Laid off

Where are my eyebrows?  Oh and yes I got laid off. It’s now 28 days later. It is fitting that I am finally able to write now, 28 days later, given that 28 Days Later is the scariest movie I have every seen and it continues to haunt me 13 years on. Something about abject terror and horror seems appropriate here as I try to picture myself standing drunk at an off-ramp holding a piece of cardboard.  What will it say, my homeless person sign?

“Will work for Hawaiian Miles.  You can easily share your miles with me by going to http://help.hawaiianairlines.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/383.”

“Will work for a good bottle of Sancerre.  Will not work for a  grassy bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc or an oaky California Chardonnay.  In fact I will hit you in the head with a bottle of grassy New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc or an oaky California Chardonnay if you try to hand me one through your driver’s side car window.”

“Will work for a nice good wodge of Humbolt Fog and some Jamón Ibérico.  Please buy them at Metropolitan Market and pay full price.  I will not accept food from Costco.”

I should probably come up with shorter messages for my signs.  Speaking of which, and I know it is really bad karma to ask this, but where do they get the nice clean cardboard and the good felt tip pens for their signs?  Guess I should stock up while I still can.

And speaking of superstition, it occurs to me that I should call out what you will not see on my cardboard homeless person signs.  There will be no little Christian fish symbols on my signs. No references to god, the Easter Bunny, Santa, compassionate Republicans, or any other made up people. Well, OK, maybe I will draw a little picture of Buffy. 

Sigh. I am not exactly sure where I am at in the Kübler-Ross stages:

1  Denial – I am always in some state of denial, so this feels normal, except that I keep thinking they are going to call and say they did not understand what a good manager I was and that they are sorry and will I please come back because everyone is still crying. I will say no, thank you, and feel morally vindicated as I sign my first book deal.   

2  Anger – not really.  Xanax is my friend.  

3  Bargaining – see Denial.

4  Depression – I guess.  I do wake up screaming most mornings. During the day I sit in my closet in the dark where it is safe and warm.  I come out at night, mostly, to cut myself, because it makes me feel alive.   Am I depressed?

5  Acceptance – nope.  This whole thing still seems unreal still. On one level I feel like my world has been ripped apart, but then I remember I don’t have to worry about paying my mortgage right now.  That just adds to the surrealness of the whole thing. 

As my stress level has stayed high I have started to notice some physical changes.  I now have acne again.  Yes, the cloves are back on this clovehead.  Also, weird stuff is going on with my hair. I am having this absolute exponential growth rate in my ear hair.  I am shaving my ears daily now, like some kind of grassy Sauvignon Blanc swilling hobbit, while at the same time the hair on my head is just washing down the drain every morning in the shower. 

So other than shaving my ear hair, what do I do all day now?  Well, after waking up screaming I make a real breakfast. There is almost nothing I would rather do that cook, so having that to look forward to each day is really nice rather than rushing off to work with a couple of hard-boiled eggs and a salt shaker.  I have been doing a lot of sautéed onions or Morel mushrooms with healthy greens with a couple of runny eggs dotted with some San Marzano tomatoes from my back yard. I post pictures of all this on Facebook like some sad bored crazy person with nothing better to do.

Then I do Pilates.  This is the home stuff. Not the classes.  More on that in a bit. 

I do my exercises then I job hunt for a while.  I try to spend as little time in front of my computer as possible because if I don’t I can spend the whole day shopping for pillows on the Pottery Barn web site….just like I did at work.

After the job hunt I do a moment of silence to think about my house cleaners, my gardener, my 401(k) contributions.  I miss them all so much.  A tear usually comes down my left cheek at this point and I gently flick it away, like Dusty Springfield at The Royal Albert Hall.

Then I go to the gym.  There is this bondage torture device called a TRX that my physical therapist has me using.  It’s mean, it hurts, and I hate it.  Then I do cardio and I am forced to watch daytime TV. Believe me, I am listening to music, but the video screens are right in front of me so there is no way to avoid them.  As always, I hate CNN.  I am just thankful that no airplanes have disappeared recently.  Then there are the horrid talk shows, The Squawk and The Spew. And the infomercials.  And the soap operas where apparently men are not allowed to wear shirts.   It’s all bad. Except for the lack of shirts.

So back to my Pilates class.  Picture a 25 year old gay former ballet dancer who swears like a truck driver and talks about the need for socialized medicine while providing one on one instruction wearing tight shorts.  You better believe I am paying for this.

Then I hit the store, Metropolitan Market while I still can afford it, and get things for dinner.  Then I play in my garden, or I think about all the books I could be reading, or that I should be taking French lessons with Rosetta Stone, and then I have a panic attack when I realize that no one is ever going to hire a pear shaped elderly Pilates pervert.  Xanax time!

I have come out as a laid off person to my friends, family, neighbors, even my health care professionals.  Everyone is like, “What a gift.  You are so lucky.”  In every case I hear that Carpenter’s song “Top of the World” in my head and picture my hands on their necks, ripping out their windpipes and sucking out the marrow from their neck bones when they say this.  You do know that Karen Carpenter was is a vampire right?  Anyway, maybe they are right.  Who gets an opportunity to step back and really think about what they want to do with the rest of their life? 

So that is my new routine.  This week I start classes to help improve my resume, my LinkedIn profile, my interviewing skills, and to develop my “marketing plan.” 

That’s all good, but I can’t help but thinking what it would be like to just sell my house and move someplace like Saint-Rémy, France.  What does it cost to fly kittens in business class to Europe? Guess I’d better dig out the Rosetta Stone disks.

Time to go shave my ears. 

More later……

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