Now that I have been jobless for over two months I think it is high time I reflect on some of the nuances of my new daily life as well as some observations that escaped me during my years of steady gainful employment.
First off, and most obviously, I no longer have a set time to awaken- granted the group I worked for was exceptionally lenient in that regard. Mercifully there was never the mandate to be plopped in my chair by the ungodly hour of 9am. As a reasonable gentleman, however, I tried to make an appearance by 10 or 10:30 at the latest. Although I was often in that office well past midnight on many many nights, I always felt a sense of duty to show my face with at least an hour to spare until lunch time.
Now- I have no such feelings of duty (or shame) and justly can get up whenever the hell I feel like it. Then again, there is also no endless series of work tasks to be completed keeping me up until the wee hours of the morning. Not to mention that without the work related stress I'm actually able to sleep more than 2-3 hours per night. Wunderbar! All that said, there is absolutely no justifiable reason why I shouldn't be going to bed at a reasonable hour and arising likewise. Well, except for one: there is duly no justifiable reason why I should drag my ass out of bed any earlier than 11am... at least on a weekday. Let's keep it respectable. And since sloth is strictly prohibited by the Bible, that must mean it's pretty awesome. So until a need otherwise arises, I shall not.
Going hand-in-hand with my new time table for awakening from slumber, I have discovered that eating lunch is now optional. In the old pre-jobless days, one absolutely needed to fortify themselves for the onslaught of afternoon calls, meetings, nonsensical paperwork, and the like with a large dose of hearty fare. A personal favorite of mine was a grilled chicken sandwich with pesto and fresh mozzarella (or mootz as spoken by my dear faux-Italian buddies) and a large side of macaroni and cheese. Stick to the ribs goodness.
As I don't even consider peeking my head out of the covers until most working people have hit their third cup of coffee, a large lunch seems superfluous. Since, as I will get into more detail below, my average day consists of going to the gym, reading a book, watching ESPN, reading about which dictator has been deposed or inserted on CNN.com, plucking nose-hairs, driving around aimlessly, and occasionally playing a round of golf, I have found I can subside on either: (a) a banana; (b) a slice of toast; or (c) nothing in the hours between awakening and dinner.
Speaking of watching ESPN, it is only once you have absorbed 5 hours of consecutive daytime programming that you realize a fundamental truth: ESPN should only exist between the hours of 6pm-12am. OK OK, I know what you're thinking. As the magnanimous (and modest) soul I am, I'll even acquiesce to 1-2 hours of morning programming for those in need of a sports fix prior to their prolonged life-sucking daily commute. Anything else is nothing more than filler and an immense waste of airtime that could otherwise be allocated to awesome infomercials such as the Back2Life. Badass.
I came to this conclusion a few weeks back. One weekday mid-afternoon I was watching First Take. Skip Bayless was on with intermittent guests such as Kordell Stewart and Michael Smith. The last topic they were discussing was something along the lines of a reverse racial bias Tim Tebow was receiving (or not) for being an "athlete quarterback" versus a "throwing quarterback." Or whatever. Anyway, Skip and Kordell had their say and there was another woman who was just about to pipe up and the moderator cut her off saying they had run out of time. How unfortunate.
The screen faded out and then back in to the title screen of the next program on air- Sports Nation. As soon as the jingle was done, the cameras focus in to reveal none other than Skip Bayless, Kordell Stewart and the same woman from the program before. Wearing the exact same clothes. And would you guess it, the first topic was whether Tim Tebow was receiving racial bias. And each person literally repeated the same things they had on the prior show- with the exception that the poor woman was vindicated with the opportunity to speak her mind. Score one for the suffrage movement! Later, this same topic was discussed on Around the Horn and PTI, and I'd wager if I was awake before 11am I would have heard it on Mike and Mike in the Morning. Talk about stretching the programming agenda.
Instead of 6-8 hours of that nonsense, I'd rather them just line up all those clowns and give them 5 seconds a piece. Skip? "I agree with it.", Tony? "That's ridiculous", Mike? "Opposite of whatever Tony said." "Great stuff guys. Thank you for watching ESPN daytime. Now, back to your regularly scheduled infomercials." Cue the Back2Life.
So anyway. Walmart. Where to begin? For one, I haven't been inside a Walmart in probably 7 years, but I'm thrilled to report they are still hawking the same low-priced low-quality wares that I so fondly remember. For example, I got a tremendous neon-yellow traffic vest for $3.50!!
Ok as an aside, I may have made one small omission in regards to quality- for some strange reason the produce there is much better tasting than what I can get at Lowes Foods, Harris Teeter, or Food Lion. Recently I've had some outstanding Walmart tomatoes. In February. I know right! I'm not sure if that's because they are frankentomatoes or what, but frankenly- I don't care. I've had about all I can stand of the organic, farm-raised, free range, hypoallergenic food craze. At this point, I don't care if the tomatoes are bionic, as long as they taste like tomatoes and not shitty tomatoes.
One difference I did come across at Walmart is the makeup of the day-shift patrons. I suppose I had never really roamed the cavernous aisles of a Super Walmart during daylight hours but, much to my surprise, the average age of shoppers between the hours of 2-4pm appears to be 72. And that including yours truly in the average. I guess I shouldn't be shocked considering they are likely on the same retirement program I am (albeit perhaps not transient). Needless to say, the average cart speed during those hours is a paltry 0.2 mph. As such, my NASCAR-style shopping antics were not roundly appreciated.
So, dress code. For 5+ years it was a button down long sleeve shirt, slacks or suit pants, dark socks, dress shoes, and (during the appropriate times/seasons) a blazer. Since being unemployed, I am no longer dressing for success but merely dressing. A typical legging attire usually consists of linen pants, gym shorts, or nothing. Similarly, for my torso I usually wear a shirt. Any will do. My favorite, and most oft seen, ensemble consists of black gym pants, a tshirt, and a nylon black jacket. It's a very similar look to the black track suits Chaz and his kids wear at the end of the Royal Tenenbaums. Just wish I had that hair:
Finally, as you may have surmised, I occasionally find myself having trouble filling the day. There is only so much time one can spend sleeping, getting things together for a trip, playing golf, reading, surfing the internet, and re-organizing a vintage porn collection. Normally I would occupy the spare hours with a hefty bout of drinking, but to do so on a regular basis seems counterproductive to my daily gym attendance. Until I come up with something better to do, however, I guess I'll keep cruising gas stations and shopping cart drag racing the old folks at Walmart.
First off, and most obviously, I no longer have a set time to awaken- granted the group I worked for was exceptionally lenient in that regard. Mercifully there was never the mandate to be plopped in my chair by the ungodly hour of 9am. As a reasonable gentleman, however, I tried to make an appearance by 10 or 10:30 at the latest. Although I was often in that office well past midnight on many many nights, I always felt a sense of duty to show my face with at least an hour to spare until lunch time.
Now- I have no such feelings of duty (or shame) and justly can get up whenever the hell I feel like it. Then again, there is also no endless series of work tasks to be completed keeping me up until the wee hours of the morning. Not to mention that without the work related stress I'm actually able to sleep more than 2-3 hours per night. Wunderbar! All that said, there is absolutely no justifiable reason why I shouldn't be going to bed at a reasonable hour and arising likewise. Well, except for one: there is duly no justifiable reason why I should drag my ass out of bed any earlier than 11am... at least on a weekday. Let's keep it respectable. And since sloth is strictly prohibited by the Bible, that must mean it's pretty awesome. So until a need otherwise arises, I shall not.
Going hand-in-hand with my new time table for awakening from slumber, I have discovered that eating lunch is now optional. In the old pre-jobless days, one absolutely needed to fortify themselves for the onslaught of afternoon calls, meetings, nonsensical paperwork, and the like with a large dose of hearty fare. A personal favorite of mine was a grilled chicken sandwich with pesto and fresh mozzarella (or mootz as spoken by my dear faux-Italian buddies) and a large side of macaroni and cheese. Stick to the ribs goodness.
As I don't even consider peeking my head out of the covers until most working people have hit their third cup of coffee, a large lunch seems superfluous. Since, as I will get into more detail below, my average day consists of going to the gym, reading a book, watching ESPN, reading about which dictator has been deposed or inserted on CNN.com, plucking nose-hairs, driving around aimlessly, and occasionally playing a round of golf, I have found I can subside on either: (a) a banana; (b) a slice of toast; or (c) nothing in the hours between awakening and dinner.
Speaking of watching ESPN, it is only once you have absorbed 5 hours of consecutive daytime programming that you realize a fundamental truth: ESPN should only exist between the hours of 6pm-12am. OK OK, I know what you're thinking. As the magnanimous (and modest) soul I am, I'll even acquiesce to 1-2 hours of morning programming for those in need of a sports fix prior to their prolonged life-sucking daily commute. Anything else is nothing more than filler and an immense waste of airtime that could otherwise be allocated to awesome infomercials such as the Back2Life. Badass.
I came to this conclusion a few weeks back. One weekday mid-afternoon I was watching First Take. Skip Bayless was on with intermittent guests such as Kordell Stewart and Michael Smith. The last topic they were discussing was something along the lines of a reverse racial bias Tim Tebow was receiving (or not) for being an "athlete quarterback" versus a "throwing quarterback." Or whatever. Anyway, Skip and Kordell had their say and there was another woman who was just about to pipe up and the moderator cut her off saying they had run out of time. How unfortunate.
The screen faded out and then back in to the title screen of the next program on air- Sports Nation. As soon as the jingle was done, the cameras focus in to reveal none other than Skip Bayless, Kordell Stewart and the same woman from the program before. Wearing the exact same clothes. And would you guess it, the first topic was whether Tim Tebow was receiving racial bias. And each person literally repeated the same things they had on the prior show- with the exception that the poor woman was vindicated with the opportunity to speak her mind. Score one for the suffrage movement! Later, this same topic was discussed on Around the Horn and PTI, and I'd wager if I was awake before 11am I would have heard it on Mike and Mike in the Morning. Talk about stretching the programming agenda.
Instead of 6-8 hours of that nonsense, I'd rather them just line up all those clowns and give them 5 seconds a piece. Skip? "I agree with it.", Tony? "That's ridiculous", Mike? "Opposite of whatever Tony said." "Great stuff guys. Thank you for watching ESPN daytime. Now, back to your regularly scheduled infomercials." Cue the Back2Life.
So anyway. Walmart. Where to begin? For one, I haven't been inside a Walmart in probably 7 years, but I'm thrilled to report they are still hawking the same low-priced low-quality wares that I so fondly remember. For example, I got a tremendous neon-yellow traffic vest for $3.50!!
Ok as an aside, I may have made one small omission in regards to quality- for some strange reason the produce there is much better tasting than what I can get at Lowes Foods, Harris Teeter, or Food Lion. Recently I've had some outstanding Walmart tomatoes. In February. I know right! I'm not sure if that's because they are frankentomatoes or what, but frankenly- I don't care. I've had about all I can stand of the organic, farm-raised, free range, hypoallergenic food craze. At this point, I don't care if the tomatoes are bionic, as long as they taste like tomatoes and not shitty tomatoes.
One difference I did come across at Walmart is the makeup of the day-shift patrons. I suppose I had never really roamed the cavernous aisles of a Super Walmart during daylight hours but, much to my surprise, the average age of shoppers between the hours of 2-4pm appears to be 72. And that including yours truly in the average. I guess I shouldn't be shocked considering they are likely on the same retirement program I am (albeit perhaps not transient). Needless to say, the average cart speed during those hours is a paltry 0.2 mph. As such, my NASCAR-style shopping antics were not roundly appreciated.
So, dress code. For 5+ years it was a button down long sleeve shirt, slacks or suit pants, dark socks, dress shoes, and (during the appropriate times/seasons) a blazer. Since being unemployed, I am no longer dressing for success but merely dressing. A typical legging attire usually consists of linen pants, gym shorts, or nothing. Similarly, for my torso I usually wear a shirt. Any will do. My favorite, and most oft seen, ensemble consists of black gym pants, a tshirt, and a nylon black jacket. It's a very similar look to the black track suits Chaz and his kids wear at the end of the Royal Tenenbaums. Just wish I had that hair:
Finally, as you may have surmised, I occasionally find myself having trouble filling the day. There is only so much time one can spend sleeping, getting things together for a trip, playing golf, reading, surfing the internet, and re-organizing a vintage porn collection. Normally I would occupy the spare hours with a hefty bout of drinking, but to do so on a regular basis seems counterproductive to my daily gym attendance. Until I come up with something better to do, however, I guess I'll keep cruising gas stations and shopping cart drag racing the old folks at Walmart.
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