NOW THAT I'M UNEMPLOYED...

I have time to "blog" without it affecting my Law and Order CI repeats.

So lemme see if I can try to start a real and ongoing thread without it becoming, as a brilliant colleague once said of his blog, "a great record of April 14, 2005."

I'm unemployed for the first time since 1979; I got my first job that summer when Americans were in the big economic "malaise" and gas had risen to 60 or 70 cents a gallon. Heaven for fend! My first job was at a hospital in St Louis as a "DMO"...that's dietary jargon for Dish Machine Operator. I was in high-school. The job paid well above minimum wage (2.65 at the time) and, because this was the era of both high-inflation and no cost-controls on health care, our annual COLA was usually 15-percent. It made us kids feel rich even if we weren't.

But hell, pot was 45 dollars a quarter pound back then, you could buy a six pack of beer in Illinois for 2.00. Top price concert tickets for shows in the St Louis Blues hockey arena - the Ralston Purina owned "Checkerdome"- were about ten dollars (That was for Led Zeppelin or the Who).

And there hasn't been a day since then that I've not been employed somewhere. So this is quite new, and not so bad really.

I have a bit of a cushion so I get to spend this summer just decompressing in Chicago. It's been three days so far and here's what I've learned:

*There will times I feel absolutely angry and others I feel nothing but relief.
*Each of those feelings is unpredictable and each will arise as two opposite sides of the exact same thought: "I'm out of a job...those mother fuckers...how could they?" and "I don't have to go in there anymore and deal with those mother fuckers...whew!"
*I haven't been in a hurry all week. Let the bus come when it comes. And with the Chicago Transit Authority? That's a very good mindset to be in.
*In 8 years I've never enjoyed a summer in Chicago.
*I've already flown 50-thousand miles this year, so travel is not all that appealing.
*When I need to, I can cut costs pretty drastically.
*I have things I can do, other than lay on the couch and wonder how a similar DNA structure can produce both Regis AND Kelly Ripa.

Not bad for 72 hours without a job.

I'm totally OK in this moment.