The New Year: Plans or Just Dreaming

The New Year. The beginning of a new decade.

Winter in New England, on a cold, snowy day. Not much to do. While the snow we just got was predicted to keep falling until midnight tonight, by 2:00 this afternoon we were looking at clear blue skies. I've never understood how the weather forecasters can be so consistently wrong. It's the reason I just stopped planning around them.

But still, on a day like today, there isn't a lot to do. I hate snow, and the cold and the wet. I’m solar powered. I like the sun and the hot. So we do what so many people do in New England in the winter and stay indoors and read and play music or surf the net. Just chill. Winter in New England, some say, is for recharging. For making plans.

And well, planning has been a problem of late. Plans are something you can make when you have resources. Otherwise, it's just dreaming.

Work this past year has been a struggle as it's been for so many around the world. The Europeans refer to this economy as, The Crisis. It was a year ago December 11th that I got laid off. And I thought I'd be able to find work and make some sort of living freelancing. I really didn't want to go back to an office. And I did cobble some work together freelancing--all small jobs or part-time contacts--supplemented by unemployment insurance. But the work simply isn't there, full-time, part-time, contract. Despite what the government is saying, this depression is still here. Companies are still laying off--Digitas, where I got laid off, has already scheduled more layoffs for March. People have been notified.

Then last week when my unemployment ran out and I filed for an extension, I learned that my unemployment, because I actually worked, was cut by more than 50%. If I hadn't worked, making the small bit of money that I made, roughly 50% of what I was making at the agency, I would have continued receiving the benefits I received in the past year for another 21 weeks. In other words, if I had just sat on this couch and written plays like I really wanted to, I would have still made a fair living, at least for another 21 weeks. The system really is set up to reward people for not working.

So, how are you supposed to make plans, when you're scrapping from week to week, sometimes day to day?

The economy causes me to wake me up in the middle of the night with worry about what happens if I get sick, or what's going to happen to me in ten years when I'm ready to retire with no savings. I can barely meet my expenses as it is, and I still have two college-age kids who look at me and, while they probably don't mean to, make me feel absolutely helpless for not being to pay for even part of the colelge. The economy can frustrate me because, when I finally found someone who shares the same hopes and dreams that I've had for so long, that we may not be able to see our dreams to fruition.

The economy also forces me to think differently about what I can and can't do. I'm seriously questioning my ability to make a (real) living as a corporate writer as I have for the last 29 years. Despite all of those years of experience, I don't have a masters in communications that hiring managers seem to be looking for at the get-go. And, while you can't prove age discrimination, when you interview with someone over half your age, you can see it in their eyes. It's not always about the diploma.

The new decade may give some people hope. Some are so glad to kiss the first decade of the 21st century good bye with its 9-11 and recession. But a new swing around the sun isn't going to change what's going on in this country. And a new swing around the sun is not going to mean anything to me. The only differences I can make are in the changes inside me. How I approach this new world that so many people seem blind to. I've never been a quitter. I'm not quitting. But I do get awfully dejected at times.

Curse of the Unemployed: Overqualified applicants

Got this as part of an email today:

"Thank you for your patience in regards to feedback from the hiring manager. The quality of applications for this position has been particularly high and we regret to inform you that we will not be moving forward with your application."

The quality of the applications for this position has been particularly high? Well, since I have 28 years of experience at this particular position, the quality must be extraordinarily high. Like Mount Everest high. Like, overqualified. Like, people who are overeducated who are out of work and willing to do the kind of work I've been doing for the past 20+ years.

Yeah, it's fun out here. It really is.

Unemployment's getting kinda weird

I'm going into my third month of unemployment (last night I heard about a fellow actor-type who's been laid off since September--six months!), and it's getting weird.

The government today reported that another 651,000 jobs were lost in February. Man, we're bleeding jobs faster than GM's bleeding dollars. Is that possible? Since December, 2007 when this so-called recession was first recognized (this intrepid reporter is calling it a depression; remember: You heard it here first, at Action Bob Markle) 4.4 million people are out of work. That officially puts the jobless rate at 8.1 percent, the highest in 25 years. But let's not forget that that figure does not include seasonal employees, the self-employed who aren't finding work, and people like those old timers who greet you at Wal-Mart who aren't making enough to feed their cats. Unofficially, let's call the jobless rate at around 15, or maybe 18 percent, okay?

There is no work out there. I've had one tiny job, and one acting job. You can only make so many batches of red sauce, chicken soup, bean soup, and chili before it starts to get a little repetitious. Make only so many dinners for your honey when she comes home from work before you start feeling a bit worthless. Only so many small chores and errands you can run before you start wondering if you actually are useless.

And you know those are the landmines you have to dodge. You don't just flop down on the couch and sigh and call it a life. I write everyday. I'm a writer, that's what I do. I'm taking low-cost classes around Boston. Music theory at Club Passim. Acting for the camera from a casting agent.

I'm starting to look into going back to school. All the time I was married I couldn't get my Masters because I was too busy working a dead end job to support the family. Now here I am, 53-years-old, out of work in a depression with a BFA in photography. Maybe it's time to finally get that degree, and God love Sue, she's the one pushing me to do it, thinking we can travel and teach at the same time. The one thing is the cost of a university degree is still as inflated as the value of homes. There is no way a Masters should cost between $20,000 and $30,000. Everything, everything still costs way too damn much, and we all need a serious realty check.

You got to get out of the house. Even going into Boston and wandering around, checking out the library, doing some people watching, changes your perspective. Those prison people know what they're doing when they throw you into solitary. We're social creatures. We gotta see some sunshine from time to time.

And I've finally started that play I said I'd write. Yeah, it's called Red Dog, and it addresses that theme I'm constantly beating to death, that we as a society don't recognize that the people who hurt us emotionally are no different than thugs who hurt us physically, and that as a species we still aren't evolved enough to actually see the thing we're hurting, but it's a part of us as surely as our arms and legs are. It's called Red Dog because red dog is a football term for a blitz, where linebackers or defensive backs suddenly charge and usually hit the quarterback from the blindside and inflict some serious harm (which is what these emotional thugs do; they just blindside us because most of us simply are not raised to believe people would do such a thing, so we're caught unaware), and also because dogs are color-blind and can't see colors, but it doesn't mean they don't exist. And the play has all of my favorite things in it: dogs, guitars and whiskey.