hey pretty

Susie Homemaker

As any of you who have ever been without employment know, coping with your situation can be a major challenge. Sure, the life of carefree leisure sounds great to anyone stuck in a loveless job, but not having one, and having to fill your days for an indefinite period of time can be a daunting endeavor. There are after all, only so many hours one can spend searching WaPo for a new job.

I have found over the past year or so that I have become quite bad about occupying myself. I think my party-girl schedule of constant evening socializing distracted me from ever having to spend much time alone. And now that I've abandoned that lifestyle, I'm reminded of the challenge of having to entertain myself. While I love being alone, I sometimes have a hard time with it when its imposed upon me.

Today was no different. I overslept and awoke to my cell ringing, with 47 calling to ask how last night's yoga class was. After a conversation with him that resembled more of a series of grunts on my end (I am not a morning person) he got the hint that I wasn't ready to banter and let me go. Finally awake, I thought about what I was going to do today and suddenly felt very glum.

After kicking about the house for an hour or two I realized that I've been very grumpy for the past several days and that this mood was beginning to resemble depression. Since I'm prone to annual bouts of SAD, it's hard to know if my mood was situational or seasonal, but I didn't really care. I just wanted to do something about it. Luckily for me, half the battle of depression is recognizing it. I've never been one for real pharmies, but I do like to dabble in herbals, and I suddenly remembered a half full (notice how i didn't writer "half empty") bottle of 5 HTP in my medicine chest. After downing two along with a mug of green tea, my mission for the day was instantly clear: How had I not noticed all the fun activities waiting for me inside my own house? It was time to play homemaker. I felt instantly better.

So far today, I have cleaned the kitchen and have done two loads of laundry. I am also cooking. There is currently a large bowl of milk, sugar and butter cooling on my counter where it will soon meet with several packets of yeast, all in preparation for my ultimate gastronomic specialty: challah bread. I learned how to make it in batches of 50 when I was a cook at a co-op in college. Its rare that I break out those skills anymore simply because I normally don't like being tethered to the kitchen. But today is dreary and cold and I have nowhere else to go, so why not whip up several loaves of the best bread ever invented?

Unemployment is slowly reminding me of the simply joys of domesticity. Sure, it's still great to go out and eat great food at hip new restaurants and visit my favorite dive bars, but I am slowly accepting that this slower lifestyle is a good one for me. While laundry and cleaning doesn't sound glamorous, few things make me quite as happy as the site of a clean counter and a stack of warm fluffy bed linens. If I can have a fat slice of challah to eat as I climb into a well-made bed at the end of the day, so much the better.

You must excuse me now, my yeast collection beckons.

Diving Into Unemployment

While all you high-powered DC types out there have been fretting about your respective "careers" this week, I've been doing quite the opposite: not really giving a shit.

Unemployment in a town where so many people are positively obsessed about what they're doing and who others think they are has its pros and cons. For starters, it imposes a forced distance between yourself and the entire concept of gainful employment. No matter how diligent one becomes in searching for jobs, it probably won't take over your entire life as an actual job tends to do. While I've never really been one to let my work define me, this particular period of unemployment is illuminating just how silly that is. While I understand that some people really care about their jobs and see them as a means of actualizing what they feel to be their mission in life, others simply let their jobs overtake their lives as a means of putting food on the table and getting ahead simply for the sake of pure achievement.

Don't get me wrong, food on the table is great. But achievement for its own sake is an urge I can't identify with.

Over the past week many people have asked me what I'm looking for. While I used to repeat to everyone the same old line about writing/communications jobs, non-profits, etc, I'm feeling less enthusiastic about that today. That's what I *was* doing. That's what my resume is angled to. That's what I know how to write a good cover letter for. But is it me? I'm not so sure. I haven't been that happy at the jobs that I've had. Whether this is a function of the organizations I've worked for, or the work itself, I don't know. What I do know is that I've developed a certain aptitude for writing, creating media strategy, research and the like. When you display aptitude for an activity, people tend to encourage you to do more of it. But is that a career or a rut?

Beats me.

Not having a job means that I measure productivity in very different terms. The following is a list of small achievements that illustrate my productivity.

-Applied for unemployment compensation
-Searched for jobs online for 8 hours.
-Took writing test for job I don't really want
-Attended yoga once.
-Went to the gym twice for 45 minutes each (will go again today)
-Meditated for 4 minutes
-Emailed family friend to ask if we could have coffee to discuss job options
-Did yoga in living room
-Visited 3 apartments on behalf of 47 for his new housing search
-Bought groceries
-Established set of rules for myself for unemployment (no TV during the day; eat healthy foods; go to the gym a lot; drink less; maintain creative outlets; do lots of yoga, etc).
-Applied for one job
-Established a quasi-work study program at yoga studio in order to maintain practice program without actually having to pay for it
-Spent grand total of 30 dollars
-Did laundry
-Downloaded photos from digital camera, selected ones to upload to Flckr account; discovered that the DCist photo group has monthly meetings.

To those of you with "important" jobs this probably doesn't sound like much. But to me? I think I'm doing pretty well.
I'm also growing extremely comfortable with being alone. In fact, I think I may prefer it to the company of others.

I have also been contemplating job options waaay outside the box I've drawn around myself. Like "boutique owner" which may be totally nuts considering my lack of retail experience but I have this funny idea and I'm asking myself "well, why not?" I did convince the CEO at my last job to fund my website idea. That sort of suggests an entrepreneurial instinct, right? The fact that I kept myself up somewhat late last night imagining what my business would do, what it would look like, how it would be marketed and branded, etc. Now I'm like, "huh, this is intriguing." But in two days I could have forgotten all about it. That tends to happen with me.

Anyway.

I guess what I am trying to do is remind you all that there's more to life than jobs and careers and it's bad to judge people solely on this terms. My life now without a job feels far richer than the one I lead when I had one.

Finally, let me brag about one definite perk of not having a job. This week, while all you girly girls have been obsessed with how not to ruin your suede high heels in the salt and snow, I have been holed up at home wearing a flannel shirt, yoga pants, and thick warm socks. I've been pouring over the LL Bean catalog searching for the warmest pair of shearling-lined boots I can get my hands on. I am embracing my cragging New England roots. The ones that serve me very well when the weather drops below 30 and fluffy white particles fall from the sky. While I used to begrudge my parents' choice to raise me on a former farm on a dirt road in a house without cable miles from the nearest child my age, I am totally seeing the benefits. Or two of them at least--the ability to happily forgo vanity for the sake of warmth and keep myself occupied when alone in a very drafty house.

If only I could add those to my resume.