Early on, I knew it was going to be a weird day. I sat in front of Stumptown on a cold, windblown morning that felt more like early November than late August, steeling myself for a hard day of delivering stuff by bike. It was early still, when I took the first sip of the essential triple-iced americano. Even though the air was crisp and the sky was overcast, I ordered my caffeine on the rocks, anticipating the arrival of the summer sun. It was an uneasy wait, made harder to bear by grey-skinned street urchins milling about.
The presence of these sleestack-like raggamuffins gave the cold wind and grey sky an ominous quality. It also made me think of something that Anne said at the flower cart late last week. She'd claimed that all of the psychics were leaving town because they could sense that something terrible was about to happen. At the very least, something was creating some very bad vibes.
At the time I thought nothing of it, but now I reallized that her fear was becoming an acute reality. A chill rattled my spine as a group of the walking corpses shuffled by. Their heads oscilated back and forth, one cyclopitic evil eye surveying the landscape, looking for something that only they could detect. They could smell it like the musty smell of a flophouse mattress or a dirty Raiders coat.
It was not the first or the fifteenth day of the month, but somehow they knew that it would be a good day to be downtown.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
It was during the downtime between my calisthenics regimen and the mid-morning shower when the phone rang. It was approaching 10am, and NPR was taking its toll on my fragile psyche. Even though the outside world was doing quite poorly, I picked up the phone and looked at the incoming number. How was I to know that a simple phone call would turn into a full blown attack on my dedication to leisure.
The number didn't look like that of the collections agents or their machines that frequently hound me. It was just a 503 number. A friend? Not likely. My old friends are most likely at work at that time. My new friends, those who have chosen to ride out the summer months on the dole as I have, are just waking up. Still others, like myself, are locked in a desperate battle against the clock. Iced Americanos don't make themselves, and the woman that gets her double iced latte (with soy, please) at about, oh, say 11:13am? She doesn't know that I exist, so the onus of our relationship has fallen upon my shoulders.
She'll come around, just you....wait. What the fuck was I talking about? The phone call. Thank God I'd just finished my morning work-out and gotten the blood back into my brain again. I answered the phone.
"Hey, this is so-and-so from unemployment something-or-other and we've found a position that we think you're qualified to fill."
There must be some mistake. My work experience has been painstakingly tooled to repel potential employers like a healthy shot of bear mace straight to the mug. How could this be happening?
This is one of the unpleasant aspect of being unemployed. At a certain point you stop worrying, learn how to live within your meager means and begin to enjoy your free time. So when someone calls you and informs you that they've done you a favor by finding some kind of gainful employment, you may not be as enthusiastic as the squares would like. But you've got to play ball with these employment accountants or facilitators or whatever they say they are when you're trying to not listen.
So, the guy says some more specific ramblings about the requirements and qualifications of the position that at least one of us is interested in. At this point, I'm fully puckered, with "yes" and "you bet" and "that sounds great," flying out of my mouth like I mean them. The feeling was not unlike that which one gets when tucking a golf shirt into a pair of Dockers.
So when it came time to tell me what my future employment could possibly be, things got a little strange. "Well, it says editor-T.O.C.," the guy said.
"Uh, what's that," I replied, adding that I'd had editorial experience and I'd never heard of that job title.
"Let's see," now we were on common ground, "editor, table of contents."
Was this some kind of joke? It wasn't, and, well, how hard could that be?
Things were looking up, I thought. Maybe it was time to re-enter the workforce?
It was then that things took a turn for the worst.
"It's in Lake Oswego, is that a problem?"
Before I knew how to react I heard a cheesy and insincerely enthusiastic voice say, "Not a problem."
The number didn't look like that of the collections agents or their machines that frequently hound me. It was just a 503 number. A friend? Not likely. My old friends are most likely at work at that time. My new friends, those who have chosen to ride out the summer months on the dole as I have, are just waking up. Still others, like myself, are locked in a desperate battle against the clock. Iced Americanos don't make themselves, and the woman that gets her double iced latte (with soy, please) at about, oh, say 11:13am? She doesn't know that I exist, so the onus of our relationship has fallen upon my shoulders.
She'll come around, just you....wait. What the fuck was I talking about? The phone call. Thank God I'd just finished my morning work-out and gotten the blood back into my brain again. I answered the phone.
"Hey, this is so-and-so from unemployment something-or-other and we've found a position that we think you're qualified to fill."
There must be some mistake. My work experience has been painstakingly tooled to repel potential employers like a healthy shot of bear mace straight to the mug. How could this be happening?
This is one of the unpleasant aspect of being unemployed. At a certain point you stop worrying, learn how to live within your meager means and begin to enjoy your free time. So when someone calls you and informs you that they've done you a favor by finding some kind of gainful employment, you may not be as enthusiastic as the squares would like. But you've got to play ball with these employment accountants or facilitators or whatever they say they are when you're trying to not listen.
So, the guy says some more specific ramblings about the requirements and qualifications of the position that at least one of us is interested in. At this point, I'm fully puckered, with "yes" and "you bet" and "that sounds great," flying out of my mouth like I mean them. The feeling was not unlike that which one gets when tucking a golf shirt into a pair of Dockers.
So when it came time to tell me what my future employment could possibly be, things got a little strange. "Well, it says editor-T.O.C.," the guy said.
"Uh, what's that," I replied, adding that I'd had editorial experience and I'd never heard of that job title.
"Let's see," now we were on common ground, "editor, table of contents."
Was this some kind of joke? It wasn't, and, well, how hard could that be?
Things were looking up, I thought. Maybe it was time to re-enter the workforce?
It was then that things took a turn for the worst.
"It's in Lake Oswego, is that a problem?"
Before I knew how to react I heard a cheesy and insincerely enthusiastic voice say, "Not a problem."
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Time Management The Jefe Way
My long-time friend and mentor Matt Hogan once told me, "You know, Jefe, the hard thing about doing nothing is that you never know when you're done."
You see, Hogan was a musician, and even in the depressed live-music industry of rural Northern California, it was his sole source of income, save the annual prune harvest. Hogan always had a surplus of leisure time.
I never understood his words--until now. I didn't even take him seriously, as I never expected to be in a position to benefit from his sage advice.
I also think of Chuck Bukowski saying "the days run away like wild horses over the hills."
And so they do.
You see, I'm currently unemployed. My skills include nine years as a bike messenger with some "editorial" skills from long ago as a hazy afterthought. The Clift Notes version: virtually unemployable. And so, with a Hogan-esque amount of free time, minimal time-management abilities, an over-active imagination and serious lack of focus, not to mention a stunted maturity level, I found myself mired in an state of nervous lethargy.
Just as the sun rose to exciting and lofty goals and the best of intentions, it would set to loose ends, wasted time and predictable disappointment. Like the Tell-tale Heart, Hogan's words beat like a drum, unrelenting and clear in my mind. The day doesn't last forever, I told myself, and my days as a man of leisure would not last forever, either. If I couldn't find a way to effectively structure my time, how close was I to spending my days with Regis & Kelly, Montel and Springer?
In order to cope with such a dire predicament I've developed a routine. The beauty of a routine is that it forces you to make a kind of non-binding schedule--and keep it. Now, it may sound like an intimidating task, but look at a routine for what it really is--a kind of structured rut.
My routine helps to keep things like looking for work or calling the weekly claims office from getting lost in the shuffle, safely tucked away in an implied to-do list.
My routine goes a little something like this:
First, I get out of bed. Once I've turned on NPR, I settle in for an intensive briefing on world events until about 9:30am, 11am at the latest. A jingoistic world-view and an Amero-centric sense of superiority aren't helped by listening to "World Have Your Say."
Next, I dive right into a rigorous 10-minute calisthenics program I've designed for myself before hitting the shower--I'm in the job market, so I've got to groom for success.
After that, I check my e-mail and see if the iSkills Match has found a job that I'm qualified for. Hmm, no luck (relief masked as disappointment is part of routine). After my morning meet and greet with the cat, I grab the newspaper, shades and flip-flops--I'm Stumptown bound. If I've slept in--I mean listened to "World"--I'll get that quadruple iced Americano to go.
If I can find an outside table, I'll quietly do my crosswords and "people-watch." Eventually, alienation and my overriding sense of purpose will drag me back home for a little lunch. Now, for a while I was watching Perry Mason from noon to 1pm. But this proved to be too restrictive, schedule-wise, so I don't watch TV (except baseball) until the first Simpsons comes on at 6pm.
This is about the time that my schedule gets tight. Housecleaning and other projects usually take up the rest of the pre-ride afternoon. I've got to stay in shape, so the ride is soft-scheduled at 3pm. Often times I'll get a late start and not get on the road until 4pm--like today. When I'm done writing this bullshit, I'll have to kick it up a notch and/or shorten my ride, because now it's a mad rush to get home by 5:45pm, in time to fix dinner and have it ready by 6pm.
The day being finished, I can settle in for a much deserved night of Sanford & Son until mid-August when the cable gets disconnected.
Regrettably, road blocks occasionally appear on my horizon. This is where flex time becomes invaluable. Take today, for instance. It was time for coffee and I was out the door. Just as the door closed, I had that feeling that one gets when he's just realized that his keys are locked in the house. I had misplaced them during calisthenics.
My initial reaction was to panic, or erupt in a tantrum of expletives and foot-stomping. I was, however, able to keep it cool and gain access to the back yard through a sleeping neighbor's house. I'll save my comments on cleanliness for another time. I then proceeded to the basement to get a ladder. Yet again, fate would not smile upon Jefe, for the paranoid douche bag that lives next door had locked the (communal) basement door AGAIN. After some strategic swearing (NOT a tantrum) under said neighbor's window, I spied a long-dormant gas barbecue rusting in the bushes. It was a short drag to my bedroom window. The aged grill held my weight as I slipped, ninja-like, through the window.
Vindicated, I grabbed my keys, returned things to their rightful order, reapplied my flip-flops and headed for a well-earned Americano. Right on time.
You see, Hogan was a musician, and even in the depressed live-music industry of rural Northern California, it was his sole source of income, save the annual prune harvest. Hogan always had a surplus of leisure time.
I never understood his words--until now. I didn't even take him seriously, as I never expected to be in a position to benefit from his sage advice.
I also think of Chuck Bukowski saying "the days run away like wild horses over the hills."
And so they do.
You see, I'm currently unemployed. My skills include nine years as a bike messenger with some "editorial" skills from long ago as a hazy afterthought. The Clift Notes version: virtually unemployable. And so, with a Hogan-esque amount of free time, minimal time-management abilities, an over-active imagination and serious lack of focus, not to mention a stunted maturity level, I found myself mired in an state of nervous lethargy.
Just as the sun rose to exciting and lofty goals and the best of intentions, it would set to loose ends, wasted time and predictable disappointment. Like the Tell-tale Heart, Hogan's words beat like a drum, unrelenting and clear in my mind. The day doesn't last forever, I told myself, and my days as a man of leisure would not last forever, either. If I couldn't find a way to effectively structure my time, how close was I to spending my days with Regis & Kelly, Montel and Springer?
In order to cope with such a dire predicament I've developed a routine. The beauty of a routine is that it forces you to make a kind of non-binding schedule--and keep it. Now, it may sound like an intimidating task, but look at a routine for what it really is--a kind of structured rut.
My routine helps to keep things like looking for work or calling the weekly claims office from getting lost in the shuffle, safely tucked away in an implied to-do list.
My routine goes a little something like this:
First, I get out of bed. Once I've turned on NPR, I settle in for an intensive briefing on world events until about 9:30am, 11am at the latest. A jingoistic world-view and an Amero-centric sense of superiority aren't helped by listening to "World Have Your Say."
Next, I dive right into a rigorous 10-minute calisthenics program I've designed for myself before hitting the shower--I'm in the job market, so I've got to groom for success.
After that, I check my e-mail and see if the iSkills Match has found a job that I'm qualified for. Hmm, no luck (relief masked as disappointment is part of routine). After my morning meet and greet with the cat, I grab the newspaper, shades and flip-flops--I'm Stumptown bound. If I've slept in--I mean listened to "World"--I'll get that quadruple iced Americano to go.
If I can find an outside table, I'll quietly do my crosswords and "people-watch." Eventually, alienation and my overriding sense of purpose will drag me back home for a little lunch. Now, for a while I was watching Perry Mason from noon to 1pm. But this proved to be too restrictive, schedule-wise, so I don't watch TV (except baseball) until the first Simpsons comes on at 6pm.
This is about the time that my schedule gets tight. Housecleaning and other projects usually take up the rest of the pre-ride afternoon. I've got to stay in shape, so the ride is soft-scheduled at 3pm. Often times I'll get a late start and not get on the road until 4pm--like today. When I'm done writing this bullshit, I'll have to kick it up a notch and/or shorten my ride, because now it's a mad rush to get home by 5:45pm, in time to fix dinner and have it ready by 6pm.
The day being finished, I can settle in for a much deserved night of Sanford & Son until mid-August when the cable gets disconnected.
Regrettably, road blocks occasionally appear on my horizon. This is where flex time becomes invaluable. Take today, for instance. It was time for coffee and I was out the door. Just as the door closed, I had that feeling that one gets when he's just realized that his keys are locked in the house. I had misplaced them during calisthenics.
My initial reaction was to panic, or erupt in a tantrum of expletives and foot-stomping. I was, however, able to keep it cool and gain access to the back yard through a sleeping neighbor's house. I'll save my comments on cleanliness for another time. I then proceeded to the basement to get a ladder. Yet again, fate would not smile upon Jefe, for the paranoid douche bag that lives next door had locked the (communal) basement door AGAIN. After some strategic swearing (NOT a tantrum) under said neighbor's window, I spied a long-dormant gas barbecue rusting in the bushes. It was a short drag to my bedroom window. The aged grill held my weight as I slipped, ninja-like, through the window.
Vindicated, I grabbed my keys, returned things to their rightful order, reapplied my flip-flops and headed for a well-earned Americano. Right on time.
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