I had trouble titling this one. Originally I wanted to go with “underpaid,” but that didn’t seem to entirely capture the spirit of this particular flavor of being stuck. “Underclass?” No, that speaks more to a hierarchical situation than what I am going for.

“Unemployed.” Not having a job. Or, in my case, our case, having a job that does not utilize the skills, talents, and experiences we have fostered for the last x years since “education.”

I remember reading about the business cycle dating committee’s avoidance to call the recession a recession. Last year. Round this time. I remember Harvard prof Jeffrey Frankel’s one-liner of reasoning, that “Our job is to be definitive, not fast.” Now that the recession has been deemed shitty worthy enough to be formally called a recession, Frankel and his team have traced the start of the decline to last year’s holiday season.

Fortunately for all of us unemployed out there, the world seems to understand us now! Not that we ever needed validation, of course, but maybe, just maybe, our shitty situation isn’t our fault. In case you’ve got that friend living in a cave, or parents who can’t fathom that their own offspring got the short end of the stick this time, you may want to teach a thing or two to them about how to be a friend or family member worth keeping.

School is not an escape. Yes, I have considered going back to school. I am considering going back to school. But even if I wasn’t met with the conundrum of “What do I want to study now?,” there are these couple of extra hurdles that have been thrown into the steeple chase, namely: paying for school and competing with everyone else. When the economy is poor, people flock to school. Even those who already wanted to go back to school, even those who just need something to give them purpose, even those who don’t really want to learn more – They will flock to school.

I want to learn more. If I’m going to invest a couple of years of my life to education, I better really enjoy the subject. But guess what? Even in my passionate plea to have an Ivy League open up its doors to me, there will be a hundred thousand other schmucks with legacies, better standardized test scores, and more padded resumes who can feign sounding just as passionate, who will more than likely beat me to the punch. Just cause you don’t have a steady job does not mean school is the answer. School does not find you purpose. Shocker.

I don’t party like I used to. People always sound so shocked when they hear Viacom’s not throwing a holiday party or something – Mais non! What will happen to the company morale? A year ago next week, Brooklyn and I had decided, on a whim, to see the Spice Girls Reunion Tour in Vegas. On Friday it was a jokingly toned IM conversation, on Tuesday we threw our bags down in Excalibur.

I can’t afford such luxuries now, at least not without constant reminders that I could be paying rent instead of paying airfare, hotel fees, or concert tickets. We have to be more selective now. Shouldn’t we always be? If you invite me out to dinner an hour away, I will prefer to not make the drive and opt for the dinner with three friends fifteen minutes from my apartment. Harsh? Honey, gas prices are harsh. Bridge toll is harsh. Time I could be applying toward my next paycheck just because you don’t want to fight traffic is harsh. You not getting the memo that “unemployed” does not equate “completely without a schedule” is harsh. If I’m going to venture somewhere, I always make sure there’s a guarantee of a good time, and at a cost comparable to the quality of company I keep.

I’m going to enjoy myself, dammit. When I’m not working, not applying, not scouring all possible resources for the Next Big Thing, I pamper myself. I window shop after I sell my clothes; I read blogs in between filling out job applications; I take dance classes before shopping for groceries. Initially, I was met with, “You went shopping again?” “Did you sit online all day long?” “How are you paying for these dance classes?” It came to a point where I teared up at all the time I had been “wasting” pleasuring myself. (Not in that way!)

I had been made to feel guilty for taking care of my self, my heart, what interests me. For a while I tried to be super productive every minute. But shit, even the best employee isn’t super productive every minute. As I sat at home I psyched myself out so much overthinking what I could apply for, how I could fix my resume, that I made myself depressed. For every inquiry left unanswered, I became more convinced that I was failing at the very attempt of moving forward. I forbade myself from going outside because then I’d surely not be productive. I’d be gallavanting or wasting gas or not doing job apps or something. It’d be like sinning. I shut myself in, but in shutting myself in physically, I was also emotionally obliterating whatever amount of confidence I had left. Finally I said, “Fuck it, Immah dance,” and I went in search of a dance school.

Now is a time to take care of mine, our own, and cut ties with the people who can’t understand the situation we’re in. If you’re lucky, if you’re in a secure place, spare your less fortunate friends the small talk and empty invitations and otherwise uninteresting or worthless timesucks. Do not assume they haven’t thought of school, do not try to make them burn their money, and do not judge them for continuing their hobbies. At some point your willy nilly unsolicited advice about things we don’t want to study just creates a chasm between us. The more you try to make me pay for a trip that isn’t instantly financially feasible with the argument that “It’d be a really good deal/pay off in the future” is just a waste of hot air that buries us deeper and deeper into our suboptimal place. And telling me I shouldn’t have fun once in a while just convinces me that you’re really an emotional vampire, come to drain my soul.

No one is going to do the work of finding work for me, and for sure no one is going to make sure I take care of my own sanity with a release. No one is going to watch my time for me, and no one is going to make sure I’m balancing my life. We need support right now, not your lame, un-thought suggestions.

Update: Wow, ugly type-o in the headline, now fixed. I didn’t get a really good chance to wrap this one up. Didn’t mean for it to end on such a bleak note, but hey – it is what it is. I think the issue I have is primarily with people who are poor listeners and like to waste my time with pointless solutions.