So it will be, next week, officially, three months since I have not worked.
I know, I know...this is a rather insignificant and unstarteling admission given the state of the U.S. economy, but it is one that I have a rather hard time grapling with. For one reason, I have never been unemployed until now and the last time this happened, I was 12 years old and begging God in the bathtub every night to grant me breasts the size of Melinda DelGado's (it is not important who Melinda DelGado is here...it is just important to know that I was in eigth grade and wanted boobs instead of the pancakes that were currently in my bra).
The second reason is because I have what psychologists term as "an overactive mind." Kindly, we have historically called these folks...these people with overactive minds..."artists," and "philosophers" and "avant guard thinkers..." which, quite frankly, is wonderful if you were living in Paris during the 18th century or Rome during the sixth. Oh hell, for that matter, even in Greenwich Village, New York in the 1960s. But, alas, if you are living in 2010 in southern New Jersey...it just doesn't have the same ring to it. Doesn't seem to convey the same sense of deep and enlightening purpose.
But here I am, in 2010 in southern New Jersey with (thank God) decent sized breasts but no job.
Mind you, this is of my choosing. I have decided to embrace this whole "unemployed" thing for the simple reason that it is so foreign to me, so outside of my realm of comfortable experience, that I figure I might as well get this lesson down now. Who knows? I may be employed at any given time and my tits will shrink...might as well experiment with the counter-culture for now.
The first thing you learn from being unemployed is that you have A LOT of time to spend with your own mind. For me, who always fancied myself pretty aware and self-knowledgeable, this has been a shock. I have discovered things about myself that I never knew before...and not all of them are things I like...but some are.
After I "resigned" from my post in Uganda (which, to this day, is something I don't think I will ever figure out the dynamics of...whether I resigned, was fired, forced out, etc...), I went into complete shock. I basically sat down on my boyfriend's couch in New Jersey and proceeded to do nothing for an entire month but read self-help books, stare blankly at at the television screen, and avoid any and all national news.
(I watched the Lifetime channel for a solid two weeks for Christ's sake...does that not show my level of utter despondence?)
I also followed my boyfriend, Chas, around hopelessly, like a lost puppy.
This, I can tell you now that I am out of the fog, is not characteristic of me...but, again, I am realizing that I seem to have a few "not characteristic" themes up my sleeve.
So I followed Chas around for a month or so (OK, maybe two months) asking, "Do you love me? Do you still think I am smart?"
Chas, like me, has no patience after a certain point and so when he determined that my convalescence was over, he was blunt.
"What the fuck is wrong with you? You are a woman who has traveled the world, been in war zones, written a book, taught classes to Marines, and now you are following me around the house asking me if I think you're smart and whether I love you?" he said, "When do you think stage this might be over?"
He was exasperated...and I was still pathetic.
Fine, I declared. Just fucking fine. I will DO something and then I won't have to think about any of this anymore.
So I decided to cook and to garden...my two favorite things to do besides writing and thinking...both of which were not coming to me easily anymore.
I cooked.
Dear God did I cook.
I think it was somewhere between the Vietnamese Pho and the braised, stuffed artichokes that I realized I might have gone a tad too far.
"Do you know how to make a meatloaf?" Chas asked, one night after he discovered that Vietnamese noodle soup was not something he needed to heal and that he hated artichokes...something I still can't believe.
I was incensed.
"Of course I know how to make a damn meatloaf!" I said, "But I spent four hours on this soup and the artichoke recipe was hard to execute and it took time...why don't you love me?"
Chas was, quite frankly, flabbergasted.
"I DO love you and I love most of what you make. But I am not used to having a personal chef and that's what you are now. You are making these exotic meals that, most times, I appreciate, but I would rather have YOU back around again. Can we just have meatloaf or spaghetti and meatballs one night? Please?" he asked.
Of course, at the time, I couldn't see his line of reasoning.
And, Chas is no angel.
He is, at times, surly and moody and he likes to be heavily tasked.
This (not the surly or moody part) is a good thing.
I ask him to do something and he actually does it. In a timely manner. And no, not just becausehe wants to get laid...his mind actually goes bonkers if he doesn't complete a task on time to its ultimate potential.
I understand this emotion deeply. It used to run my life.
Sometimes, however, it does get out of control.
"Dog just won't shit!" he tells me, after our Pug, Mo, has defeated him another time.
Chas is facing me, crestfallen, after another dog walking during our rainy and dreary day in our little beach hideout has fallen short.
"Damn dog won't shit," he tells me, "and I know he wants to..."
He continues: "Of course he wants to! But he won't...you are the only person on the planet that can make this dog shit!" he says.
I sometimes think about this...how it might look on my resume.
I can make dogs shit.
But then I relegate it to the back burner and try to think higher thoughts about myself.
So I take Mo out and, of course, he shits.
I pick it up ("as curbing your dog" is a serious policy in Wildwood, New Jersey).
Chas greets me at the door...
"He shat for you, didn't he?" he sulks.
I have nothing to offer but a soggy dog and an even more soggy pile of...waste.
In its proper blue bag, of course.
"Yeah, he shat. I don't have any special advice to offer you...dogs feel comfortable shitting around me," I proffer, hoping to deter the subject.
Chas surprises me, as usual.
"You actually do have a lot to offer. I like that about you," he says.
So me and Chas and Mo all tuck into an incredibly warm and soothing bed at 10am on a Tuesday morning.
We sleep for an hour and then we all get up and go our separate ways.
Chas is outside trying to ascertain how to hang my new strawberry planter (yield: 40 kilos of strawberries, or so they tell me on the box) in the right light, Mo is executing a very Freudian act that has to do with balancing between masturbating and tearing Chas's shoes apart as an act of punishable pleasure, and me...well, I am just me.
So I grab my coffee and my breakfast sandwich, snuggle deeper under the sheets that line the bed where both the man and the dog that I love also sleep...and I fall into a deep slumber.
Chas and Mo awaken me an hour later.
There is no time to sleep when there are things to harvest and life to pay attention to while it is...well, alive.
So I get up.
I used to make over 100 thousand dollars a year. Now, I make nothing.
But nothing seems OK right now.
Very OK.
