Thursday, June 16, 2011

The Unemployment Chronicles - Part Five - Short Attention Span Reading

I'm quickly figuring out that not a heck of a lot happens when you aren't working and it can be quite a challenge to think of different ways to do nothing and yet write about it.  It feels kind of like I could just take any of the previous entries and "cut and paste" them here and call things a day.  However, doing that would only take a minute or two and then I would need to find something else to do that might be (gasp) productive or worthwhile.  So, instead, I ramble on with the daily (not) doings of unemployed life.  Also, because I was raised on MTV, thus preventing me from focusing on any one thing for longer than five minutes, I again go to the cheap and easy bullet format rather than anything more substantial.  I trust that is ok with most, however, unless you had hippie parents that made you do crap like read books and go to boy scouts rather than soak in hour after glorious hour of the god box.

-  I got thrown out of the house Friday night.  Apparently self loathing is only cute for so long before it just becomes a drag.  That, coupled with the fact that I cramp Audrey's style (KT described it as much worse, I'm uncomfortable even repeating it) and it was her last day of school and she didn't want me looming over whatever awful decisions she was going to make wrote my one-way ticket to Getthefuckouttahereville.  I was actually pretty excited about it as I tend to cherish extended periods of time where I don't have to talk to anybody and am responsible for nobody but myself.  So, Maggie and I hopped in Red and headed to Taylor's Falls with visions of hiking, kayaking and other exotic adventures.  We were there a total of 24 hours.  Those 24 hours produced 14 hours of sleep, eight hours of reading and two hours of eating and setting up camp.  After 24 hours, Maggie looked at me and said, "I could've done this at home shithead."  So, I took her home.  She's still mad at me.

-  Today is Audrey's first day of Summer vacation.  Not coincidentally, Audrey began working and bringing in cash money today.  For those keeping score at home, that means of the four - sometimes five - humans residing under this roof, I am the only one taking without giving.  It also means it took Audrey exactly zero business days to become gainfully employed.  Meanwhile, I still haven't figured out how to collect my unemployment.

-  Before reading this bullet, please cue your favorites sappy 80's movie music montage and imagine a video of my cliched voyage into maintaining a household with the song playing over it  (Jefferson Starships' Nothings Gonna Stop Us Now or Holding Out For a Hero by Bonnie Tyler will work).  I have done the following things in the past few days:  added entirely too much laundry soap into the washing machine causing soap suds to pop out of the drain, baked and burnt cookies, offered pizza rolls and tortillas with cheese for dinner, inadvertently sucked up various unintended objects with the vacuum, bought tampons and watched a soap opera while drinking a beer.  However, like all great 80s movie montages, it can end on a positive note as I cut flowers and put them in a vase in a clean kitchen today.  Hooray cliches!

-  Speaking of the flowers, they were peonies, of which we are blessed to have three plants in our yard that produce amazing flowers each and every year.  They smell unbelievable and look nice too.  Until KT and I had these plants at our own house, I never knew what they were called.  Growing up, my mom always referred to them as "Blooming Idiots" as the flowers, when they bloom, are so huge and so dense that they are immediately too heavy for their stems and flop to the ground where they quickly die, hence they are "Blooming Idiots".  I love that name and refuse to refer to them as anything else.

-  I really suck at starting campfires.  I am really, truly, horribly bad at it.  I could fail at this task if I were given a gallon of lighter fluid, six copies of the Sunday NY Times and kindling that had been completley dehydrated.  I don't want your suggestions or advice, I just want you to do it for me.  Needless to say, Maggie and I went without a fire Friday night.

-  Next week is the Columbia Heights Jamboree, which is an always awesome event and has an old-school traveling carnival and everything.  Think of every pre-conceived notion you have of carnies and rickety rides that make noises you're pretty sure they shouldn't.  Now, multiply that by ten.   For further reference, Audrey once got puked on at the carnival by an intoxicated lady wearing a neon pink shirt that read "What the Fuck are You Lookin' At?" that didn't even come close to covering her ample midriff (true story!).  That's the Heights carvinal.  Obviously, I love it.   I'm really scared that being unemployed is going to cause me to spend way more time there next week than I should.  Hey, maybe they're hiring?  Also, if any of you other Columbia Heights unemployed slackers think you are finding the jamboree medallion before me next week, I will fight you.  Unless, of course, you want to join forces.

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