The Most Productive Thing I did Today was Trim My Pubes!

Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog!

Today is my first entry into my newly established blog. I have never blogged before, however by virtue of establishing a blog, I feel important, as if...I am actually a writer and have some voice in the world. I know that I am not, however from this day forward, I choose to continue to live this lie and plunge forward into blogging.

Today is day three of unemployment. Officially, I have been unemployed for 41 days, however I have chosen to view the past 41 days as vacation, owed to me for working so hard for the past 10 years since I graduated high school, 7 years since I graduated undergrad, and 5 years since I graduate from graduate school. I chose to begin my official unemployment start date following: a move from Ann Arbor, MI to St. Louis, MO, a week of endless family events and glee-struck family members honoring our "return" to St. Louis, and finally a week long vacation to Seattle to get away from all the moving stress. Since my partner, Sean, started his first week of school on Monday August 4th, 2008, I felt that would be a good day to call myself "unemployed."

Day one wasn't so bad. I got up at 6:30 a.m. and brought Sean to his first day of graduate school. On our drive to school, I lectured him and said to play nice with the other kids, sandboxes are for sharing, and make sure that he didn't call anyone names nor hit, kick, punch and especially bite any of his fellow students. I told him "graduate school is tough, and MBA kids are even tougher." Which is actually not what was really said, but on a voice mail I left him later in the day when I was driving home from lunch with a friend. What was actually said was a re-enactment of "Stranger's With Candy" starring Amy Sedaris talking about "what if they don't like me." We laughed. I dropped him off and set out on my productive day.

I was determined to make my first day of unemployment productive, so I drove around for about three hours following a three hour nap in the morning. I finally got my pin number at the bank...speaking of banks. Why does the bank I go to have to have a line out the door EVERY time I go there and no parking ta' boot? Following the bank, I got a library card, and then headed to the post office...another line to wait in. Why does the city have lines every place I go? Don't people have shit to do during the day? I mean, I am unemployed, but what the hell are these people doing? By that time, I had managed to be out of the house for three hours and I decided that this was productive enough for one day and went home awaiting Sean to call me to pick him up so I could talk to someone.

Day two wasn't so bad. I had a follow-up interview for a job I am not so interested in taking. However, for someone who needs a job and in this market, people keep treating me like I am nuts for not taking a job that I don't particularly care for and would mean a lot of work and probably not a lot of money. "Its a job. Just take it and keep looking" says everyone. Well, I appreciate everyone supporting me in this unemployment, however I think I know my limits more than the average "Joe," escpecially when it means that I have to work to help people not kill themselves and then after that is over, I can use the rest of my free time looking for a job. Doesn't sound too enticing! I will just stick it out. I'll get to how unemployment effects the psyche and ego. Not a pretty thing it does.

Today was day three. Today was worse than day two and especially worse than day one, and in fact, is the worst day yet. Being unemployed, I wanted to use the time wisely, productively, and educationally. Therefore, I keep insisting on getting up early in the morning, taking Sean to school, and doing something productive. Yesterday, I met with Sarah, my very good friend whom I have not seen in a while. We met at a coffee shop b/c we are both on a little "break" from reality, so we met up to start our blogs...we got as far as naming our blogs and registering our site...good enough for one days work( as I dust off my hands from all the hard work!) So, today, I was determined to be productive again. I dropped Sean off at a park so he could play grab ass and red-rover with his MBA constituents....you pay $80,000 for a degree and they make you play in a park with other students...I'd rather be in preschool. (By the way, playing in the park, holding hands with your MBA neighbor was nothing compared to the shit you have to do with your classes in SOCIAL WORK SCHOOL!).

I went home and decided that I would shower and get out of the house and go to the coffee shop to look for jobs on the internet and write this blog. However, since Sean had thrown away the nice hair trimmer, it had been a while since I had "manscaped" and was badly in need of a trimming. Well, I said to myself that today was a "great day" to trim my pubes. Following a quick trimming, a shower, and a shave, I was off to make this day productive. I got in my car, started driving to the coffee shop I went to yesterday, however on the way there I decided that I "should" have walked. Since I felt it was ridiculous to have driven the less than mile walk to the coffee shop, I decided that "that coffee shop isn't cool enough for my writing, and I should head down the street, which was definately not in walking distance, to check out a different one." When I got close to the next coffee shop, I decided that I should eat something before I exert all that energy job searching and blogging. I drove around looking for a place to eat. Then, I decided that since I had to pick up Sean in 3 hours, I should just head over near him, hit up a coffee shop there, and get some coffee. 20 minutes later, I park, put in $1 in the parking meter yielding me 2 hours of hard-working and uninterrupted time for productivity. However, before I had turned off the car, I was listening to this great piece on NPR about stalkers. So, I got myself inside the coffee shop, in line, and decided it smelled "too" much like food and I needed a better coffee shop if I were going to be productive today, besides I wanted to finish listening to that "stalker" bit on the radio. I sat in my car, listened to Diane Ream talk to these women who have been stalked and then I decided I would just go home to work. I was leaving Clayton, when I decided that I should call Sean's sister Tricia to go to lunch, since she worked very close. I left a message, and when I was about to get home, Tricia called and wanted to go to lunch in 20 minutes, which is exactly how long it would take to go to meet her. I then turned around, headed over and met up with Tricia for lunch. I decided I would have a really healthy lunch, so I ordered a salad and a glass of Chardonnay (or 2). Yummo! Following lunch, I got in my car and decided that I would head over and at least look in Crate and Barrel even though I knew that I couldn't buy anything. With the huge sign which was barely visible due to the hazeyness caused by 80% degree humidity and pollution in the distance, close to being a "destination." Sean called for me to head over to pick him up. No Crate and Barrel. No blogging. No job searching. But hey, the most productive thing I did today was trim my pubes.