Dork Reports

Staying occupied is the key to getting through the day and week. People continue to rag on me for being unemployed but beyond the bonanzas that I glorify/vilify, it’s not as great as everyone imagines it to be. Sure, you can sleep and wake whenever you want, but those waking hours can sometimes be a burden – having no one to talk to, feeling guilty if the job search goes ignored, stressing out about when a job will be found or not knowing what you want to do, having no idea where you’ll be living a few months down the line, and the worst: feeling very small in this world as if you’ll never figure out what you’re good at or what will make you happy. Being unable to see happiness in the near future sucks and instead of having a job to distract you, you have a whole day of nothing to remind you you’ve failed.

Don’t get me wrong, not working can be pretty great. But ask anyone who has been unemployed, regardless of whether government checks roll in, and you’ll find out that being trapped in ones own thoughts all day can drive one mad. Though most working people will concentrate on themselves first and tell the unemployed, “Whatever, you don’t have anything to complain about compared to me. I don’t feel sorry for you at all.” We’re not asking for sympathy, we’re just asking for you to turn down the scorn a notch. I understand that that working is worse than not working, hence the long bout of unemployment. But until you’re on the other side you just won’t understand it.

And so the week flies by and you’re that much closer to running out of unemployment checks, yet you still fail to meet your goal of the week of applying for a job that doesn’t exist. I’m not at that point where I’m desperately applying to anything and everything but after this job application, I plan on “settling” and applying for jobs I know I can do but make me feel dead inside. The best I can do is look for companies I wouldn’t mind working at and go from there. I did modify my resume specifically to apply for this job and look up advice on how to cold contact them, but uncertainty and nervousness caused me to bump my goal back when I realized an application on Friday night might as well be sent the next week. I’d rather take some extra time than halfass an application. Since they’re not actually hiring, and I’m pitching myself as someone who can do a bit of everything, I want to get it right, as futile as it might be.

So besides obsessing over my resume and writing a crazy cover letter in my head that I can’t actually get myself to type out, I’ve been distracting myself, or succumbing to unemployment overwhelm-ment. This past week has breezed by without too much moving-related stress. Why? Because I’ve chosen to ignore it entirely and have learned to live with walking around the mess I created when I attempted to separate crap from valuables. Also, now that the 30 boxes of my parents’ stuff is on its merry way across the Pacific Ocean, my dad’s less prone to commanding me to clean up my room so they can put more of their stuff in it.

I’ve kept up the modest exercise routine, hiked six miles at Rancho San Antonio on Sunday and watched these pigs with Caren, Lesley and Emilio:

I met my goal of walking to run errands and have developed a routine of dropping off my Netflix at the post office and depositing my unemployment check at the bank which is about 3.5 miles. I did this twice last week, once to return Brothers, another time to return The Men Who Stare at Goats, and one times was in a drizzling rain with an extra stop to buy a couple lotto tickets. I didn’t win.

I’m now on day 13 of following my 8 minutes of strength training a day program. Some days it feels effective, other days I just feel like a fool. Two exercises a day, 4 sets of 12 reps per exercise. I’m neither going to lose weight nor become ripped but I swear that my arms have a slight hint of muscle definition – but maybe it’s just my bones now that I’ve lost some weight. Regardless, something being better than nothing keeps me going. Ann took back her gym pass so hiking and these creepy exercises are all I have going for me, thank god.

Kristina and I have kept up our once-a-week “Ditch Dan” dinners for a while now. This time we strayed from Palo Alto and ate Mexican food in Sunnyvale while I convinced her rock climbing would be another way we could ditch Dan. I think she’s pretty close to breaking. Until then, I’m happy to continue eating good food with her.

I got invited to Friday pizza night at the OTs’ place. Salvo fixed a Mickey Mouse phone for my mom while Colleen prepped the delicious pizza. Later, Fats slept on my lap and made my day. Pictures to follow someday, maybe. Townie nights are the best. I feel bad always showing up to eat their food, but it’s so good. I haven’t cooked at all since coming back which is sad because that was one of my new favorite hobbies. But that was more of a thing I did when I was in San Francisco since my dad takes care of feeding us at home. I’ll get my cook on some day and the OTs will have to eat my food.

I went back to Rancho San Antonio on Saturday with Ann and Gina and hiked a shorter but more intense trail. We had a strange encounter with a Frenchman and afterwards, we went past the farm and I took a picture of the sheep. I love sheep.

After hiking and acquiring a loaf of three-cheese bread at Panera Bread, I went home, got ready, and drove the present my mom wrapped (“Tell her this is considered an upgrade from newspaper”) to Betsy’s house where she and Vanessa hosted Colleen’s baby shower. It was pretty fun, and after the shower was over, we stuck around long enough that wine and dinner got served.

I’ve woken up around 8am yesterday and today but have been watching Weeds until 3am. (Don’t judge me, I’m only watching because I’ve invested so much time into the series already. I recognize that it’s no longer funny.) So this has been a tiring weekend. Today I got up so that I could eat with these fools at Cafe Gratitude before dropping Ann off at the airport.

Then, Gina and I went for a 1.5 mile walk to the park where I ended up not playing kickball, and that will probably be the end of my hiking for a while as long as this rain continues. My hike with Michelle tomorrow has been canceled due to rain but that ain’t stopping us from grabbing brunch at Southern Kitchen! And now, more fretting over the cover letter and probably some more Weeds.