GIVE ME YOUR MONIES

One of the most difficult things about being unemployed is trying to figure out what to do with your day.  Everyone's reaction seems to be "Spend your time applying for jobs!".  That works the first week.  The first week of unemployment was spent applying for ALL OF THE JOBS.  I was dropping my resume like it was made of napalm and craigslist was Vietnam.

Mop the floors.
Wipe down baseboards.
Organize sock drawer.
Clean out closets and bag up any clothes that don't fit/that you don't wear to donate to charity.
Feed the kidnapped child you keep in the linen closet.

Okay, you guys, I don't want to sound alarmist or paranoid or anything but...

A PIGEON IS TRYING TO KILL ME.

It started simply enough.  About a week ago, a pigeon started hanging out on the ledge outside of my living room window.  I didn't really think much of it, there are pigeons all over the damn place in this city.  In fact, if my dog Six hadn't been spending so much time whining at the window because she wants to get a nice long sniff of the flying rat's ass (HEY, IS THAT WHERE THAT EXPRESSION COMES FROM???) I probably wouldn't have noticed it.

A few days ago things started getting weird.  I would come in from the other room, and I could SWEAR that I saw the bird staring into the windows... watching me.  And then, the other day, it's gentle "cooing" went from "coo... coo... coo..." to "coo... coo... ciii... kiii... killl... kill... kill...".

Here's the second installment of me and Violet's webcomic.  Enjoy!

In times of turmoil we all turn to role models in our lives in order to try to figure out how to handle the curve balls being hurled at our faces.  As a natural born member of the GRITS nation (girls raised in the south, how obnoxious is that?), my go to role model is none other than Miss Scarlett O'Hara.

I'll admit it, I grew up wanting to be Scarlett.  She was beautiful, she always got what she wanted (except for Ashley Wilkes, but really, what a pussy he was), and she didn't take crap from anyone.  Scarlett went through a lot in her young life and who would be a better role model for me to follow in my adventures of unemployment than this fine example of female empowerment?  So, I've laid out a careful plan that will enable me to reclaim my independence and fortune that is based on the steps taken by Miss Scarlett O'Hara.


Step One: Marry a child that has no concept of what he is getting in to and that will die so soon that you won't actually have to consummate the marriage.
Last summer I dated this teenager that lives on the Upper West Side.  I won't go so far as to say that the relationship was unconsummated, but he sure was young as hell... in any case, I guess I could marry him and assume that his excessive drug use will take him from me before I get preggo (it helps that all of the drugs have seriously diminished his sperm count).  If the US Government can declare a war on drugs it is totally reasonable for me to consider him a casualty of war and myself as a proud widow of a valiant soldier.  Honestly, isn't it more honorable to die as a result of defending your right to imbibe an excessive number of your mother's pain killers than to die at the hands of a northerner in defense of keeping human beings as slaves?


Step Two: Start a farm, turn your curtains into a ball gown, and try to get a handsome rogue to get you out of debt.
This can be difficult in New York City.  However, I do have a fire escape.  Also, it doesn't seem like a financially responsible plan to be growing cotton, so I have decided to grow marijuana.  I have a complex hydroponic system on my fire escape that is being tended by Mammy (my dog six) and Prissy (aka Pugssiah):

I have been masturbated on in the subway.  Twice.  In the past year.

Okay, ONCE I was masturbated on, once I was masturbated AT.  But, just the same, it's weird and creepy, and I'm the writer here and I reserve the right to use a smidge of hyperbole to make my stories more interesting.

After this happens, you have to start wondering if there's something you are doing wrong.  Is there a secret signal I'm giving out?  Do I simply look fun to masturbate on?  Or maybe it's just being in the wrong place at the wrong time... more than once.

In addition to attracting self-satisfying pervs, I have also had to clean blood off of my boots after watching a guy tweaked out on PCP beat up a nerdy little guy who made this mistake of looking at him, was picked up by a seemingly normal guy who turned out to be a recovering coke-head, had my wallet stolen out of my purse, had my baby toe stomped on and broken by a pair of steel-toed boots, was called a "n****r-slave loving honky" by a strange Indian man that started a fight with several large black men on the A-Train in the middle of Harlem (I have to say, I really enjoyed watching him get slapped in the face), and I'm not even going to how many offers I've gotten from orthodox jewish boys to take over the part of "shiksa play thing" in their lives.  Are any of these things that uncommon for any New York straphanger?  No.  Is it uncommon for all of these things to happen to one person within the span of a year?  DECIDEDLY SO.

A friend of mine hypothesized that the reason that so much of this happens to me is that I spent a lot more time on the train than other people.  I live in, what one friend so affectionately dubbed, "Upstate Manhattan" (Inwood).  Before I became a woman of leisure I would spend a minimum of two hours a day on the train.  But, really, that isn't THAT much more than other people.

I'm pretty much convinced that there is just something about my personality that attracts the odd and not normal.  Sometimes it's terrible and sometimes it's great!  Just last week a little boy told me I smelled like a cookie and asked if he could touch my hair.  I told a friend this and she thought that by little I meant "skinny" and not "age four"... and assumed that this "little" boy was on ecstacy.  And oddly, with my history, that makes more sense.

I'm working on something.

No, it isn't anything I'll get paid for.  Because, you know, when you're unemployed it's best to devote your time to activities that won't make you money.  But, what I'm working on is probably the only thing that is keeping me from throwing on my trusty kimono, grabbing Vera (my Katana), and disemboweling myself on my kitchen floor.  Yes.  I have a Katana.  I take a samurai sword class.  I should list that on my resume, "THE ABILITY TO MURDER YOU IF YOU DON'T HIRE ME".

You're going to start seeing a webcomic on this blog.  I have a friend, Violet, she lives in New Orleans and she is crazy, dark, funny, quasi-suicidal, and unemployed.  Violet likes to make art.  In an effort to not take our own lives in despair over the state of our own miserable existence and also as a way of ensuring we are spending even less time searching for gainful employment, we have decided to collaborate and create a webcomic.  We work together on a story, I write the words, Violet draws the pictures, and together we have birthed something dark and scary but, hopefully amusing (and we didn't even have to get an episiotomy!!!).  Your going to wish you didn't click that link.

The first installment is forthcoming.

In the meantime, you'll just have to put up with me telling you about how my butcher is trying to use my unemployment to get me to marry him.

My butcher really wants to bone me.  I've known this for a while.  He offered me a lifetime of free meat (I'm still not entirely clear on if this was the meat in the case or... you know, his penis) in exchange for my hand in marriage about 2 months ago.  At the time I laughed demurely and took my cold-cuts (ignoring the fact that he gave me an extra quarter of a pound for free).  I never should have told him that I'm out of work.

I'm reasonably certain that he can smell my desperation.  He seems keenly aware of the fact that I am terrified of becoming a mole person.  I'm usually at the grocery store every day, every other day at least (living alone means food goes bad quickly, and I can't be wasting one ounce of freeze-dried tofurky bacon... I'm just kidding, I can't afford that... I don't want my spam going bad).  Every day, I see my butcher and he asks me if I've found a job.  Every day I tell him "No... not yet" and his eyes light up.  He delights in my joblessness.

"I'm tellin' ya Princess, if you was wid me, you wouldn't NEVAH hafta look for work.  I'd treat you like a queen.  I got a nice big apartment, we could get all da best cutsa meat, I know how ya like ya poik tendahloin.  You could go shoppin' all day and I'd just like ta come home 'n' look at ya lookin' pretty."

I giggle and tell him that I have a boyfriend, I'm quite happy, but thanks for the offer.

Not long ago he started saying "You'll come around!" every time I would say this.  It didn't get to me at first, but as the calendar pages fall away, I'm finding that this is affecting me more and more.  I'm not finding myself attracted to him or anything... I need money, but he's a 400 lb Samoan from the Bronx... and he hated on Breesus once.

What's worrying me is the tone in his voice.  It's become menacing.  At first I thought I was crazy, but lately I've been noticing some pretty bizarre things: what appeared to be a 400lb Samoan hiding behind a light post on my way home, an errant butcher's apron hanging on the hook on my bathroom door, my favorite cuts of meat appearing in my fridge with bows on them, and other odd things like that.

Most recently, I'm pretty sure that he drugged my roast chicken and impregnated me.  Eh... maybe it's all in my head, but I don't know who else would have scrawled "Having my baby, what a lovely way of saying how much you love me" on my bedroom wall in pork blood.

Anyway, I'm gonna go read that pregnancy test... look for the comic that Violet and I wrote, should appear in the next day or so.

I wake up every morning between seven and eight am, stumble bewildered and blind from my bedroom, push my dogs out of my crotch, and fall asleep on the toilet for about 10-15 minutes.  I take as long as possible in the bathroom in the mornings because I know that the minute I open the door again I will be assaulted by a barrage of jumping and yipping spewing forth from the gaping maws of two oppressively affectionate dogs. I throw on the most hideous assortment of mismatch gym clothes and take the hell beasts out to shit. My attire and bed head really help differentiate me from all of the people that are obviously headed to work. My neighbors are pretty nice, and they usually say hi and ask how I'm doing, though this has begun to become less frequent. It's probably because my response has become a snarled "Unemployed, fuck you very much."

After taking my office-mates (I feel like this is healthier than calling my dogs "my babies") out for a morning piss I head back home, feed them, start my coffee pot, and cry in the shower for about half an hour. The nice thing about doing work from home is that the dress code is pretty casual. I emerge from the shower, gulp down a cup of coffee, and while I am still wearing my bath towel I look over the job posting sites of places I want to work to see if they have any new openings.

If they don't, I stay naked for the next several hours and convince myself that I'm dying of a horrible disease that I see featured on an episode of Dr. Oz or a rerun of House.  (warning, NEVER google Morgellons Disease)

 If they do, I become excited. I step away from the computer and get dressed while I contemplate the thoughtful cover letter I am going to compose. I imagine the delight on the face of the HR rep that will eventually open my email.

"AT LAST!" She will exclaim "We've finally found the right person! This girl is obviously the key to our organization's success!"

Having dressed myself, I go into the kitchen and inject coffee directly into my eyeballs.  I am finally ready to write my epic job application.

I do a little internet research on the company I am applying to, the department I'm writing to, the position itself, and I do full background checks on my potential supervisors to determine if there is any readily available blackmail material. I use my basic cover letter template and modify it to show that I understand the challenges that the organization faces and how I am the right solution to their particular problem. I am careful not to say "You have problems. I'm the only person that can save your sorry ass."

It takes me about an hour (maybe a little more) to complete an application, review it, and send it off.  Feeling proud of myself, I take a look at craigslist postings and apply for about ten more positions at places that can't afford to pay me enough to buy shoes (to be fair, I have a REALLY expensive shoe habit). By this point it's about lunch time and I need a sandwich.  While I eat my lunch I think about exactly how much it is costing me... maybe I should have used less cheese.

I then check my email every five minutes for the next 5 hours.  Every time I hit "refresh" and don't see any communication from the amazing job I applied for that morning, I feel more and more sick.  Finally it's 5 o'clock (in California) and I exclaim loudly to my bewildered dogs as I rip off my bloody clothes (did I mention that every time I don't have an email I open a vein?) "QUITTIN' TIIIIME!!!"

I then proceed to get drunk.  I get the kind of drunk that you only get when you are alone.  The kind of drunk that ends with me passed out upsidedown on my papasan chair, naked, with a dog sleeping on my chest.  Sometimes in my drunken stupor I fill out a few more job applications.  I feel like it's my gift to the HR departments of everywhere I don't want to work.  At least they can look at something and go "Wow.  At least my life isn't as bad as this."


Eventually my dog farts in my face and I wake up, stumble into my bedroom, set my alarm, and as I drift off to sleep I have the cruelest thought of all: "Maybe tomorrow will be a better day."