Two Topics To Tiptoe Around

When we look back at 2009, I doubt any of us will remember it as a banner year.

But for me it's been just the worst.

In a matter of eight weeks, I lost employment, health and love.

Happily, the only lingering traces of my extreme pneumonia are an annoying occasional cough, but the other two areas of my life are a bit more problematic.

So for the benefit of others out there like me (my fellow unemployed and dumped), may I suggest that you avoid asking us a couple of questions that only serve to remind us of our state of being and which we really don't want to answer anyway.

The first is, "Any luck finding a job yet?"

Let me assure you, when we are again employed, we will be shouting it from the rooftops, telling strangers and boring everyone with details.

Until then, it's just another time we have to acknowledge our failure.

The other question to be avoided is, "Why aren't you dating yet?"

Uh, because I'm still working through this whole broken-hearted thing? Because I'm not ready to? Because there's no point?

Believe me, if a woman like me is deliberately opting out of trying to find a partner, there's probably a good reason.

Nagging her to make the effort is not going to change her readiness for it, and it's definitely not something she needs to hear.

Or read, as in in my freaking horoscope: A new love is simply a new person awakening the feeling of love that was already inside you. It's nice to have someone unlock it for you, but not necessary. It was always there. 

Oh, really?


Take it from someone who knows, your laid off and dumped friends are happy to talk about almost anything except jobs and love.

I'm sure you can understand.

Swimming in the Flood

Funemployment is the recent media-coined term for the attitude some of us jobless are supposedly taking about having no grindstone to put our noses to. Instead of becoming depressed and suicidal, apparently the ten percent of Americans who are currently jobless are finding fun and creative ways to spend our days. Seems we're volunteering, delving into hobbies and community support and taking care of the business of life during the day so we can leave our nights free for fun. After all, when you're unemployed, no night is a school night; the funemployed have no curfews.

I'm guilty as charged of funemployment. I spend time every single day looking for work, sending off resumes and references, crafting clever cover letters and following up on leads. That still leaves a whole lot of time for other activities, as you may have noticed if you've seen me browsing at La Tienda or Tan-A or Tokyo Mart any random afternoon. I have also volunteered more in 2009 than in my entire life so I continue to contribute to society.

Last week, I attended one of the noon lectures at the Virginia Historical Society. The topic was the 1918 Meuse-Argonne battle, one of the deadliest of World War I (65,000 men lost in six weeks). And although the bulk of the audience was a sea of white and bald heads, the speaker was lively, the topic quite compelling and I learned plenty (we funemployed may not work, but our brains still function).

I took in an 11:00 showing of the 1939 film, "The Women," a classic movie any film geek should have seen long before my age. This film is apparently so well-known that many in the audience were reciting lines along with the characters on screen; it did have a lot of great bitchy and campy dialogue. "Get me a bromide...and put some gin in it," for one.

Funemployment allows for a long lunch with a hipster friend at Balliceaux and having plenty of time to inspect the back room, the bathrooms, the decor and dissect the crowd. It also allows time to lunch leisurely in the cave-like Chiocca's with an anti-hipster friend nursing a hangover and eating anchovies on his mondo sandwich.

Funemployment: it's not for everyone, but it sure makes the best of a less-than-ideal situation. And moping around whining about it just isn't my style.

The Layoff Killed Him

"Matt's dead," the e-mail said.

Matt used to be my brother-in-law, but he was my friend before he ever met or married my sister. Back in the '70s, I lived in a group house with him and two other guys and we threw parties, bantered endlessly and left each other scribblings on a white board.

I hadn't seen him in forever.

The last I had heard of him was about a year ago when he got laid off from a company he'd worked for since he was in his 20s. A company where all his close friends worked. After being laid off, he wouldn't return his friends' calls.

The only person he'd talk to was his sister in New England and when he stopped answering her calls last week, she got worried.

Sure enough, when they entered his house, he was dead on the couch.

Now, Matt had his vices: he always drank too much, smoked way too many cigarettes and had two completely different-sized wardrobes to accommodate his eating compulsions and major weight shifts. In time, any of these habits could have been fatal.

But realistically, we all know that it was being laid off that sent Matt over the edge. He was a victim of the recession, sure as if he'd jumped out a window. It's enough to make your heart hurt..