Unemployment Diaries -- Red Rum, Red Rum

One thing that really sucks about being self-employed (doesn’t that just sound better than unemployed) is not seeing anyone all day, everyday. I can totally now see why Jack Nicholas’ character in The Shining lost it.

That much alone time is maddening.

Maybe this is why I have been running as much as I have recently.

I always loved to run. But before the termination of my position, I found a number of excuses not to. Most often it was not wanting to wake up at the butt-crack of dawn to get a run in before work. I am also a bit of a sweater, so running during my lunch hour was not an option. After work I was always so tired. But now, I really have no excuses.

Also running isn’t really not working for me. Most of the time I spend running I am coming up with dialog or drafting a blog entry in my head. Running also has the advantage of being wicked cheap. I already own the shoes and the clothes. Another great ancillary benefit of this new habit is that it is slimming me down. Which is important as pool season is almost upon us and I totally intend on doing a lot of writing pool side this summer.

What? I need to get out of the house. Plus the sun is good for me -- it provides me with Vitamin D, which helps my bones absorb calcium.

Of course, like Jack in The Shining, I have also picked up a nasty habit to fill the void during my days. No, I haven’t been repetitively typing, “All work and no play makes Tati a dull girl.” It is not quite that unproductive, but possibly as destructive. I have been texting with the Republican.

I know, I know, and even if I don’t know, believe me you aren’t going to say anything Marie and Bridie and Theresa haven’t already said. I just miss witty banter. A lot. And while the Republican isn’t many things, he is witty. And he makes me laugh.

Plus I am getting a lot better at not doing it all day, but only for only a couple of minutes at the beginning or end of my day.

And I will stop eventually. Soon. I promise.

Ding-Dong

I typically get to Starbucks early in the morning, desperate for a venti soy chai latte to wake myself up -- yes I know they are approximately 1000 calories a piece, but what do you want me to do, I love them.

However, yesterday, I managed to get up early and run with one of my mommy friends, so I didn’t need tea to wake me up.

Plus thanks to the Duchess’s birthday bash on Saturday night, I was just a bit too hung over on Sunday to do much of anything that involved me getting off my couch. So once I got back from my run I had to write the Steve Harvey blog before I could run to Starbucks to post it.

But it would seem forces greater than my determination to run or a Saturday night filled with beer and karaoke were at work here. Because when I walked in, standing behind the counter, waiting to take my order was not my regular barista, but a scruffy Zac Efron look-alike, though cuter because he wasn’t quite so girlie looking. He was tall, with blue eyes and floppy hair and my mouth dropped open for a moment as I wondered why the hell I didn’t take the time to apply make-up before I ran out of the house. At least eyebrows and mascara.

Thank god, my hair looked good.

I carefully placed my order, making sure I said all the words right and didn’t let anything like, “you are yummy delicious” slip out. Still, I was so flummoxed I forgot to ask for my latte in an environmentally friendly mug so he probably thinks I don’t care about the planet.

Now, you know I have a very strict policy about dating co-workers, and while I don’t work for Starbucks, I do work at the Starbucks, so I will not be throwing myself at this boy (as I would be shocked if this guy was 22 years old). It isn’t like they serve alcoholic beverages and I could blame it on being over-served when I walk in there the day after he rejected me (the way I do whenever a bartender has spurned my advances). I would never be able to visit that Starbucks again. And it is so close to my apartment, not to mention the free WiFi.

Still, I will be adjusting my schedule accordingly. You know how much I appreciate eye candy in the office.

I’m No Lady

Steve Harvey promised to empower me.

I woke up Saturday morning dreading the task at hand. I knew I could no longer put off reading Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, the latest relationship book my mother purchased for me in her effort to hasten the arrival of her grandbabies.

But first, the master procrastinator that I am, I made my self some tea and turned on CNN.

I wasn’t surprised when T.J. announced that they were going to rerun their interview with Steve Harvey that morning. T.J. has had a crush on me for quite some time, it was evident that he read my blog, knew I was planning on reading Steve’s book this weekend and thought I would find his interview helpful.

I agreed, plus it had the added advantage of keeping me from actually having to read the book for a few minutes more. From the interview I learned that men show their love for women with the three P’s: Profess, Provide and Protect. Steve also told me that he didn’t just pull all of this advice out of his rear-end, but that it comes from years and years (and years) of talking to men about women and relationships.

Steve also looked me in the eyes and promised his book would empower me.

Feeling newly invigorated, I mean what woman couldn’t use a little empowering on a rainy Saturday morning, I sat back on my couch and started reading.

Oh dear lord.

I will say this -- Steve made one really good point (and I believe this was part of the thinking like a man section). Women need standards and we need to make those standards clear early on and we need to recognize that we can’t change men, no matter how much we want to or try.

This makes perfect sense to me. If you want to get married and have children, you should find out pretty early on in a relationship if that is something your mate wants as well. If not, you should stop wasting your time and move on to the next one.

But that is it for the “I am woman, hear me roar” part of the book. The rest of it discusses what it means to be a lady.

And I think this is the part that really offends most women. Well, that or being compared to fried fish. Personally, I am not really sure which bothered me more.

Now, for Steve, acting like a lady means allowing a man to buy you dinner and open your door and hang things in your house and move heavy equipment. It also means cooking your man meals (I guess this means my mom would be better off buying me a cookbook than another how to find love book), and taking care of your kids and not wearing a t-shirt to bed every night.

On that last point, if you do wear a t-shirt to bed every night and you are always too tired (you know from holding down a full-time job and then coming home and cooking and cleaning and raising children) to have sex, know that your man is going to cheat on you. But don’t worry, when you discover his indiscretion and throw his ass out on the curb, he will do whatever it takes to get you back (if he is a real man) and when he does, he will be a better husband, but more importantly, you will be a better wife.

How taking that lying, cheating sack of shit back meets with the standards you are suppose to have is beyond me. But this isn’t the only discrepancy in the book, so I guess we are just to take Steve’s word for it.

Looking back on my past few “relationships” through Steve’s eyes I could see where I went wrong. I offered to pay my share on the two dates I had with the Republican, I never let Houdini help around my apartment, and not only did I pick the restaurant that Scooter and I went to, I brought the wine. And then there was Wharton.

Oh wait, I never made Wharton cuddle after sex or talk about his feelings, and she always paid when we went out. Yeah, I am not really sure where we went wrong. Oh, right, we had sex before the 90 day probationary period was up; another big no-no according to the Book of Steve.

Unemployment Diaries -- Insomniac

Remember when staying up all night was cool?

When we were younger, it was during slumber parties. At first, it was just the sheer excitement of being up past bedtime. As we got older, staying up just wasn’t cool, it was a matter of survival. As the first person asleep became the victim of any number of practical jokes.

Then there was college. Staying up was part survival, part party. All night cramming sessions that inevitably included runs to Nifty Fifties for milkshakes or Pat’s for a cheesesteak. Sure, you could study during the day; hell you could even get a cheesesteak on campus during daylight hours, but that wasn’t the point. Studying all night with your roommates, doing whatever it took to stay awake was a right of passage, a bonding experience.

But now, staying up isn’t cool. It is depressing and stressing and worrisome.

It isn’t as if I didn’t have bouts of insomnia when I was employed. Of course I did. Everyone does, I am sure. I even had insomnia at times in high school -- which is why I can tell you the Snake Eater movies, all three, rock.

But since having my job taken from me I have been “sleeping” on my couch more than I have actually slept in my bed.

And if daytime television commercials are any indication of whom television programers think are watching -- definitely stay at home mommies with cats -- I wonder who they think is up at three in the morning.

Definitely the lonely, as evidenced by the number of eHarmony and party line ads I have recently seen. There are also a plethora of male enhancement ads, which leads me to believe that the lonely that are up at this hour are assumed to be men. That or unsatisfied girlfriends.
I have also witnessed a lot of weight loss ads, which I think is a horrible assumption to make -- not all fat people are lonely.

After 3 a.m. there are also a lot of ads for completely useless products like easier-to-use scissors or this do-hickey that helps you open any-size jar. I am not sure if this is because ad rates are so much cheaper during these hours or if the advertisers think it is easier to convince the sleep-deprived just how necessary these products are. I mean who knows, maybe after a couple more nights of not sleeping I may need that do-hickey to open jars as these big hands will be too tired.
Last night I also saw an ad for people who are tired of reusing their catheters that made me throw up a little bit in my mouth.

My mother, who calls every couple of days to see if I need anything, asked me the other morning what was wrong. Well, what was wrong was that I had literally just fallen asleep at 8 a.m. and she called at 8:30.

She suggested I try drinking wine before bed or taking Tylenol PM. She has also stopped calling so early in the morning. I haven’t taken her advice as of yet. I don’t want to become an addict or a wino, but I also don’t want to look like a member of the Cullen family.

Well, I mean, I would like to look like a member of the Cullen family, sans the dark circles under the eyes.

Just Ask Christian Bale’s Dad -- Gloria Steinem Is Not A Cheap Date

A good friend of mine, Grace, was recently accused of not being a feminist because she believes that men should pay on the first date. This attack shook Grace to her very core and so she did what any young person in her situation would do. She posted this information on her Facebook page, looking for confirmation that just because she wants a guy to pay for her on the first date, she does not need to relinquish her copy of the Feminine Mystique.

I immediately took offense to this because I too like it when a man pays for me on the first date. But to say I am not a feminist is like suggesting a frog’s ass isn’t water tight.

The feminist movement’s goal is to make women equal to men. And so far they have done a pretty okay job, though the work is certainly not finished yet. Still, more now than ever before women do not need to derive their identity from men. We are no longer social pariahs if we don’t get married immediately after college; if we don’t get married ever. When we do get married, we are no longer expected to take our husband’s name. When Peyton and I finally do tie the knot, formal invitations will not be addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Peyton Manning, but instead Mr. Manning and Tatiana (I am sort of like Madonna that way).

This is huge considering the whole notion of a man paying for a woman’s meal was that women simply couldn’t. Now we can, but we shouldn’t have to.

Operating from my previous assumption that men need women and not vice versa, it has become incumbent upon you men to impress us.

What? You gasp. No, seriously, you have to impress us. We have options and choices and at the end of the day, everything I read tells me my quality of life will actually dimimish when I get married to you, while yours will increase. So if you want me to make this leap, you had better bring something to the table (pun intended).

Now, if I was a client whose business you were trying to win over, you would put on a sharp suit, pick a really nice restaurant and at the end of the evening, pull out your AmEx card and say, “this one is on me.” Not because that client can’t pay for his/her meal, he’d better be able to if you expect him to pay your bills later, but because you want that client to like you and pick you and be impressed by you.

So, why shouldn’t the same apply when you take me out for dinner?

Understand, we women do our parts too. We get dressed up, we put on uncomfortable shoes and wear make-up, laugh at your corny jokes and pretend to be interested in college basketball. We play our parts because, like you men, we also have the biological urge to couple-off.

It's just thanks to Gloria’s pioneering ways, we can now wait until we are 60 if that is what it takes to find the one that’s right.

If You're Going to San Francisco

Well god, if she does exist, has a sick sense of humor.

For five years I have tried to get into the Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco. The first three years the race closed before I could even register. Last year, Nike started a lottery system, and once again I was denied.

So this year, back when I still had a job, I again signed up for the lottery, entered my credit card information on the off chance I did get in and would have to pay for registration, and crossed my fingers.

Two weeks later I was let go. I would like to believe it wasn't because my performance suffered due to my typing with crossed fingers, but I guess I will never know.

In the chaos that ensued I had forgotten that I had signed up. That is until I got an e-mail from Nike a week later congratulating me on my acceptance.

My first thought was, really? I was concerned about this unnecessary expense and how it may strain my pocketbook. But that subsided and I remembered that a) my new mantra is "things happen for a reason and b) this is why I have a savings account.

That is when I allowed myself to get excited for this race. The finisher’s medal is a Tiffany’s necklace, handed to you by a really hot male model in a tuxedo -- just two of the reasons why it is so hard to get into this race.

Plus I have never been to San Francisco. I have known several people that I have been there and all have remarked that I would absolutely love it. I have seen pictures, and I love the idea that in just a few months I will be running through that beautiful, albeit hilly, city.

Also, the last time I trained for a marathon, New York City, Bosley gave me so much grief about it, he actually wanted me to promise to never run another marathon again, I had wondered how I was going to train for this one, undercover. I can also stay in San Fran longer without having to worry about how much vacation time I am taking.

So maybe god does know what she’s doing.

Unemployment Diaries -- Day 12

So, now that my claim has been filed, my last column written and most of my friends have been notified, I am beginning to settle into some sort of routine -- well at least I am sleeping again.

At first, my biggest fear was that I wouldn’t have the discipline to make this work. That I would spend my days either on my couch or in my bed, sleeping or watching TV or eating, but not writing. I discussed this fear, briefly with Bridie the other night when she was over. I reasoned that the fact that I am not doing anything else was reason enough to get out of bed in the morning and get my butt in gear. Of course, I only half believed her when I said it.

I remember back in the day when MTV still played music videos, okay, maybe not that far back, but at the very least music-related programming was still the channel’s mainstay, there was an interview with Snoop Dogg. He was offering advice to kids out there that wanted to be a chart-topping rap artists and world-class pimps. He said he never had a back-up, forcing him to become a successful rapper.

I realized the morning after Bridie was over to drink wine and discuss our lives, after the hangover subsided, that the past 12 years of my life have been my back-up plan. I am finally working on my dream. So while, it is sometimes hard to turn off USA, especially when they have back-to-back Law and Order SVU’s, I do. Because there are no excuses and if I don’t get this done, well, then I very well could be homeless or, worse, back to living with my parents in Allentown.

I also find that I enjoy the weekends more. Not because I can finally see my friends again, though that does rock too, but because I can let myself off the hook. It is tough being both the boss and the employee. But on Saturday and Sunday, I am just me. This past Saturday, I stayed in bed until noon, something I haven’t done in at least a year. And then I got up and was productive and had an awesome day, and I realized that it wasn’t just because it was Saturday and nice out. But because for the first time in 12 years I didn’t feel guilty that I wasn’t sitting at my computer getting some writing done.

So, Snoop, if you are out there reading this (and I am sure you are), thanks. If it weren’t for you I might have a real dog now -- I once read somewhere that having a dog helps you keep a routine as there is no sleeping in when the pooch has to pee.

For those of you that are just checking in for the best locations for Internet access -- the Starbucks at Broad and Jackson has free wireless, though it is kinda slow (still faster than the Borders at Broad and Chestnut), but only a couple of outlets and really large windows that make it really sunny and hard to see your computer.

And for those of you that just learned I am blogging again and are reading this in hopes that I will fail miserably, well, this entry isn’t going to make you happy, but stay tuned. I am sure it won’t all be roses and daisies.