and occasionally like, grooming and stuff, I cranked out 30,000 words in about the first 13 days. I even kind of liked bits of what was coming out. I know! Weird.

BUT... My beloved [Maris]'s own Vortex of Doom was continuing to spiral farther and farther from her, and it looked as though she'd be out of a job just after January 1st - yes, just after they took away all the accrued vacation days she'd been unable to use for years. So, keep writing, writer man, but get a job! One of us out of work is survivable for a while, but not both of us at once. Ick. Despite what I had heard some Congress "people" saying on the news, I did NOT like being unemployed, so yeah - I worked at becoming re-employed and I wrote my little novel. Still, I had the nagging feeling that my story needed a zombie or two.

SO... (dingdingding!) Phone! It's a recruiter from Manpower Professional, and they have a long-term contract position for which I am a great fit. Can I go meet the client on Thursday? Yep! The client, a smallish office of a massive global company, is way out the miserable Dulles toll road - a hellish commute from Germantown, to be sure - but who cares! Good money! Challenging work! A one- to three-year project! I came home from the interview and cranked out another quick 3,000 words of novel-ish drivel, fully expecting to get the job.

Friday, November 20, 2009 (Day 355)

[Maris] called from work before I was up, asking if I could come downtown and bring her and all of her stuff home. She would not be a part of the impending transition from Bad to Worse at her Vortex of Doom. We were surprised, as laying her off now instead of in January cost the company more in accrued vacation than they would have spent keeping her around until then, but whatever. Much as I have felt more than once with my many layings-off, once the initial shock and goodbyes-induced trauma wore off, [Maris] was thrilled to be off of that ship of fools. However, that feeling was going to be short-lived with both of us out of work at the same time.

While I was getting ready to go get my newly-unemployed wife, the phone rang. I let the machine get it, and on my way out the door I heard the Manpower Pro recruiter, asking me to give him a call. I called him from the car. I got the job. Massive sighs of relief all around, but as a couple, it was still a huge net loss of income on the day.

Just those ten minutes of double-barrel unemployment were enough to scare me into leaping at the chance to work anywhere, for any money, doing (almost) anything. I didn't even mind losing a day of writing to attend the agency's orientation/forms-signing at their far-away office, or the half-day for drug testing; I just kept cranking out the drivel and braced for a new workplace and a new job to master. I was also really confident that it wouldn't take [Maris] nearly as long to find a replacement job as it had taken me, regardless of the market, which was now fully submerged in sewage. She's just a lot more employable than I am.

So, we took a deep breath, went to Dogfish Head, then to the Patron Silver store, then the limes store, and I finished my little book. There were no zombies in sight, but I did it. I wrote a novella and found a job. Yay, me. I'd be making decent money, and even if the job turned out to be terrible, it's always preferable to search for another job when you already have one. Right? And [Maris] would be working again before her severance and vacation time was up. Right?

RIGHT???
Yeah. Stay tuned...

What I Should Be Doing Is Something Else

2010-12-02T20:50:00.006-05:00

Hi!

I'm back! In more ways than one, actually. I have plenty more Double-barrel Unemployment to cover (I hadn't even gotten to the part when it officially became double-barrel, yet!), but first... Where I've been. Who am I kidding? Any one of the half-dozen of you who read this drivel already know precisely where I've been for the past month. I got a nice new job with nice people performing nice work for a really nice cause. Not great money, but seriously, the mission (it's a non-profit) and the commute (outrageously close to home) more than make up for that.

Between starting the new job and writing a 50,730-word zombie novella in 29 days, I've been neglecting pretty much everything else in life. What I should be doing right now is taking down -ahem- HALLOWEEN decorations. I should be cleaning this shamefully dirty house. I should be making the grocery list, or working out, or sleeping, or catching up with my tiny group of wholly-inappropriate friends, or packing that piece-of-crap humidifier up and returning it to Sharper Image (it is really bad), or doing laundry or updating my LinkedIn profile and/or résumé - you know, something useful. But no. I'm doing this. Because I love to type stuff and then read it to [Maris] later. Maybe I'll be productive this week-end. Yeah. Maybe.

Hey - who wants to read an excerpt from my little book, "Worcestershire In The Embalming Fluid?" ALL of you do? Well - okay, then. Here goes. (and who here gets that title?)

* * *

"Right on schedule, at ten o'clock Bill was met by the guys from Enterprise, and he quickly crossed "Return Car" off his list. That left only the newly-scrawled "Christen Boat So Dad Will Chill" and "Get Hell Out Of Dodge."

Bill, having declared that the cheap bottle would be sacrificed for the occasion, held the André aloft. "I christen this boat, The Good Ship--"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Bill!" Frank interrupted. "Talk directly to the vessel. Tell her what you're naming her and say a blessing and be serious for just a minute."

"Yeah, dude. It's bad luck if you don't do it right. Don't tempt fate or Ursula from 'The Little Mermaid' will kill you in her animated whirlpool!" Bart concurred.

Bill sighed, put his hand on the port side railing and faced his boat. "In front of friends and family, under this perfect September sky, I christen thee Sedna The Dock O' The Bay, and I pray that God's blessing be upon you and all who upon you sail. May your seas be smooth, your rudder be true and your captain wise." With that, and with his loved ones wondering who this person was and where he had come from because he was not the Bill they knew, he brought the bottle down hard across the railing, utterly failing to shatter it but exciting his dog to no end. A second, harder whack took care of the bottle, eliciting a cheer from friends and Fords - and even a few fellow boaters who had gathered to offer their best wishes. The railing had a noticeable dent, at this point.

"Very nice, Bill." said his mother."

* * *

I know - it's not a very exciting part of the story. Maybe I'll post a more zombie-ish bit later. If anyone asks for more.

Back to some tales of DB Unemployed woe and whatnot, next time. Stay tuned - and thanks for reading my drivel!

Day 699 of Double-barrel Unemployment: A Humane End

2010-10-29T23:32:00.003-04:00

Friday October 29, 2010
(today)

Well gang, what can I say? The Double-barrel Unemployment stories will continue for a bit, but it will quickly become difficult for me to remember the bitterness and desperation, as I have found a job. Looks like a good one, too.

Seven HUNDRED days after my departure from Vortex of Doom Communications, I will start being indispensable for a new employer. I am nearly speechless with joy, with relief, with hope.

Don't worry -- I still have snark to spare, and I don't plan on slowing down here or on the photo blog. Plus, no matter how good the gig turns out to be, work is work, and I'm sure I'll have plenty to prattle on about - like it or not.

See you on the other side, suckas!

The Lost Revelation

2010-10-26T22:29:00.005-04:00

So, what happened was...

The year was 1986. Having been left behind by friends and girlfriends who had gone off to Real College, I was living with the 'rents, attending Montgomery Community College and working at Erol's Video Club in Rockville, MD. I was working open-to-close (we called it "AFD") at the tiny Store #6 on a Saturday in March. On the 30-minute parole I called break time, I scampered over to Yekta Deli for my lunch of Funyons and Cherry Coke. This routine was relatively new, thanks to the closure of the Chesapeake Bay Seafood House, where I used to annoy the host/hostess by coming in only for to-go hush puppies.

It was when I reached into the fridge and pulled out my 16oz glass(!) bottle of (NEW!) Cherry Coke that it happened.

This post is going to be painfully short, thanks to the fleeting nature of what happened to me that afternoon. It's small and simple, yet unfathomably massive and complex. I had a spontaneous, overwhelmingly powerful revelation. Yeah - that kind of revelation.

There's a scene in one of Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide" books, in which an unremarkable young woman in an unremarkable café comes up with the simple, brilliant, perfect answer to the "ultimate question of life, the universe and everything," a notion that transcends religion and human existence as a whole -- only to be vaporized with the earth moments later to make way for a hyperspace bypass. That's how profound my revelation was. It was THE answer. It was as simple as "love each other," but way bigger, more complete. It was deep and clear and powerful and it shook me to my core.

I literally staggered to the cashier. I remember with photographic clarity the register's display of $2.65, and the black turtleneck the owner/manager was wearing. What I don't remember - at all - is the revelation itself.

I KNOW! How cruel is that? As suddenly as it had manifested itself, it vanished. The only thing sadder than the desperate deflation I felt at that moment is the fact that I am not making any of this up - including the fact that I actually went back into the deli a minute later and retraced my steps, up to and including going back to the soda refrigerator and chips rack and purchasing another Cherry Coke and Funyons. I was disconsolate for the rest of that weekend, and I couldn't articulate to anyone exactly why.

I had had it. It was simple and right and true and universe-changing, and it was in my head. And it was gone. Forever.

I have no doubt whatsoever that, had I been able to get to a piece of paper - or even a friendly ear - before that notion had left me, I would have been instrumental in the salvation of not only all humankind, but the planet itself. Such is the depth of my frustration and regret.

I had it. For just a second.

And I lost it.

It's still out there somewhere. I know that the odds against me finding it a second time are just silly, but someone else - maybe someone with a better short-term memory - can find it. I hope they do so. Like, soon.

Day 277 of Double-barrel Unemployment: Whaddaya Know - The Light At The End Of The Tunnel Really IS A Train!

2010-10-18T16:36:00.008-04:00

SEPTEMBER 3rd, 2009
(A Thursday)

Okay, so I promised myself I wouldn't do this again. Ever, ever, ever - as I recall. In March of 1994, when for the last time I stepped out of the Suncoast Motion Picture Company store where I had paced the floor as a miserable slumming assistant manager, when I for the last time hiked up my pant legs and patted myself down to prove to my boss that I wasn't stealing (we had to do this at the end of every shift - I kid you not), when I handed my keys to said boss and smiled "See you in hell, asshole!"* -- I promised myself - aloud - that I would never work another day of retail for the rest of my life, so help me FSM. I promised.

Well, desperate times and whatnot. I hadn't had an interview in over five months. Also, I rationalized that this hardly counted as breaking that promise. My friend Godfrey Ozzenbarq III (not his real name), himself a frequently laid-off and fed-up-with-the-grind kind of guy, had been managing a small model railroad hobby shop for almost a year, and he needed an extra body in the store for a few shifts. Godfrey (not his real name) and I are railfans, so spending a couple of days surrounded by model trains and the retired men who buy them, working with my old friend again for the first time since about 1991 seemed to not really count as breaking my promise. The pay was negligible and it was only for a few shifts, plus it got me out of the house, so there I was. In retail. Again.

I have to admit, working with a product that I really like went a long way toward transforming a retail job from unbearable to downright pleasant. That wasn't the only factor, though (as I recall, I loved movies when I worked at Suncoast). Not being in a sunless cave in a snooty upscale mall, not being forced to work with bad people, not having to frisk myself (unless I really wanted to!) before being allowed to leave the premises, and selling fun stuff to an odd mix of fun customers made this hardly seem like work at all. I offered to let them pay me in trains, but a lot of those things are extremely expensive, and I only had enough hours to have earned a battery-operated "Thomas" train (batteries not included) and some plastic N-scale cows and trees, so I took a check instead.

Sadly, this "gig" lasted only a few days, but it was refreshing to see that not all retail is as I remembered it from my past life. It's still a low-paying field with long hours and nights and holidays and weekends and so on, but given the right type of product, it can be fun.

I was right back to work with the job boards and recruiters the next day. Someday, when he wins that big-but-not-big-enough-to-just-retire-to-the-Caribbean lottery, Godfrey (not his real name) is probably going to buy that store from his friend. I will totally work there.

Next up... Something Else!
* - I didn't really say that, but to this day, I'm not sure how I managed to resist.

Day 254 of Double-barrel Unemployment: Lie To Me (about something other than flying cars)

2010-10-08T21:13:00.013-04:00

August 11, 2009
(a Tuesday)

With no job prospects in sight, my unemployment switching from "regular" benefits to the double-secret probation that was Obama's "Emergency Unemployment Compensation" and the summer dragging on for me and killing [Maris] (now in full-on Vortex of Doom mode at her job), I re-watched the masterfully subversive "Hamlet 2," one of our favorite pieces of escapist ridiculousness. I cranked up the volume, not just for the best musical numbers since "Sweet Transvestite" and "The Time Warp," but also for bits of dialogue like "I could clean your rain gutters." "We have no rain gutters." "You're a LIAR - everybody has rain gutters!!"

[Maris] and I have incorporated that last line into our everyday vernacular. Upon hearing it this time, the desperation behind the word "liar" had a deeper resonance than usual. I started thinking everyone was lying - and not just about their rain gutters. I received one of my daily emails, informing me that I had "matched new jobs" and I promptly - alone in my house - barked "you're a LIAR - I didn't match anything!"

I was right. I opened the email to find a couple of dozen job postings, ranging from "I guess I can see why this one came up, maybe..." to "What words on my résumé led your software to believe that I should be a cyber security specialist with a top-secret clearance???" Every day this happens. And yes - I do know what I'm doing with my search terms.

It made me think of all the lies that surround me every day - many of which have been around since I was a child. Thinking back to this muggy August afternoon, I'm having trouble remembering all the lies and the lying liars who lie them, but I can wing it. It's getting late and the Braves are trailing :) so, briefly...

"We're converting to the metric system." Really! They taught us meters and liters and kilograms like it was an emergency. Hurry, children! If you haven't mastered this material by next Monday, you won't be able to measure a THING, ever again! I lost sleep over this stuff, and I'm still not really ready for the big switch. I know it's coming, though - any minute now.

"Breaking up AT&T and allowing more telecommunications providers to compete for your business will lead to lower prices for the consumer." Yeah - it didn't. Oh, these Baby Bells and their descendants went out of their way to make sure we couldn't compare their "prices" to anyone else's, but no, we did not pay less. This goes double for competition among cable TV providers.

Now, I am NOT going to start yammering about flying cars. Nobody promised me a flying car. EVER. I saw them in cartoons and maybe "Logan's Run" or the first "Star Wars" movie - although really, those just flew a couple of feet above the ground. But no one ever said "when you grow up, there will be flying cars" to me. So let's just get over this one. I'm talking to you, douchey Coke Zero guy.

What they did promise, however, was that technological advances would make our lives simpler and easier than those of our parents. "Computers will be in every home and will save everyone massive amounts of time," they said. Okay, so technology has made LOTS of stuff better. I won't try to say that it hasn't. BUT -- for most of us, it has done the opposite of making our lives simpler and easier, and we're not saving any time at all. Sitting here typing this drivel (mainly to share with a handful of Facebook friends), right next to my wife (who is using her laptop to play mah-jongg and listen to SiriusXM radio), I am certainly not SAVING time; I'm wasting it. We all are. Tons of it. And it's not just blogs and Facebook and games. I spend ridiculous amounts of time just trying to get this stuff to work at all. When it works, it's great, but I think we can count the "computers will make life easier" promise as officially broken.

Politicians. Yeah. Don't even need to cover this, do I? I will say - they used to at least fake it. They used to just twist the facts and deliver convincing half-truths. Now, they're not even trying. "Obama is going to turn this country into Stalin's Soviet Union." "Muslims are plotting to take over the country." "Republicans are going to deport ALL immigrants." "All the jobs lost and businesses closed in Maryland are due exclusively to the actions of Governor O'Malley." "If the Republicans take over, they're going to not only repeal Health Care reform, but they're also going to reverse the Civil Rights Act and send women back to the kitchen and reform our constitution so that it reads like the Bible, repealing all rights except gun ownership (men only, of course)." Not even trying. Lying right to our faces. Both parties are telling us their opponent's plan is going to destroy the world. They're both lying liars who lie. This is not funny. Moving on...

Commercials. I used to be skeptical of their claims. Now, thanks in part to Steve Coogan's brilliantly blurted "You're a LIAR..." line, I have achieved a certain peace with advertising. I don't care what they claim; I know - I KNOW - it's just a bold-faced lie. Oh sure, sometimes I still catch myself bellowing "how stupid do you think we ARE!" at the TV, but in general I'm okay with it. If I assume they're ALL lying, then it doesn't much matter whose ad I listen to, or if I bother listening at all.

One more (for now): Employers. This could be a whole separate post. OR... we could just include it in the advertising bit above. It's not a fun place to work. It's not fun at all. If it was, they wouldn't have to pay you to be there, would they? "A great place to work." Really? Work is for chumps. Yes, as you might have guessed, I'm losing momentum. Quickly. We'll revisit the lies of prospective employers, as well as those of job candidates (hey - I said EVERYbody lies, right?) in some later posts. Wait 'til you see some of the actual job board listings/descriptions I have saved up...

Latré!
-J

Day 220 of Double-barrel Unemployment: Joe Is Manifest, Part Deux

2010-09-28T15:09:00.008-04:00

[Joining the unedited hand-scribbled "Manifesto" I somehow spewed forth about 14 months ago, already in progress. Okay, it's not completely unedited anymore; I just couldn't stand the spelling/grammatical errors. It is otherwise still as-scratched upon the paper...]

ARTICLE III - BELIEFS:

It is my belief that the descriptions of the physical world and the universe in which resides, as documented in the Holy Bible and other sacred human-scribed texts - and the ones found in books like Carl Sagan's Cosmos - are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Oh wait - yes they are.

It is my belief that Life in the aggregate has no purpose, and we'd all enjoy it a lot more if we'd just accept that and move on. Also, since all we really have in this unfathomably massive universe is each other, it's probably in our best interest as a species to learn to either get along with or ignore each other a lot better than we do now.

I believe that if the prequel to "Surf II - The End of The Trilogy" had been made, the Cold War would have ended six years earlier and all the recessions that have occurred since the mid-1980s (including the Great Recession of 2008-2009) would not have happened. Also, Eddie Deezen would have two Oscars by now.

I believe -- no, I KNOW -- that Barbara Bush ran this country from before Reagan left office until January of 2009, and that her absence is the sole cause of the difficulties President Obama is currently experiencing.

I believe that Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" is actually about Bob Keeshan. Isn't it obvious? Listen to the lyrics, man! As long as we're on the topic of captains, I also believe that the Captain and Tennille deliberately lowered their profile, and we should all just stop harassing them and camping outside their homes and holding candlelight vigils trying to convince them to come back to us. It's over. LEAVE CAPTAIN AND TENNILLE ALONE!!! LEAVE THEM ALONE!!!!

It is my belief that we as a nation have an obligation to take care of our poor. If I should ever become wealthy, I reserve the right to stop believing that.

I believe any man who installs a 4-trumpet railroad locomotive horn on his car (despite that having long been a fantasy of my own) should have his car confiscated and donated to Melwood. As compensation, the "man" will receive a free one-year supply of Enzyte.

Article FOUR, which I'm totally stealing from an awesome comic named Charlie, regards changes we must make to our laws governing the use of automobiles. Upon the adoption of this sweet Manifesto For Betterment Of Everything, parking fines will be levied on a sliding scale, based on several factors, including but not limited to the cost and condition of the offending vehicle, the severity of the offense and the presence of a douchey vanity license plate.

If you illegally park your Cadillac Escalade, Lexus LX470 or Hummer H2 (or H3) in the fire lane of your local strip mall while you "just run in real quick" to drop off your dry-cleaning, your fine will be $5,000. If there is at least one open legal parking space within 150 feet of said dry-cleaner's front door, that fine increases to $7,500. If you appeal the citation in court, your argument will not be heard and your fine will increase to $10,000.

If you park your 2001 Ford Taurus in front of a fire hydrant, your fine will be $500. Shut up and take it out of your kids' college fund.

Parking your 1991 Ford Escort (or Chevy Cavalier) illegally will earn you a sternly-worded warning and a voucher for one course in financial planning at your local community college. If your vehicle has at least one fender painted a color different from that of the rest of the body, you will also be given $10 in McDonald's gift certificates and a six-pack of Milwaukee's Best Light. If said fender is primer grey, you will also be given a Tony Robbins self-help book and a VHS copy of "Erin Brockovich."

If you park your 1979 Honda Civic where you shouldn't, your car will be towed away and replaced with one of those confiscated cars with the train horns on top. You're welcome.

If your illegally-parked car is a 1974 Pinto or Chevette, you'll get the train-horn car PLUS a big hug from your choice of either Bradley Cooper or Katy Perry. Again, you're welcome.

Oh, and the vanity plate thing. Anything desperately self-aggrandizing, like IROK or WELHNG or BTRTHNU = death by firing squad.

[TBCASLDWIAOATB (to be continued at some later date when I am once again this bored)...]

Manifest Destiny!!

Day 220 of Double-Barrel Unemployment: Joe's Manifest? Oh.

2010-09-24T21:23:00.008-04:00

Wednesday July 19, 2009

I was looking through my drivel-y scribblings today, trolling for anything interesting to tell you guys about my Unemployed Summer (the first of two, so far), when I happened upon this handwritten piece, buried in the middle of a half-spent note pad. I was going to clean it up, but I'm kind of thinking it should just be presented as scribbled. I already know what your first question will be, and the answer is no. I was not under the influence of alcohol when I wrote this. At most, I might have had a wee bit of a Vicodin "hangover," having experienced a wicked bursitis flare-up that morning. Mostly what I was doing was keeping myself busy while the washing machine repair guy banged and cursed away in the next room, utterly failing to repair our washing machine.

MANIFEST FOR AN EARTH LESS SUCKY

Me The Person, in a questing for more perfect living on this huge and yet tiny plenet, hereby declares, affirms and explains his manifesto of corrections that need to be made. Me The Person and not We The People is because Me seems to be the only person not either standing irately in Towne Halle "Meeting," clutching their MediCare cards and yet somehow shouting "keep yer govt. off my medicare!" at some poor overwelmed senator - or standing around outside the Apollo Theater clutching a candle and a copy of "Thriller." Anyway, earth is a crumbling cesspool of crooks, killers, kardashians and people famous (and rich as hell) for no discernible reason - oh and that waste-o-carbon that's famous and getting richer by the minute for her amazing, um, talent at having a litter of EIGHT babies at once.

So. I have waitd long enough. Here is my solemn affirmation of what Flying Spaghetti Monster Himself has ordained me to make right in all the castes and segments and tiers of the humans on the 3rd planet out from the star we call The SUn...

Prix Amble: We have already figured out that God is either dead, long-gone or just not interested in what's happening here. Some ofus are just not capable of dealing with such a multiple-choice question, having long-since given up and decided to put "C" for every question. Yeah -- God/Allah/Shiva/Krishna/VIshnu/Buddha/FSM/Stimpy or Ra or whoever "takes" the lives of the good, the innocent, the people who beat video games without looking up cheat codes, and the otherwise righteous and/or infant . . . because he/she/it has some reason that we can't understand. Whoa. I just blacked out for a minute.

More importantly why can't [MASSIVE company] make a stupid washer/dryer that last more than 5 months??

Article ONe: No internet until you grow up and learn how to use it properly. It was invented for purposes like seeing free naked people without having to face the video store kid and for learning stuff and sending each other well-thought-out, grammaticly-correct, lovingly crafted electronic "letters," not for giving voice to everyone (nit-wits and geniuses as equals?) and making us think we need to be connected to strangers every minute of every day. So stop commenting on every inane "news" story you see online about what that "star" said about her ex-friend being a "total liar." This is you know what I mean and it's all because the governmnet is listening and spending all your tax dollars just to know what your doing, which is I'm willing to bet, NOTHING worth their knowing it. Article Two I forgot most of because washing machine guy is in my kitchen/laundry room (don't ask) CUSSING at my infernal clothes cleaning apparatus. Does he think i'm not here? Article Two is about not having political parties any more. OH YEAH - Hereby dissolved are the "democratic" and "republican" parties of the USA. One is evil and stupid and the other one is wicked and dumb. Oh, and no more of this everyone over 18 gets a vote nonsense. There will be an IQ test, (measuring smarts, not "education), and if you don't get over 100, so sorry no vote for you ha ha bye bye chicken make lousy housepet seeya. Yeah.

[There's more, but transcribing this chicken scratch is making my eyes hurt and it's not fun anymore. I think it gets better, but we'll just have to try looking at it again some other day. And no - I don't think I ever intended this to be the "manifesto" of a loony protester and/or criminal revolutionary. I think I thought it would be funny. Maybe Article Three holds promise...]

Days 162-195ish of Double-barrel Unemployment: Attack Of The Dark & Sticky Fog Of Sticky Black Darkness

2010-09-17T15:19:00.014-04:00

It was bound to happen, and happen it did, in mid-May 2009 - my sixth month of unemployment. I had not gotten a single call back, let alone any kind of interview, since late March. I saw it coming and was powerless to stop it. The Fog was descending from the sky.

By now I assume that any readers [ARE there any readers? Hello? Helloooooo??] out there who don't know me have at least gleaned that I'm a sarcastic and fairly negative person, so reading that I am prone to periodic tussles with The Fog should not come as any great shock.

This round was going to be ugly. I had been utilizing almost all the tools at my disposal to keep it at bay, but much like trying to convince the Vogons not to throw you off one of their ships, resistance is, ultimately, useless.

There was a lot of positive stuff in my life in the weeks leading up to the Fog Attack, which of course only served to make the Attack hurt even more. I had gotten really good at being the house-husband; everything was always clean and the fridge was stocked, etc.. Laundry, dry-cleaning, any and all types of shopping, home repairs, errands and more - all expertly handled by moi.

The Orioles and Nationals, while both still terrible, beat up on some teams they had no business beating (the Os beat the evil empire in the first game played at their new $1Billion stadium, and had the intestinal fortitude to do it a second time two days later).

The weather turned awesome, I got out to shoot trains, I sat outside and read, I sent out a bazillion résumés - some of them for what seemed like really good "fits." I wrote a little for the first time in ages. My photo/negative scanning was progressing well and I was having a blast posting to the ol' photo bloggy thing. I started jogging again for the first time in years, and when that jacked up my knees mercilessly, my disappointment and pain were nicely offset by a big fat prescription for Vicodin (possibly my favorite substance on the planet). [Maris] was beyond supportive and encouraging in all things, and it appeared that she had many more months before her company would go full-on Vortex of Doom on her. Life was really not that bad, despite the fruitless job search.

As anyone who has battled depression can tell you, none of that matters much. That's all happiness stuff. Depression is not sadness or unhappiness. To someone who has never been afflicted, this illness is hard to describe. Plus, it comes in all shapes and sizes, colors and styles. Technically, mine is not that bad, except when The Fog comes.

My brand of The Fog is like The Nothing, from "The Never-ending Story." It drapes itself over me like a heavy, cold, wet and slightly smelly blanket and devours any and all energy I may have had before its arrival. I become completely immobile. My body goes numb. No one and nothing can move me from this state. I become a zombie, only without the need, desire or ability to lurch about eating people's brains. You could drop a naked, giggling Deschanel in my lap, and I would feel nothing. I'd be well aware that I should be moved, and that would only frustrate me.

When The Fog is upon me, I can barely muster the motivation to maintain my daily life. I don't do anything. I know what's happening and I know it's not my fault, but that doesn't matter at all. It's like being underwater in a straight jacket; I am utterly, completely impotent to improve anything. I know I have to wait. I don't want to wait. I want to get up and work out and get a job and make [Maris] laugh and get a haircut and buy stuff and write the great American novel and kick some bad guy's ass and drive around with the top down and cut the grass and cook the best dinner ever and call my mom just to say hi. But I can't do anything. So I wait.

Usually, I wait for a week, maybe two. This time, I waited for a solid month. I posted pics on the photo blog, I mindlessly whiled days away on Facebook and TV and stared at headlines that normally would have pissed me off, and I slept. I slept. I slept some more. I got up some days, and sat outside and slept some more while bugs bit me. I don't get suicidal or anything; that would require a motivation and energy that I just don't have. I've been through this before, so I sat in a mental waiting room and pretended to read a 3-month old "ESPN Magazine" until my name was called.

When I finally hear it, it sounds like "Bambi."

"Piss off you antelope."

"Bambi. Get up."

"I'm not done with this article about what Michael Vick did to those dogs, and I was going to read 'Why no one gives a flying fuck about the fact that alex rodriguez cheated and did steroids for years - because he's a soul-sold-to-satan yankee now' after this."

Get up, Bambi. Bambi, GET UP!!"

"Look, Mr. Bambi's Father Voice -- I'm a fucking ZOMBIE. I will eat your little venison brain, man..."

"BAMBI!! GET UP!!!"

Day 143 of Double-barrel Unemployment: Sea-Don'ts & The Tough Budget Cuts

2010-09-09T19:03:00.010-04:00

Wednesday April 22, 2009

Another two weeks without a job, another generous payment of $720 (after taxes) from my beloved state of Maryland. I have learned over the years to prioritize my spending during layoffs, cutting out all but the barest essentials. Although until now I had never been out of work for more than two months, there's just no way of knowing how long a layoff will last, so you have to be really careful with your cash.

So, given that [Maris] was still bringing home a decent paycheck, but for who knew how much longer, and given that I was by this time almost five months removed from my final payment from the ol' Vortex of Doom, I knew I had to put some planned purchases on the back burner for a while.

The $2,000 tiki bar for our as yet nonexistent patio would obviously have to wait. It's a shame, too. Between the two of us, [Maris] and I have . . . hang on . . . (counting on fingers) . . . FIVE friends - two of whom we've actually seen in-person in the past year. Now, I know what you're thinking and the answer is no - we canNOT entertain without a tiki bar.

[Maris]'s birthday was coming up, but cuts in that budget were needed, too. In 2008, my friend Godfrey Ozzenbarq III (not his real name) and I took a road trip down to Duck, NC to get a special-ordered coconut cake from the awesome little old lady who makes the desserts for the equally awesome Red Sky Café. NOTE: Cool place with fine, inventive food and cocktails. Anyway, my enticement to Godfrey (again, not his real name) to accompany me on an 11-hour round trip for a birthday cake was that I would treat for lunch at Red Sky. Well, in 2009 my tiny emergency cash flow from the state was not going to allow THAT. So, with no offer of a free lunch, Godfrey (still not his real name but it's growing on him) said a pox on me and my stupid cake, and I had to go alone. Saved $20, though!

Also canceled was my planned trip to see Simple Minds at one of the myriad of very cool European summer music festivals. Nuts.

My eBay bid for a long-sought-after SIGNED Yothu Yindi tour poster, circa 1993? Withdrawn. Bidding was heading into the upper hundreds. :(

I would have to put off my hand-held espresso machine purchase, and hope that maybe Santa would consider it, come Christmastime. Guess it'll be another year before I try espresso. I hope it doesn't taste too much like coffee. Can't stand coffee.

No more recreational drugs or top-shelf liquor, for a while. Okay, well, much less, anyway. Okay! A little less. Alright, the same amount. But I watched for sales!

A new laptop, on which I hoped to write my first novel and with which I planned to scan and store thousands of photographs for my photo blog, launch my internet photography business and become gainfully self-employed... Well, that purchase occurred, but the bulk of that expenditure languishes to this day as a balance on my credit card, so it hasn't really had much of an impact on cash flow. Also, a quick note to the people responsible for the creation of (and failure to stop) Microsoft Vista: You are evil morons who should be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.

Also thrust to the burner in back: My $700 "Grimmace" costume, a $450 pair of Plexiglas platform pimp shoes with goldfish in them, the collected works of Mark Leyner, handwritten in crayon on that wide-ruled kindergarten paper, a jade chalice with the Tasmanian Devil etched into the inside of the bowl, the indoor Slip n' Slide ($55 at Target) and the electric (or maybe it was cobalt) blue leather assless chaps and matching cowboy hat I saw on Andy Bell of Erasure once.

What did I buy with this week's unemployment benefits payment? Well, grocery shopping took a cool hundred off the top, so all I was able to pick up this time around was the desperately-needed laser-guided robotic vacuum - $399.99 at Hammacher Schlemmer. I'm unemployed, but that's no reason to waste 20-plus minutes a week pushing some old-fashioned Hoover around our 900 square foot house. Am I right?

With what was left, I fell prey to H-S's little "customers who bought this product also purchased this" routine, and picked up a Children's Inflatable Sea-Doo for about $200. We have no pool, no pond or lake or river or stream or nearby beach - and no children - but you just never know when you're going to need one of these handy items. Right now, it's out back, full of ice, just waiting to be stocked with beverages. We're calling it our little yellow vinyl tiki bar, for now.

Remembering Camp Stupid

2010-09-03T15:34:00.009-04:00

Time for a little excerpt from my little NaNoWriMo novel. I hardly remember writing it, so it's making me chuckle. I hope it does the same for you...

For some kids, sixth-grade camp is five days and four nights of pure excitement, adventure and just generally wonderful memories that they look back on with warmth and fondness for the rest of their lives. They're away from home for four nights, a first for most eleven- and twelve-year olds. There are deer and woodland critters and deep, dark forests and rustic cabins and crafts and songs and campfires and all sorts of fun things to do and see. For these kids, those few days are just too great to describe when they get home.

I was not one of those kids. For me, Camp Seneca Falls [not its real name] was a prison for children, with strange wardens who made us sing about Jesus before they would let us eat. I'm sure it didn't help matters that we went in December, when even their warmest cabin was approximately forty degrees, but I swear, that place was wretched. I hated dressing and undressing with a bunch of kids, most of whom I didn't know at all, thanks to the fact that two different schools shared the camp for the week. I hardly slept. The food was simply cruel. Of the nineteen other boys in my cabin, I knew exactly two - Marty and Larry. Misery loves company, and they seemed pretty miserable, too. There. That's my highlight. Marty and Larry hated it, too.

Luckily, we were allowed to choose where we sat in the big dining hall, so Marty, Larry and I found a couple friends, and we wallowed together in our collective despair. Our leader in misery was Lewis, a quiet genius at odds with the beliefs of his huge Catholic family. Somehow, Lewis was well on his way down the Shining Taoist Path, or possibly headed for a life as an agnostic, or at the very least a strong believer in a clear separation between church and state, and he was rather put out by the coerced singing to Jesus for our food. At each meal, he changed the words to sarcastically express his distaste for the ritual.

"Oh, dear sweet Jesus on the cross, we thank you because they won't let us eat if we don't..."

or

"I'm singing, for my food, with a bunch of strangers. I'm confused. I know what grace is, but I've never been required to sing it and say 'Jesus' every third word, but they seem serious about not feeding us if we don't sing this song. I'd like some food, pleeease..."

or

"Dear precious Buddha on the mountain, I hope this Jesus song isn't offending you... We don't mean it - we're just hungry and these people are apparently running a little cult here in the woods..."

I gave serious consideration to faking an illness so that I could get sent home. I couldn't, though. Chicken, you know. As the week wore on, word spread about Lewis' sarcastic versions of the blessing, and he stepped up his little protest.

By the second-to-last night, he had graduated to:

"Oh, here we are again, Lord. I'm not even really hungry, but they are watching from the perimeter of the room and I'm already on thin ice, after what I said to the crafts lady when she asked why I made a popsicle stick Star of David when she had suggested a cross-- oh, we're done? Ahh-men!" We all laughed, and for a moment, camp sucked a little bit less.

At breakfast the next morning, we had kids from other tables asking if they could join us in "prayer." Lewis hadn't prepared anything, so we all simply sang "We Love Jesus" over and over, to the tune of the morning prayer song.

At our final lunch, Lewis gave us a copy of what he had written for the prayer, and he urged us all to join him. We passed his song around quickly and did our best to remember it. What we lacked in memorization, we made up for in enthusiasm.

"Dear Lord, please bless this holy lunch of the blessed redeemer. And if you can hear us, please send buses. We promise to be good for the rest of the year. For the rest of the year, Lord. For the rest of the year. If you'd just get us out of here, for the rest of the year." We were in unison by the end, and our hearty "Ahhh- mennnn!" definitely got some attention. We were clearly having way too much fun. One of the camp wardens glared at us for a long time, but no one said anything to us, and we were allowed to eat.

Throughout that lunch, Marty and I made as many copies as we could of some new lyrics Lewis had scribbled in his notebook for what he was calling "The Last Supper," and distributed them to the the ever-growing gang of Bad Children. It was the last night. What could they do, send us all home?

At dinner, there were so many kids packed together at our table, an outsider might have assumed we were all the best of friends and for the moment, I guess we were. We couldn't conceal our excitement. The kids at surrounding tables seemed to be watching us expectantly. At the sound of the warden's little "time to see how many times you can squeeze Jesus' name into a one-minute song or else you don't eat" bell, a hush fell over much of the big room.

"We come on the Sloop John B, Me grandfather and me, Around Nassau Town we did roam, Drinking all night, got into a fight. Well I feel so broke up, I want to go home...”

I realized then that the singing in the rest of the hall had trailed off, leaving just our table. We fed off each other's dedication to this thing we had started, and couldn't help but get even louder.

"So hoist up the John B's sail, See how the mainsail sets, Call for the captain ashore, Let me go home, Oh won't you let me go home, Let me go home, Yeah Yeah, let me go home, Well I feel so broke up, I want to go home."

Everyone stared at us. Our teacher looked for a moment as if he wanted to laugh, but frowned at us instead. The camp cult people glared daggers at us. Lewis cleared his throat. "Oh, yeah. Sorry." He then conducted us through a loud, heartfelt "Ahhh-MENNNNN..." We broke into spontaneous applause for ourselves and were thrilled to hear many kids throughout the room join us.

Okay, so camp had a couple of memorable moments, and that was one of them. The good news was that we were, in fact, allowed to eat. The bad news was that, after some investigation, it was determined that Lewis, Marty and I were the instigators of this uprising and needed to be punished. Our punishment: The three of us had to go from cabin to cabin just before lights-out and sing "Sloop John B" in its entirety. In our pajamas.

Man, I loved Camp Stupid.

Day 129 of Double-barrel Unemployment: Not NEARLY The Party That Most Days Are

2010-08-30T17:22:00.009-04:00

Wednesday April 8, 2009

I remember this day. I was still feeling a little discouraged about my job search. I know the advice contained in my rejection letter from a couple of weeks prior was constructive and well-intentioned and all; there was just so much of it. I had a lot to work on. Plus, I had not developed any good leads since that interview. The economy - even here in the supposedly recession-resistant DC area - was still in a foul state. Even my recruiter/headhunter contacts were starting to sound dour, and that's not good - these people tend to be extremely positive, almost like salesmen. There was a strong, chill wind blowing outside. Bleah.

BUT...

Not one, but two silver linings appeared and sent my day scampering in a better direction, that afternoon. First, I finally set up my photo blog http://www.photographs-by-joe.blogspot.com/ and completed the first little post. It felt good to do something somewhat creative. It still does. Very few people are looking, and I'm okay with that. In many ways, the photo blog and this blog are like talking to yourself in the car; very low-cost therapy.

The second instant day-improver came in the form of my bi-weekly Maryland Unemployment Insurance Benefits payment. This always makes me happy. As you may have heard in the news earlier this Summer, there are a lot of educated men and women in prestigious, high-level elected offices who believe that unemployment benefits payments to the jobless are a disincentive put any effort into finding work. A couple of these leaders went so far as to phrase it such that we unemployed people choose to remain unemployed; that we prefer these little payments to getting hired.

Well, I hate to disappoint my bleeding-heart liberal friends, but the above is SO TRUE!! I simply adore being jobless. Sure, the first couple of layoffs sent me scrambling to find new work as quickly as I could. As I recall, after that first one in 1995, I was so proud of myself for finding a new job before I received a single penny of unemployment benefits. What was I thinking??? I know better, now. By Day 129 of this layoff, I had come to fully embrace the government-subsidized life of the unemployed layabout.

I started slow, hesitant to "take advantage" of the system. I paid cash for groceries, filled the car with just enough gas to get me to and from the store, fixed broken stuff in the house etc..

Before long, I realized just how good I really had it. So, my $360 a week (after taxes, including the extra $25 from the Feds from one of their "emergency recovery acts") began to seem like found money. [Maris]'s job at her own little Vortex Of Doom looked stable enough, right? I'd roll out of bed at about noon and play video games until at least 3:30, when I'd switch to Sports Center for a couple hours. I started sending out exactly the required-for-continued-eligibility number of résumés (two) per week, and made sure they were for jobs for which I could never be hired. I took up smoking and quickly accelerated to two packs a day. There went $140 of my bi-weekly $360.

I expanded my binge drinking of only top-shelf tequilas and rums from weekends-only to just about every day. Mmmmm... All free, thanks to unemployment! I rationalized that I was saving money, by keeping the lights off most of the time and taking maybe one or two showers a week - and never shaving (those blades are expensive).

With one benefits payment, I bought myself a pair of "Miami Vice" pinkie rings. I know - but they're really nice! One is Crockett and one is Tubbs and they have little diamonds for eyes. Classy!

Another check (two, actually) went to Toys R Us. My old Playstation 2 was just not cutting it, anymore. I had to upgrade and get some new games and controllers. I was getting really tired of "Crash Bandicoot." Sitting around and playing games is just the best, and with Unemployment, I feel like they're paying me to do it!

You know what's better than endless days of sleeping late and smoking and drinking Patron Silver and playing "Halo?" Strippers! My friend Godfrey Ozzenbarq III (not his real name) and I started heading into DC on benefits payment days to ogle the girls at "Good Guys" on Wisconsin Avenue. We quickly graduated from that to "Camelot," at great expense. Don't worry, taxpayers. You're not paying for this lifestyle. Unemployment Insurance is privately funded, mostly through premiums paid by employers, and they're doing much better now that they've gotten rid of so many employees.

But you know what's even better than strippers? Hookers! Okay, I don't think that's really true, but I can honestly say I wouldn't know. But I know drugs are better than strippers. Oh, Godfrey (not his real name) and I sure know how to party! We're back to playing a lot of "Crash Bandicoot," as well as my old vintage Atari stuff - and tons of Ms. Pac Man. That stuff is amazing when you're baked or rollin' or tweaked or Timmy!'d or buzzed or blasted or floating or destroyed or wrecked or made into pizza rolls or smelling the kitten or drunk or selling encyclopedias or trippin' or jumping the shark or writing epitaphs or playing the Cheap Trick albums at 78rpm or whatever the kids are calling it these days.

When there's cash left (there never is), we buy lottery scratch-off tickets. I think I won $25,000 once, but I was trashed and I think I must have used the ticket as a desperation rolling paper and burned it up.

Yep, being unemployed is pretty sweet. I can't imagine myself getting another job, as long as these massive piles of fun bucks for nothing keep rolling in. Work is for chumps. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go do some online gambling before I get too wasted to focus...

:)

Day 120 of Double-Barrel Unemployment: You're SO Not Hired

2010-08-25T14:59:00.005-04:00

Monday March 30, 2009

As a full-time seeker of a new place where I can toil thanklessly for the benefit of those who are already wealthy (and for a paycheck I can pass along to my creditors), I do a lot of my job-seeking online. Most targeted employers or job boards automatically acknowledge my electronic résumé submissions with a short, generic email. Usually it's a simple "Thanks for applying for Job XYZ - we'll call you if we're interested." Some companies will include an invitation to register on their website so that they can alert me to future job openings with their organization.

Sometimes, I'll even get a rejection email, formally informing me that, while my qualifications were "impressive," the company has decided I wouldn't be a good "fit" for that position at this time, but boy, they really were "impressed" and they wholeheartedly wish me "the very best of luck" in my search. I get a strangely comforting sense of closure from these. It's efficient, too. No wasting valuable job search time with bothersome interviews and whatnot - just cut to the chase and reject the candidate up front. It's just easier for everyone that way.

Then, there's the rejection email (or, in rare instances, phone call) that follows an actual interview. My first in-person interview resulted in one of the most thorough and helpful rejection emails I've seen:

"Dear Joe, [they used my first name!]

Thank you for coming in to meet with me and my management team last Thursday. It was a pleasure getting to know you, and we are all very impressed with you and your credentials. We were faced with a very difficult choice (Ms. Johnson got so stressed she required hospitalization over the weekend. She's okay now.), but in the end we determined that another candidate was just a slightly better fit for the Accounts Receivable, Preserves Canning and Facial Hair Grooming Compliance Officer position. We hope you understand.

I strongly believe in giving constructive feedback, and this extends to prospective employees. In that spirit, I have some notes I think you might find useful. First, on your résumé:

While I appreciate the importance of making one's résumé distinct from "the crowd," I wouldn't recommend using that fluorescent day-glo green poster board, nor do I think it's a good idea to make one's CV 20" by 30". You're lucky yours didn't get recycled with the junk mail.
If you're going to embellish your past job titles, you might not want to include in your references anyone who would provide contradictory information. To wit: Your last supervisor informed us that you were an Accounts Receivable/Order Processing Administrator, NOT "Owner, Inventor, Patent-holder, Spokesmodel, Big Kahuna, Majority Shareholder, Visionary, President and Boss Of Everybody," as you put it.
If you're going to share your reasons for leaving previous employers, you might want to come up with something other than "that job was stupid" for each and every one of them. Just a thought.

On your interview:

Yes, it is a good idea to arrive a little bit early for a job interview. However, five hours early is too early. You made our receptionist uncomfortable, and while it does show great initiative on your part, she did not appreciate your answering her phone when she got up to use the copier. In the future, may want to limit yourself to arriving a few minutes early.
We have a business-casual dress code here, so I can't really fault you for wearing Dockers and a Polo shirt. I also can't legally ask you anything about that intricate network of trusses, supports, straps and medical-looking girdles you were wearing. I can, however, suggest that maybe you wear such items underneath your clothes. Failing that, you may wish to consider wearing a suit jacket over those things. Again, just trying to be helpful, here.
Take off your sunglasses and "Who Farted?" hat when you come into our office.
While we were all impressed with your energy and enthusiasm, a little more focus on the interview itself would probably have been beneficial. I know our location adjacent to the railroad tracks can be a bit distracting, but running to the conference room window every time a train passed and yelling "Woo Woo!" and "All Aboard!" and then shouting out the number, make and model (and horsepower, in some cases) of every engine, well - it really broke up the "flow" of the interview.
Falling asleep while our Director of Operations (the person to whom you would have reported, had you been hired) was asking you a question? Not a good idea.
Finally, I must say that we all found the candor and originality of your answers and remarks refreshing, to say the least, but I would try to stay away from such statements as "I just applied here because I have to make at least two job contacts a week or else I'll lose my Unemployment Benefits," or "I thought this job sounded easy," or "Am I getting paid for today," or "This is boring!" And when asked to tell us about yourself, I think 90 minutes about why "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" is the best show on TV, is just way too much, and not really the kind of information interviewers are looking for.

My team (well, maybe not Ms. Johnson) and I sincerely wish you the best of luck in your job search. I'm sure you will find a suitable employer, where you can add value and be happy and fulfilled in your work. Have you considered Ringling Brothers, or perhaps a nice traveling carnival?

Sincerely,
Portnoy J. Whatever
President and CEO
Acme Cheese, Inc."

See? That guy was really trying to be helpful! I keep this letter in my "job search" folder, and I review it before every interview.

Thanks for reading all the way to the end of this drivel. More later, as soon as I can muster it (I have to ketchup)...

Day 116 of Double-barrel Unemployment - "You Should Invent Something"

2010-08-18T19:23:00.010-04:00

THURSDAY MARCH 26, 2009

My first in-person interview of this layoff! Normally, I'm already re-employed by about day 60, but this time, I had taken it pretty easy for the first month or so. By the end of January, I was applying for jobs daily and checking in with all my recruiters once a week. I had started to get calls from prospective employers, and by the end of February I'd had several phone interviews. These went well, but I had yet to get an in-person interview. Too much experience, too little experience, missing the one résumé item they couldn't live without, not a CPA, made too much at my last job etc.. So, it was exciting to land an actual interview. I won't get into the details. It went great - they liked me, but it had just been too many years since I had managed people.

Day 116 wasn't just my first real interview. It was also the day I was given one of the more insipid pieces of advice I've heard in this or any layoff. As someone who has taken several trips down Unemployment Boulevard, I get a lot of advice. I'm always grateful that people want to try to help, and the pointers I get are sometimes really novel or useful. Sometimes.

I've been through this enough to know the basics by now, so even some of the better suggestions are less than helpful.

"Hey Joe - you should try applying for a lot of jobs." Really? Ya think?

"Have you tried updating your résumé every couple of weeks, so it will show up in more employers' searches - in case they search only for 'new' résumés?" Great tip. I've been doing that since my 2001 layoff. It works.

"Remember you were saying there are tons of I.T. Security job listings, especially with government contractors? You should try to get one of those jobs." I am an order entry, billing, customer service, A/R person with zero I.T. experience or education, and most of those jobs require a top-secret clearance, but I'll keep that in mind.

"You take such nice pictures - you should be a professional photographer!" Thanks. I've actually taken some baby steps toward that goal. Even bought a negative scanner. I'm realistic, though. I've seen the work of pros, and I know I have a long way to go. Not saying no - just need to pay the bills while I work that out.

"Hey Joe - you should work for Google! I hear they're hiring, and it's supposed to be the coolest company to work for." Really? Again, I'm not so much a programmer. Plus, those jobs are in California. We're in Maryland, in a house that's $100,000 under water.

"There are towns in Iowa that are offering all kinds of incentives to lure people to live and work there. You should go!" Okay, again - house would cost $100K to sell. Plus, then we'd live in IOWA.

"Why don't you be a writer?" I am a writer. There are millions of me. I have bills, man. I've been at it for years and I will keep at it, but the odds are not good that I'll ever make a living at it. I love it - I mostly do it for myself, anyway.

"You love to eat - you should be a restaurant critic!" Oh dear sweet zombie Jesus.

"You and [Maris] should start your own company." Cool - will you give us the money? We have a business model ready to go. Phase I: Steal Underpants. Phase III: Profits!

"You should be more positive." Yes, I know. It's worked so well for me in the past.

"You should get one of those top-secret clearances." That would be awesome. Costs tens of thousands of dollars, though. Will have to find a company that will sponsor me. The problem is, they are flooded with applicants who already HAVE clearances. Maybe when the market turns around.

"If the market's so bad, why don't you use this time to go back to school and get a more marketable degree or just take some classes that will boost your résumé?" I can't say this is a bad idea, but by day 116 [Maris]'s job was looking shaky, too - so we just didn't have the nerve to gamble with what little cash we had.

"You should invent something!" You're absolutely right. I should do that.

"Have you thought about going on a reality show?" No. No, I haven't. Have you?

"You should start a blog! Or a photo blog!" Ugh. Wait, what? Okay - I might go ahead and do that...

Day 53 of Double-barrel Unemployment: Hope and the Mortality of Stars

2010-08-12T11:25:00.011-04:00

Thursday January 22, 2009

Well, well, well. 2009. Son of a bitch. It's 2009! The holidays were behind us, blurry and fattening and fun in their familiar chaos. The NFL playoffs were over, with only the Steelers-Cardinals (Cardinals???) Superbowl yet to be played. Stuff had been happening, but it had been a strange assortment of highs and lows.

It began with news of the death of the father of my good friend Godfrey Ozzenbarq III (not his real name). Godfrey, my one-time boss at Erol's, confidant, grifter, go-cart enthusiast, porn critic, mentor, turtle painter, ranting partner, career counselor and would-be Tom Delay beater-upper, had watched his father fade away rather quickly over the past half-year and depart on New Year's Eve. Godfrey and I now had this in common. My dad's fade, ending in July 2005, was slower, but of course there were parallels. Godfrey's mother had died two months after that. Now, both of his parents were gone, and departures were becoming all too frequent. We both have a pragmatic view of such sad events, and Godfrey had emailed me of his being at peace with the fact that he would never live larger than his parents had.

I knew the feeling, and replied with something along these lines:

"True, sir - your musing on mortality and living large. In reading obits and listening to stories of your 'rents, of my own dad and his, as well as of older friends of the family who are lining up to depart, I on more than one occasion have stopped and thought HOLY SHIT - Look at all the stuff he DID! I haven't done jack flydiddlyfuckin' SQUAT! I'm not about to tell you that I have the energy or wherewithal (whatever that is) to attempt to live as big, but it does give one a pause, no?

Once, on a family stroll on a dark Rehoboth beach, my dad told us as we marveled at the number of visible stars, that it was very likely that many of them were at that very moment already long-since dead and gone. We're teeny, man. But we do what we can and we get by and we try to enjoy ourselves as much as possible.

And there are bright spots. Watching the 1,800,000 frozen but hopeful and overjoyed people on the Mall, listening to a smart young new President (the address, not the stumbly oath) as he spoke in complex, compound sentences with subject-verb agreement, polysyllabic words and proper syntax (without an "in'" for ING anywhere to be found) was a deeply moving experience. Yeah, we're still just approaching the deep end of this shitter ("shitter's full!"). But there's hope. With bush exiled in texas where he can't hurt us any more, and with an intelligent, THOUGHTFUL and popular dude in charge, maybe - just maybe - we can begin to recover and actually be proud Americans once more. Eventually."

On the heels of Obama's Inauguration, while [Maris]'s company laid off a bunch of her coworkers, leaving her with a less-secure job and way too many hats, I ratcheted up my job search and found myself with two phone interviews and a new recruiter meeting in the span of two days.

Sure, the economy is in the toilet and headed for the septic tank, but we just swore in our first African-American President and we are tempted to feel hopeful for the first time in over eight years. The country of which he is assuming the controls is halfway down the awful spiral of a black fucking hole, but there is that faint glimmer of hope, and we cling to it with all our might.

Join us next time, when things get funny. Probably...

Bubba Drives Away

2010-08-04T10:34:00.005-04:00

Let's take a quick break from the Unemployed Drivel and prattle on for a bit about the departure of Bubba, The Party Snake. I came across this little piece yesterday. I'm not entirely sure who it was written for - my family, probably...

Saturday, April 05, 2008 (2:15AM)

Bubba is gone. Off to snake heaven, to chase (as Mary puts it) all the “slow, stupid mice” he can eat. I went to refill his water dish Thursday night, feeling guilty that I hadn’t remembered to bring him anything to eat. He didn’t flinch when the water hit the dish, as he usually did. He didn’t move when I knocked on the side of his tank. He didn’t perk up or flick his tongue or anything when I talked into the cage at him. For about ten minutes, I stood there in denial, shaking his aquarium and watching for the breath he would not take. Finally, I lifted the screen and gave him a gentle poke, knowing he was dead. And dead he was indeed.

Scenes flashed through my brain as it caught up with reality. I saw the tiny baby snake I brought to my dorm room at Towson State the morning after my first real date with Lisa#2. I saw that baby snake, curled up and sleeping in my sleeve, holding me painfully motionless for two solid hours because I didn’t have the heart to disturb the little guy. I recalled explaining to this little reptile why it was a big deal that the Berlin Wall was coming down. I saw Wife#1 talking to him, commiserating about the difficulty I was encountering in trying to free myself from the hell that was retail. I replayed the story, one of the last coherent stories my father recited, of Bubba and the house painters who seemed so in awe of him. I heard [Maris], using her squeaky “Bubba” voice to translate for me – countless times – his wistful demands for mice (or for “more mouses”).

I looked again at his limp body, and I can tell you, I cried. I moved his favorite rock and placed it beneath his little chin, curled him into what seemed like a more comfortable position and draped a tissue over his body. It pained me to do it, but about 45 minutes later I woke [Maris] with the news. I was quite taken aback, as I still am, by her sadness at Bubba’s passing. He may have been “just” a snake, sitting silently in an aquarium 99% of the time, but he was a living presence in our home. He had been with me since long before she met me. He was cute and pretty and seemed to like when she played 80’s metal on the stereo. He was just always there. And now, somewhat suddenly, he was not.

Leaving Bubba’s lifeless little body in his tank while we moped our way through a drizzly, depressing Friday was probably not the best of ideas. By the time we got home from work, Bubba’s room was in need of a thorough airing out. We carefully coiled him into a sturdy box, lined with tissue paper and gravel from his cage, placed his favorite little rock inside and gave him a final pat on the head. On the top of his little cardboard casket I wrote:

Bubba “The Party Snake”
August 19, 1988 - April 4, 2008
Companion
Friend

Snake

Bubba’s final resting place is in our back yard, in a spot that gets plenty of sun. He slumbers beneath several inches of earth and the rocks from atop his aquarium. His spirit will keep me company during grilling season. It’s hard to walk by the empty space he occupied since we moved into this house without feeling the sadness of loss all over again. He was a good snake and a wonderful pet. In our mail on Saturday was a sympathy card from SiL, BiL and Little Nephew. They noted that Little Nephew had declared that “Bubba got in his car and drove away.” Indeed. Bubba - out on the open road, cruising for meeces and girl snakes. Drive on, Bubba. You are missed.

Day 30 of Double-barrel Unemployment: A Temp-to-perm Landstander

2010-07-30T14:46:00.004-04:00

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Temp Lady, in sing-song mode: "Good morning, Joe! This is Maggie from [temp agency] and I have some great opportunities for yooooou!"

Joe: "Ugh, um, yes? Oh hi! Great. Let's hear what you got!"

TL: "First, there's a part-time receptionist assignment at a very busy doctor's office..."

Joe: "Okay..."

TL: "It pays $6 an hour and is located in Philadelphia. Parking there costs $4.50 an hour."

Joe: "I live at least 3 hours away from there, and it sounds like my net pay - before taxes - would be $1.50 an hour, so I hope you'll understand if I pass on this one."

TL: "No problem at all. I have a few others. Let's see... Oh yes - I thought of you the minute I saw this one. It's like a carbon-copy of your own résumé. Full-time sales rep for an international chemical company. Must have medical and/or pharmacology degree and at least 10 years of progressive biochemical weapons sales experience. Firearms certification and/or military or counter-intelligence background a plus. Every other Friday off! Business casual dress!"

Joe: "I think you might have someone else's résumé in mind. I don't have any of those qualifications."

TL: "No worries, Joe. I thought it might be a good fit because of your video store experience, but that's okay. How about this? Busy office needs someone for overly-chatty manager to babble at all day long, so that the rest of the staff can do their jobs. $30 an hour, Joe! Paid parking. Rockville location. Oh, wait. Must have MBA. You don't have an MBA, do you?"

Joe: "No. Sorry."

TL: "Well hang on; I've got a couple more. Temp-to-perm Landstander. $11 an hour. Gaithersburg. Small company with casual atmosphere. What do you think?"

Joe: "Did you say Landstander?"

TL: "Yes, that's right. Landstander. With a chance for the right person to stay on permanently!"

Joe: "Is there a job description? I'm not familiar with the title."

TL: "Let me just check, here. Ah yes. 'The Landstander will primarily be responsible for standing on land.'"

Joe: "That's it? I would stand on land?"

TL: "Also some light filing, it says here. Sounds like a great fit for you, doesn't it?"

Joe: "Landstander."

TL: "Landstander."

Joe: "What kind of company is it?"

TL: "It's a day-care center."

Joe:

TL: "Oh dear. You're not a pedophile, are you? You're not a registered sex offender or something?"

Joe: "NO! Okay, send my résumé to that one, but just for fun, what else do you have?"

TL: "One more. I'm sharing this one with you first to see if you're interested, before I call anyone else. Because I like you."

Joe: "Wow. I appreciate that."

TL: "Okay. I know when we had our meeting, you had said that while you're searching for a permanent employment solution, you were open to assignments with flexible hours, and positions that got you outside - like courier jobs."

Joe: "I don't remember any of that, but it might not be a bad idea. You have a courier assignment?"

TL: "Yes! The title is Special Materials Transport Technician and Client Support Liaison."

Joe: "Try fitting that on a business card!"

TL: "I know! This position requires the utmost in discretion and respect for client confidentiality. Pays $48 an hour, plus mileage. The Technician/Liaison will ensure timely, secure delivery of product to customers of all types, from individuals at home to Congressmen and Senators on the Hill."

Joe: "Cool. What kind of company is it? Lawyers?"

TL: "No. They provide a very critical service, but the principals tend to keep an extremely low profile."

Joe: "Well, okay. I could definitely give it a try. I can be very discreet and professional."

TL: "Wonderful! Now, let me ask you this? Do you have any allergies to latex?"

Joe: "Um. Not that I know of. Why?"

TL: "And do you have a current passport?"

Joe: "Yes... Why?"

TL: "Now, I have to ask this, as it does pertain to the candidate's ability to perform the assignment. Have you ever had a colonoscopy?"

Joe:

TL: "I know. I'm sorry. I have to ask."

Joe: "I am NOT going to be a coke mule for some scary-ass drug dealers! Are you kidding me?"

TL: "No, no! You've got it all wrong. You would not be smuggling cocaine in your rectum, Joe! What on earth gave you that idea?"

Joe: "The whole description and your questions did! You mean this isn't an assignment as a coke mule - sneaking condoms or whatever filled with coke into the country and delivering it to customers?"

TL: "Absolutely not!"

Joe: "Okay, then. Sorry."

TL: "It would be heroin."

Joe: (click)

Day Two of Double-barrel Unemployment - Get Up, Bambi!

2010-07-25T19:30:00.012-04:00

Tuesday December 2, 2008

Thanks to my day of unconsciousness on Monday, my internal clock was all screwed up and I spent a lot of that night awake and repeatedly thinking "now what?" So, when I forced my sore eyes open Tuesday morning, I was profoundly tired. But I had done this before. I knew all too well that sleep is the enemy of the unemployed. You sleep until 9:00. Then 10:00. Okay, 10:30. Before you know it, you're barely functional before Noon, and still padding about in your PJs and Rocky The Flying Squirrel slippers until just before your wife gets home from work. I adore sleep, and I almost rationalized my way into another hour of it, but the voices kicked in.

It starts with my own voice. "Get up. Get up, you loser. Get up!"

(snooze snooze snooze)

The next voice is the wretched camp counselor from Camp Campingston Falls Summer Camp For The Performing Arts, from the "Camp" (one more "camp" won't kill us, will it?) episode of "Home Movies." It sneers "Get it together, Rabbit Troop," and then there's a kid's voice taunting "Rabbit Troop sucks!" What? Yes. Yes, I do watch a lot of cartoons. Have you seen television lately?

(snooze)

Time to bring out the Big Guns. Bambi's father. Yep. I try to cover my head with my pillow, but it's no use, as the big guy is in my head. "Get up, Bambi. Bambi, get up. GET UP. GET UP, Bambi. GET UP!!!" I don't know about you, but I don't care too much for being called Bambi. Plus, that buck sounded scary as hell.

So I got up. Normally, on Day Two -- How sad is it that I get laid off frequently enough that there's a routine for Day Two? A lot sad, would be my estimate. Anyway, normally this is the day for calling and emailing everyone to find out what the hell happened, for updating my accounts and search agents on Monster, CareerBuilder etc. and for scouring the boards for jobs and firing off a bunch of résumés. I usually also call my friends at the temp agency.

This Day Two was different, as this entire journey through joblessness has been (and is to this day). Having had a very early heads-up from Boss Lady, I had spent many months saving all the cash I could, and between that and the better-than-expected severance package she and our nice Controller got me, I wasn't going to be in financial trouble for at least a couple of months. That took a lot of the usual panic away. Also, having seen this one coming for so many months, including 75 days of official notice, there was no reeling to put a stop to. This trip down unemployment lane was also my first with professional recruiters, but those initial meetings had already taken place in October and November.

Bottom line: There was less to do than usual. I checked in with my fellow expendables and recruiters, sent out a résumé or two, stepped on the scale for the first time in too long (yikes!), packed away my workplace stuff after trashing half of it (how many company mugs does a non-coffee-drinker need, anyway?) and I organized some closets. It was very therapeutic.

I was planning on more or less taking December off, and this was the perfect start. It was sunny and 40 degrees, but winter was coming. I could feel it.

Day One of Double-barrel Unemployment

2010-07-21T21:44:00.005-04:00

I don't really count the fun and busy Thanksgiving weekend, because it was fun and busy. Also, because my separation agreement from the Vortex of Doom said my last day on the payroll was November 30, I consider Day One to be Monday, December 1, 2008.

Here's what I did on Day One:

I slept.

A lot.

Join us next time, when I do slightly more than sleep a lot...

Night Zero of Double-barrel Unemployment

2010-07-19T13:42:00.008-04:00

I left the Vortex of Doom, spinning inexorably toward oblivion in my rear-view mirror, and proceeded directly to a rendezvous with [Maris] at Dogfish Head Ale House in Gaithersburg. Yes, I am shamelessly plugging DFH. Their small-batch craft-brewed beers are amazing, especially if you're a fan of hoppy IPAs, and for a pub, the food is fantastic. There. Go. Here endeth the shameless Dogfish Head Ale House pitch.

We followed that awesomeness at home, with about ten shots each of Patron Silver, while we packed for our Thanksgiving trip to my sister's home in Ohio. Another plug here: I was never a tequila guy - I'm a rum man, at heart - but thanks to a gift from my Boss Lady at the Vortex, I now have a taste for the Patron. Brilliant stuff. Okay, enough endorsements. The evening had turned the din of workplace memories into muted echoes in my spent little brain, and I dropped heavily to sleep. Then, with Cabaret Voltaire's "Sensoria" playing on The Most Random iPod In The World, and for the first time in what seemed like a year or more, I dreamed.

I was at the Vortex of Doom at my old desk - the one I occupied when I first started in 2005 - just outside Boss Lady's office. All the office doors were closed and the lights were off. It was airless and warm, clearly it was not a weekday. I was typing an email to my buddy Godfrey Ozzenbarq III (not his real name) - to this day the best boss I've ever had (sorry, Boss Lady). Since the time I had worked for him in the early 90s, he has been a good mentor, life coach, railfanning and photography tutor, co-conspirator, Play-doh sculpture critic, and friend. The email seemed to reference another dream I'd had, during the multi-system illness that began to attempt to destroy me in August of 2006, and whose identity would remain unknown until April of 2007, and whose effects are still lingering to this day.

"I awoke flat on my back in a 'downtown' Bozeman Jiffy-Lube, dressed in ill-fitting green corduroy overalls and a Crack The Sky World Tour '82 t-shirt. They gave me back my Sprint FON card, a receipt (from Yekta Deli?) and a signed 8x10 color glossy of Russ Ballard, then sent me out the front door. The Backstreet Boys' bus was just pulling out, and its sparkly rainbow sticker and no fewer than SEVEN matching rainbow flags were all I needed to see. 'Good for you, boys,' I thought to myself, mainly because I'm not sure how to think to someone else. 'I KNEW IT!!' chorused the Jiffy-Lube gang from their perches upon the empty lube racks. Money changed hands among them, and they giggled rather like so many little girls playing tag. I passed out.

I awoke this time sitting at my keyboard, typing who-knows-what with a ferocity usually reserved for emails to sales 'people' who have just submitted orders with no billing OR shipping addresses. I looked at the screen.

Godfrey! (not your real name) I have news! The Outdoor Living Network will be airing a 36-hour telethon for me, hosted by none other than Gasphlem St. Marty the Fleen and his stalwart sidekick Hissonner Dunsten Crackbarry. They're calling it 'Help Us Find A Cure For Whatever The Fuck Joe Has, So That He May Quit His Interminable Girly Whining Before We Are Forced To Bludgeon Him With Petrified 20-year Old Pizza Hut Priazzas.' Call now!

If you're lucky, your call might just be answered by Tina Yothers or Rae Dawn Chong, or maybe even Ike Eisenman or Lamont Wilson! For a pledge of a mere $25, they'll send you a cap embroidered with "Save Joe From Horrific Re-invented Dumbass Marketing-gone-way-wrong 'Pizza' Death!" A $50 pledge earns you a pair of hot pink fuzzy leg-warmers and a sparkly "Joe Sucks" confederate flag belt buckle. For you extra-generous contributors, $100 is good for a lunch date with Joe (assuming he survives and can still eat solid food in public without causing undue disturbance) at Five Guys Burgers & Fries.**

So get to the phone. Pledge early, pledge often. Joe needs your help! And please don't let the somewhat checkered pasts of hosts Crackbarry and Fleen turn you away. We couldn't get anyone else on such short notice, and these guys work really, really cheap.

Later,
Telethon Boy
** Lunch date to be chaperoned by Chelsea Handler, Brian May or Charo, at the discretion of the sponsors.

I shut my laptop, put my head on my desk and drifted off. I awoke again in Bozeman, gathered my stuff and waited by a dusty brown pickup with Alberta tags, parked in front of Bow River Burgers on West Main. Its driver emerged with a sack of burgers and climbed into the truck. 'Hey mister - can I give you fifty bucks to drive me to Moose Jaw?' He smiled and said 'I'll let you split the cost of the gas, but I'm not going all the way to Moose Jaw, eh. I can take you as far as Medicine Hat, though.'

I thought for a minute. 'Medicine Hat sounds just fine, sir.'"

Day Zero of Double-barrel Unemployment

2010-07-15T14:57:00.008-04:00

Tuesday, November 25, 2008
(Yes, if you're doing the math, that's really Day Minus-5, but let's not quibble.)

Wow, did that not feel like getting laid off. All three of my previous involuntary departures - and even one of the voluntary resignations - had been relatively traumatic bolts from the blue, with little or no time to prepare - or even to absorb the news. Still, this also didn't feel like any of my planned, "two-weeks' notice" job departures, which were always happy escapes from bad jobs or at least happy moves to something better.

This was a slow death.

It was certainly as unwelcome as any other termination, but by the time Day Zero arrived, all that was left was exhaustion and sadness - and maybe a measure of relief. Three months earlier, in the rumor-fed angst of the days just before the announcement that those asshats from texas were acquiring us and there would be few survivors, this was the white board in my cubicle:

Originally, this was my artificial "window" to my sandy beach, towel, umbrella, sunset etc. - drawn by my favorite coworker. The "South Park Underpants Gnomes" business model on the left was added later, adapted for my job at Vortex of Doom Communications, in red. In the chaos leading up to The Announcement, my awesome boss lady added the OMG and STFU. As things got worse, we made the sea all messy and stormy, drew some people being ejected from the Ship of Fools, and set it (and them) on fire. The dolphin, originally drawn merely frolicking, is now fleeing, squeaking "So long, and thanks for all the fish" as he departs.

That seemed so very long ago, by Day Zero. The artist was gone and already re-employed. My awesome boss lady - easily the second-best boss I've ever known - was gone. Most of my department was gone. The transition work and partial-year audit for which I had been kept around those last couple of months were over (at least, as far as my involvement was concerned).

Except for a couple of days when the auditors needed things with which I could help, I basically coasted through my last week and a half. I searched the internet job boards, sent out résumés, called recruiters and socialized. By November 25, we had done all the reminiscing we could do. All the stories had been told and re-told. We no longer felt like getting T-shirts that said "If you want happy, get a dog." The office was getting quieter each day.

I've tried in previous posts to illustrate why it was hard to lose this job, why this job was special. I know I have failed to do it justice. I'll try one more time: It was a chemistry thing. I was part of a group of people who meshed personally and professionally in ways I had never witnessed. It wasn't just with my boss and immediate coworkers, either. The company was just full of good, sharp people. Of course, it had its faults, and it's a shame that we couldn't get out of our own way.

It's a bittersweet pill to swallow - knowing, knowing that this was the best I'm going to do, and that it was over. Everyone has that stretch in their working lives where everything just clicks like it never has and never will again, and for me, these had been those years. I know - never say never. So I won't say never, but I knew by Day Zero what a challenge it would be to ever come close to replacing this gig.

The office was calm, that afternoon. It was peaceful. The sadness comes from feeling like the peace marked the end of a war, and that it was a war we could have won, but did not.

Other People's Day Zeroes of Double-barrel Unemployment

2010-07-12T00:21:00.008-04:00

One of the benefits of being laid off with advance notice, as I was in 2008, is that there's time for support groups to form. My coworkers and I had transition periods ranging from two weeks to several months. A few weeks before my personal Day Zero - around Day Minus-20 or so - several of us engaged in the modern therapeutic ritual of The Sharing of Layoff Stories. I know there are now approximately eleventy bazillion of these anecdotes floating about in cyberspace, but these are more real to me because they actually happened to my friends (or, at least, to friends of friends).

I've always found that having something bad happen to me, and then immediately hearing stories of worse things happening to others is equal parts comforting and just damned annoying, but what are you going to do? It's a natural response. "You got laid off? I know this guy who got laid off on the day his house burned down." "You got hit by a car and broke every bone in your body? I once got run over and decapitated."

It's my own fault. I started it by sharing with my coworkers a story my wife had just emailed to me, about her less-than-brilliant company doing its first layoff. They started with the receptionist and their Human Resources/Payroll/Benefits person - a person who had no backup. So, they had no plan for greeting visitors or answering the phones, and they put someone with zero experience - or interest - in HR/Payroll/Benefits in charge of trying to do those three jobs. The company also never said anything about this layoff of ten percent of their staff to surviving employees. No email, no meeting, no memo - nothing. The news was spread by the panic-stricken rumor mill.

A coworker in my department immediately offered us her story from a couple of jobs ago. She and about 80 of her coworkers were ushered into a conference room scarcely large enough to hold them all. They were given the 30-second "times are tough and you lot no longer work here" notification speech. The company was privately owned, and as far as the employees had known, it was doing well, so this was a shock to all of the rank and file. There were long-tenured coworkers, and she said there was crying, shouting and threats of violence. For the next thirty uncomfortable minutes, there was a very contentious "Q&A" session, in which their HR Director deflected every question except those about COBRA coverage.

Just as word was making its way through the crowd of victims that the front doors had been locked from the outside, an announcement was made that everyone was free to please leave immediately through the fire doors in the back, which opened directly into the parking lot. As the stunned and furious downsized rabble filed out, each was handed a box containing his or her hastily-packed personal belongings and a final paycheck, as well as a formal letter warning them that anyone returning to the premises would be arrested for trespassing. Sweet.

Another friend had a roommate who had been sent with a large number of his coworkers to an off-site meeting at a nearby college lecture hall. There, they were notified of their unemployed status and told not to return to the office, where their access cards would no longer work. Their belongings would be mailed to their homes. Charming.

Someone else had been laid off in a manner so pathetic as to almost be funny. He arrived at work to find his access card would not open either the parking garage door or the building's side entrance. Several of his coworkers were having the same problem, and a bunch of them made their way through the main lobby to the reception area. There, the receptionist leaped from her chair and blocked the hallway a couple of the employees were attempting to enter. My coworker was heading down the opposite corridor when the receptionist half-screamed "NO! WAIT! You all have to stay here and wait for the HR Manager." A couple of them waited there. Several made their way to their desks, where they were unable to log onto the network. At one point, the HR Manager was seen running after one of the wayward employees. It took all morning to get them all rounded up and fired.

In another story, a small company laid off one employee - their Jamaican-American receptionist, a single mother. The next day, a VP visited the office and uttered the following gem: "Sometimes a company is like a Holstein cow, and you have to cut away the black spots." The VP didn't mean it "that way," but given that the receptionist had been the only black employee, it did not go over well.

One of our sales guys chimed in with a tale of a CEO getting what he deserved. He thought this story would make us feel better about losing our jobs, while our own failure of a President took a huge bonus check and danced off to his next $300,000-a-year job. So, this CEO of a small brokerage firm was the kind of liar who was so detached from reality that he could scare away prospective investors. Once, when asked for an easily-verifiable forecast of the company's sales for the present month, he gave a number that was roughly ten times the real number. He did this in front of a number of employees from several departments, all of whom were fully aware of how ludicrous his answer had been.

Not long before being fired, this CEO was forced to set up one of those "sexual harassment in the workplace" seminars -- due to complaints by several women in the office - about HIM. He arrived just as the consultant/instructor was being introduced, tip-toed creepily up behind her and proceeded to massage her shoulders. Yeah, he was fired. He didn't take it well. In fact, he had to be escorted from his office by the police, as he refused to accept his termination and leave on his own. You know - that one did kind of make me feel a little bit better, however briefly.

These stories are just a handful of illustrations of what I have come to accept as a universal truth: Nothing is ever, EVER so bad that it can not be worse.

Day Minus-17 of Double-barrel Unemployment

2010-07-07T22:27:00.012-04:00

My amazing boss at Vortex of Doom Communications left the company on her own terms, after holding herself hostage for a huge "stick around" ransom, thanks to having a new job offer in hand when the board finally bothered to talk to her about the post-acquisition transition. Her last day was Friday, November 14, 2008. She was beyond ecstatic about it. I was considerably less than thrilled. I was disconsolate, actually. My sadness was mitigated, though, by the fact that I myself would be gone in two weeks (less, with Thanksgiving week), and by the fact that 99 percent of my own work was done. I also still had high hopes that somehow, she'd be able to help me find a job - not necessarily with her new employer, but with a someone in her vast professional network, or through one of her head-hunters.

So, I couldn't help but feel conflicted when I stepped into her office for the last time and proceeded to conduct a mock exit interview.

Me: Thank you for taking the time to meet with me, Boss Lady. I will try to keep this brief.

Boss Lady: No problem. If it takes too long, I'll just leave. I'm going to keep packing up my shit while we do this.

Me: You don't have much to pack up, though, do you?

Boss Lady: Nope. Most of my office stuff is still in the trunk of my car from the move in July. I wasn't about to waste my time moving it in here, just to have to get it all out again in a couple months.

Me: Of course. So, let's start off with the big one. What is your primary reason for leaving Vortex of Doom Communications?

Boss Lady: Really? Are we really doing this? I thought this was just a - you know - a bit.

Me: It is a bit, but it's our last one, so play along. What is your main reason for leaving?

Boss Lady: Well, we could go with "I got a job offer I couldn't refuse," but really, I'd have to say that it's because this place was already a swirling whirlpool of shit and dysfunction, long before our new owners came along. It was making me feel like I needed to drink every night, and a couple of times it frustrated me so much I almost cried.

Me: And you don't cry.

Boss Lady: And I do not cry. So just put down "fuck this place" for number one.

Me: I see. What do you value about the company?

Boss Lady: Nothing. No, wait. I value the package they only gave me because I had an offer in hand when they got around to finding out they couldn't do the transition and audit without me. I value that.

Me: And? [Batting eyelashes]

Boss Lady: [Holding chocolate voodoo doll, still in its box] You wanna hang on to this?

Me: [Looking wounded] I gave that to you! It was a gift! Wasn't there anything else here of value to you?

Boss Lady: I'm sorry. Okay, okay. I value you. Geez - you're so high-maintenance. You know I hate this kind of stuff.

Me: I know. But I gotta get my last shots in while I can. I know you're not crossing The Bridge, like, ever again. And unless it's to work for you, I ain't going to the other side. Okay. This one will be more fun. What do you dislike about the company?

Boss Lady: They took away our free sodas.

Me:

Boss Lady: [Blinking]

Me: That's all?

Boss Lady: Yes. Otherwise, it was a fabulous company.

Me: Okay. How was your relationship with your manager?

Boss Lady: My what?

Me: Your manager? Supervisor? You know - boss.

Boss Lady: I adore Jim [CFO who bailed on us two years prior], but I would never work for the guy again. The rest were idiots.

Me: I see, I see. Did working here help you to advance your career goals?

Boss Lady: Well, I'm starting a new job that's pretty much a lateral move from this one. So, no. I'd say my five years of 90- to 100-hour work weeks, babysitting a bunch of sales boys and killing myself in a fruitless attempt to polish this turd have not exactly advanced my career.

Me: You're pretty cranky for someone who's leaving forever in an hour, and who was paid - what, about eleventy thousand dollars for the last 60 days.

Boss Lady: [Gesturing toward the white board, behind me] You are forgetting Rule #4.

Me: Sorry. Forgot. Okay, last question. What could the company do to improve this workplace?

Boss Lady: I don't know, Joe. Suck less? How about not fail. The company could try not failing. They'd have to go back in time, obviously. But then maybe we could have gone IPO, like our competitors, and not have had to sell out to this bigger bunch of assholes and all lose our jobs.

Me: Would a company car have helped?

Boss Lady: You know, I think it kind of would have.

Me: Corporate jet?

Boss Lady: YES! And those automatic hand-dryers in the rest rooms!

Me: A Starbucks in the lobby?

Boss Lady: Well, obviously. Maybe a masseuse on staff. Or Skittles in the vending machine.

Me: Well, at least we learned new catchphrases. If it weren't for our old receptionist, we would never have given any thought to which sodas were highly drunk daily!

Boss Lady: I'm going to be saying that for the rest of my life! And let's not forget the sales guys, with their "see, what happened was..."

Me: And the one I should have said earlier when you were bitching about everything...

Boss Lady: Hey - If you want happy, get a dog!

Me: Well, if you think outside the box at the end of the day, it is what it is.

Boss Lady: UGH.

Me: And will you have a coworker like Foghorn Leghorn at the new place? I doubt it. Ah say, ah say, ah say.

Boss Lady: [in her best Foghorn Leghorn voice, which was really bad but kind of adorable] Ah say - wHot in THEE hale is the matta with ya, boy?

Me: You're going to miss me.

Boss Lady: I don't miss people.

Me: I'm not people. You're going to miss me.

Boss Lady: Maybe a little.

(The preceding has been highly fictionalized, because while the idea of a mock exit interview was cute, the reality of it was just kind of sad.)

Another Day Zero of Double-barrel Unemployment

2010-06-30T14:02:00.011-04:00

While it is absolutely true that there's no nice way to tell employees you won't be employing them anymore, there are definitely some approaches that are better than others. The internet start-up where I landed following my 1998 job elimination is a shining example of both extremes.

I loved that job for a couple of years. We all did. We were growing every day and working on this super cool internet thingy -what's not to love? Our product was a web-enabled résumé management tool, hosted in-house. We had customers ranging from tiny architect firms to federal agencies to massive global Fortune-100 corporations, and most of the time, they loved us. My job was to train recruiters to use the product, and then to provide ongoing user support. I'm not a technical guy, but most of our users were touching the internet for the first time, so my coworkers and I felt pretty hi-tech. Business was still really brisk when the first layoff came.

The company had decided to outsource its data entry function, which would eliminate some 30 lower-level jobs from our company of no more than 100. I've never seen so much care and caution go into a layoff. On Day Zero, they brought in career counselors, a résumé-writing expert and a couple of undercover police officers (there had recently been a few incidents of layoff-related violence in the news - enough that the term "going postal" was changing to "going dot-com"). They gave the victims 30 days' notice. They offered the departing employees bonuses for sticking around for a two-month transition period. They paid them all four months' severance - unheard of, for data entry staff. It made me feel better about working there, knowing that if things went bad, at least I'd be laid off really gently.

About eight months later, as big competitors entered our marketplace and began to beat us badly - and as the dot-com boom began its implosion - we had a second layoff. This time, it was only about a dozen of our then 120ish headcount (we had resumed growing after the first layoff). This time, it was simply a cost-saving staff reduction. This time, there was an all-hands meeting and more talk of how hard it is to do this, blah blah blah. However, this round featured no notice, no stick-around bonuses, no job placement assistance and two months' severance. Not terrible, but a far cry from the first round.

My turn came another ten months later, some 45 days after 9/11. It is at this point that I realize I should stick to criticizing only the way my Day Zero was handled, but I just can't do that. One of the things that had made this company such a happy place at first was our president. He was a friendly, warm-fuzzy, outside-the-box-thinking, "vision guy." There were two problems with that. One was the fact that, as we grew and tasted some success and started to encounter competition, we needed management that was capable of managing the company, and vision guys, especially ours, are rarely thus qualified. The other problem was that his vision was wrong; in the long run, it simply was not going to work as a business model, now that the market was over the initial novelty of it. This guy had surrounded himself with experienced, savvy and highly-skilled technical people, but he grew tired of listening to them tell him his vision was flawed and wouldn't work.

Since that second round of layoffs, we had been joking about anything that looked like a bad way of telling us we'd been let go. Once, after someone had quit, the name tags on our mailboxes were rearranged, and in his momentary failure to find his name, a coworker declared that he'd been fired and no one had told him. Once, a few employees' access cards failed to open the door to the office and they had to enter through the reception area. "Are you trying to tell us we're fired?" No, not yet. Our I.T. guys reset the phone system once, resulting in all of our phones displaying "new employee" in place of our names. "A massive layoff?" No. Not yet.

Here's a tip for you employers who are planning on letting people go: Don't start shutting stuff off until you've had a chance to notify them. As user support employees, my group had a master password, with which we could access any customer's database for training and troubleshooting. I took a call the minute I arrived, and the master password didn't work. My manager tried it on her system. Fail. Went down the hall to the I.T. security guy's office, where we were informed, after some stuttering and stammering and lots of "ums," that it had been accidentally reset. He gave us the new one, and we handled a couple of calls.

Then our vision president called an all-hands meeting at 9:15AM, with about 5 minutes' notice. He made grand declarations that for too long, the company had been divided pretty much along either side of the post-9/11 flag hanging on the wall in the reception area. He told us of two phone conversations he had just had - one resulting in our Chief Technology Officer's termination, the other resulting in departure of our Director of Operations. Uh oh. My side of the flag. He grandly declared that from this day forth, we would be One Company again. He told us that our senior programmer would assume the CTO role. That's all. Dismissed. Oh and there will be individual meetings for the rest of the morning, followed by another all-hands at 1:00.

We got back to our desks and took a couple more calls, and the new master password failed. Went to the I.T. security guy again. The man didn't try to lie again. Literally said, "Oops" and reset it again. Obviously, there were to be cuts in our department. I will never forget that feeling. I quietly began forwarding all my funny emails and updated résumé and anything important to my home address. The poor senior programmer-turned-CTO's first assignment was to play executioner for the day. He came for Bill, a senior I.T. guy not in our department, but two cubes down from me. Bill didn't even come back. "Geez - they're actually killing them!" Executioner came for my boss, next. She was back within 3 minutes, crying and packing up her desk while the executioner watched. Nice. Another coworker and I helped her carry her stuff to her car, where she said good luck - they wouldn't tell her who else was on the list, but she assumed it was going to go pretty deep.

I heard the executioner clear his throat outside my cubicle. "Joe? You got a minute?" I said "Nope! I'm very busy, here! Come back later!" No good. Two weeks' severance and a COBRA insurance form. I was given the option of coming back the next day for my personal things, which they would pack up for me, or clearing out now, with the executioner watching. I had more or less created a second home in my cubicle, and I wasn't about to leave it to them to pack it up. I couldn't, however, pack it up anywhere near as quickly as my boss had done hers. It took between 30 and 45 minutes and 3 requests by the executioner for me to hurry up, before I was cleared out. As an added emotional bonus, the receptionist had not been informed of who was being laid off, so twice she tried to send customer calls to me. On the first one, I simply said "what is wrong with you?" and she gave the call to someone else.

When she tried again to send me a call, I picked up, told the customer they should find another recruiting system provider as soon as possible, and hung up. Executioner didn't like that, but I was pretty much done packing up at that point, so he got over it.

I learned later that another one of my department was on the list, cutting the group by 50%. Overall, there were about 15 poorly-handled executions in our company of 80, that day. The company put a classy little post-script on this story when they refused to pay any of us our accrued vacation time. Luckily, that's illegal in Maryland, so they eventually gave in. Nice.

This company is no longer in business, but I'm sure its former president is still having visions.

Day Minus-75 & Some Day Zeros of Double-barrel Unemployment

2010-06-25T13:52:00.004-04:00

As a veteran of four involuntary separations from employers, and the witness to a slew of others, I know that there truly is no good way to do them. It's like breaking off a romantic relationship. Unless both parties are really ready to go their separate ways, somebody is going to get hurt.

I have a degree in business administration and deep-down, I know that a company's need to reduce headcount is simply a business decision. It's not personal, and they'll go out of their way to make sure they tell you so. It has nothing to do with your performance, they say. We appreciate all you've done for us, they say. But we're only human; if you're in a department of six people, all doing the same job, and you're one of only three who get laid off, you can't help but wonder how the selections were made. They can tell you not to take it personally from now until the end of time, but there's just no way - especially in a smaller company - not to, at least a little bit. The bottom line, regardless of the company, the job or the manner in which the termination is executed, is that you are no longer needed there. No longer necessary to the company. No longer - let's face it - WANTED. So yeah - it's unpleasant.

While it's true that there is no good way to tell an employee that his/her services are no longer required, there are definitely better and worse ways to do it. I've seen both. Day Minus-75 at the Vortex of Doom was kind of fun, for me - mainly thanks to my months of advance notice. The acquiring company had been growing exclusively by way of purchasing firms and laying half of their employees off on the first day, so they had had a lot of practice. Individual managers met with the "affected" employees one-on-one and did the actual notifications. (By the way - "affected" is kind of insulting. EVERYONE at the company is "affected;" the laid-off people are LAID-OFF. I hate that.) After that was done, we had an all-hands meeting/conference call with the leaders of the new regime, telling the survivors (and those who would be kept around for the transition period) how wonderful the future would be.

That part is pretty typical, and they executed it very smoothly. The ugly part was the next day, when our new CEO rode into the office on his white stallion and immediately started insulting each and every one of us and our worthless failure of company. It didn't help that he had the demeanor and manner of speaking of a cheesy televangelist. The bit about his 9-year old son "crying himself to sleep" the night before, because "Daddy was going to Maryland to fire nice people" was just galling. For my part, I was relieved. It had been a long time coming. When called in to the CFO's office (Boss Lady was conveniently traveling), I practically skipped down the hallway.

My other forced separations were not handled well. Okay - the one actual firing was, technically. I had been hired to be a customer service manager at this little tech company. Three months later, the owner fired the director who had hired me, and the plan for me went out the window. I floated around for a couple of months before landing in the sales office, reporting to the VP of Sales. My "customer service" job became mostly sales, something I had neither an interest in nor the aptitude for - with a quota and everything. I limped along for several months, selling what I could and making it look as good as possible. At the end of my eleventh month (the first one in which I had exceeded my quota), I was awkwardly called back to the office from a late Friday appointment, sat down and fired. Technically, my boss didn't say a single thing wrong, but he had a smugness about him - almost a smirk - that made it so remarkably easy for me to understand the allure of going postal. It really was for the best, though. I'm no salesman.

The layoff from the tiny gene testing company was not fun. My "department" consisted of just me and my boss - my friend since 7th grade. He was acting very strangely, unable to converse with me that morning. Our receptionist announced an all-hands meeting would be starting immediately in the main conference room. Normally, such meeting announcements came via email several days ahead of time. Odd. On my way to the conference room, I am practically tackled by our HR Manager/Executive Assistant (a great EA, but completely unqualified in HR). "Didn't you get my email?" I had not. "You need to come to the pre-meeting over in the small conference room." I am embarrassed to say that I did not understand what that meant until a few minutes later, when I saw who was in the "pre-meeting."

HR Lady, the company's lawyer, myself, and three employees from other departments, all looking extremely anxious. Our company and a larger competitor had been engaged in a lengthy legal battle over some genetics-related patents. The good news is we've settled all the outstanding suits. The bad news is, we're giving up the bulk of our business to these guys for a big cash payment. Bye, Joe. Bye, sales guys. Bye, a handful of biologists. You're welcome to go hear the remainder of the all-hands meeting, already in progress. Take your time cleaning out your desks and saying goodbye and whatnot.

It felt personal, thanks to the small number of "impacted" employees. (That's another way of saying "affected," and it makes me cringe every time I hear it.) But I got over it quickly, and was working again - at a better, more exciting job - within two months.

The next layoff was the worst, so I think it deserves its own post. Maybe tomorrow...

Thanks for reading. It gets better, really it does! :)

Days Minus-575 and Minus-545ish of Double-barrel Unemployment

2010-06-15T20:46:00.012-04:00

Vortex of Doom Communications became a vortex back in 2007, at least 18 months prior to its eventual acquisition by a slightly-less-doomed company - possibly much earlier. One thing about riding a vortex is that you get to circle the drain many times before finally leaving the sink. It was far from a death spiral in mid-2007, but those first few long, slow arcs around the drain had begun.

My better-than-I-probably-deserved boss had thrown a couple of large raises and several spot-bonuses my way, but those days appeared to be at an end. She still couldn't stomach the thought of either replacing me or doing her job without me, and I wasn't particularly fond of the prospect of either replacing this job or doing it for some other boss. So, we had pledged our loyalty to each other. If she left, she had to take me with her and I would stick it out until she was ready to leave. As things at her VP level got unbearable, I would talk her in off "the ledge," and she would do the same for me when my job was made impossible by company actions beyond our control.

Day Minus-575 - Friday, May 4, 2007

joe: morning!
bosslady: yes, it is.
joe: yikes. hey - did we ever figure out how i'm gonna invoice that stuff that doesn't exist in the system yet?
bosslady: yes, but i don't want to do anything to the system until "we" figure out how the fuck we're pricing our product.
joe: um...
bosslady: marketing and product management should have a pricing model done by
joe: 2011?
bosslady: 2018
bosslady: KMN
joe: i will not kill you now. how about you FMN!
bosslady: fire?
joe: :)
bosslady: no i will NOT fire you now. or ever. you're stuck here until the bitter end.
joe: when is that? have you heard something?
bosslady: not soon enough.
joe: now now...
joe: ((hide under desk))
bosslady: do NOT "now now" your boss when she's on the ledge!
joe: i know it's beautiful outside, but that doesn't mean the ledge is any kind of place to be. it's covered in all manner of bird poop and whatnot. just stay inside.
bosslady: i'm okay with bird poop. i deal with shit all day.
joe: dammit. i walked right into that one.
joe: ok. well, stay off the ledge because i'm asking nicely and saying please.
bosslady: not gonna throw me another softball?
...LATER...
bosslady: it IS very poopy out here!
joe: WAIT!! step back off the poopy ledge. i have a reason for you.
bosslady: please share.
joe: 3 words - Spring Shoe Sales.
bosslady: i'm in a meeting that was scheduled for 12-1. it is now 2:15. kmn.
joe: yikes.
bosslady: and speaking of shoes - i bought a fab new pair on monday. i think i'll wear them to my new job...
joe: nooooooo... here will be just fine.
joe: you might end up where fabulous shoes of awesomeness are totally unappreciated.
bosslady: that's ok. i will appreciate their awesomeness.
joe: hey - that's only 50% of the purpose for which fab shoes are designed. the shoes will be sad if they're only appreciated by the wearer.
bosslady: damn. that's a good one. i hadn't thought of that.
joe: yeah - you don't want your shoes to be sad, do you?
bosslady: ok - i am impressed with your awareness of my mental state and that of my shoes.
joe: thank you. are you off the ledge, yet?
bosslady: that would be a yes if i had jumped, you know.
joe: now listen you!
bosslady: fine. we're done here anyway. on my way back to my office...

Day Minus-545ish - Week of June 4, 2007

joe: if this hold music is my "bonus," i think i'll pass.
bosslady: chill out i'm dialing in now, smartass.
...LATER...
joe: are all your meetings and conference calls as depressing as this one?
bosslady: yes. not to mention boring.
joe: super. ok then. see you on the ledge tomorrow. i'll bring the rum and tequila.
joe: maybe a lime or two. health be damned.
bosslady: you're not allowed to die - just like you're not allowed to quit.
joe: if the stuff of the past 8 months didn't kill me, the lung surgery didn't kill me, driving here on Vicodin every morning hasn't killed me and this place hasn't killed me...
bosslady: are you still on that stuff?
joe: [whistle innocently, look around]
joe: what?
bosslady: lol
joe: there's still some pain at night. so, yeah. some mornings, i float here on a cloud of hydrocodone and broken dreams.
bosslady: ROFL
bosslady: it's cool. you do what you gotta do. just be careful.
joe: aye - i am. but you know what?
bosslady: ?
joe: i have you to thank for my love of tequila (and [Maris]'s, for that matter). i never touched the stuff until you gave me that Patron Silver (see -- i even stop to do caps!) last christmas.
bosslady: um, sorry?
joe: no, no - it's awesome stuff, and we are forever in your debt for the introductory bottle. just sayin'. when this place goes kablooey, we'll be left with Patron taste and a Cuervo budget! :)
bosslady: ah yes. hadn't thought of that. now for your off the ledge talk...
joe: oh whatever, boss.
bosslady: don't make me come over there!
joe: lol
bosslady: seriously. don't. i don't like it over there, now. i feel like whenever i come to your desk, all the engineers shut up and listen to our conversations.
joe: can't hear you. out on the ledge...
bosslady: no ledge! let's see here... you like your boss...
joe: well, "like" is a little strong.
bosslady: shoosh!
bosslady: you have a great commute...
bosslady: there's free sodas and cup-o-noodles...
bosslady: um...
joe: wow is that weak.
bosslady: you get to put the top down when you do your bank runs...
bosslady: you get to listen to fascinating engineer debates outside your cube all day...
joe: okay, if i come in off the damn ledge, will you stop?
bosslady: yep!
joe: thank you.
bosslady: HA! i'm queen of the ledge talk!!
joe: that you are, ma'am. that you are, indeed.
bosslady: =))