Day 21 (Sunday)

Went to #1GF!’s Mom’s house to paint. Tried to exchange her phone at a local store. The store wouldn’t take it because the receipt was too old. Took the phone to another branch without he receipt, and the store exchanged it without a problem. Went home by 3PM and played Jewel Quest while #1GF! napped. Watched a couple of movies and went to sleep.

Day 22 (Monday)

Pinched something in my neck lifting an amount of weight that I’m actually ashamed of. Went to the grocery store. Went out in the 3000 degree heat to try to reproduce some photographs from the early 1900’s. Went home and watched Gattaca, which was beyond complete crap. Went back to the grocery store to pick up something I forgot. Knocked off a couple more pictures while I was out. Got back into the air conditioned cave of my apartment and made dinner. Called #1GF! to pick up something else at the supermarket which I had forgotten in my two previous trips. Watched So You Think you can Dance. Showed #1GF! my pictures, which I thought were awesome and she was unimpressed with.

Day 23 (Tuesday)

Got up and made the coffee like I do every day. Sent a congratulatory note to my old boss who got promoted. Took a call from my Dad who was going to the beach in the 90 degree heat at high tide. Went to take a picture at Fort Revere. Got a municipal sticker and stuck it to my tint. Went to the beach to invite my dad over to eat lunch and watch taped MMA fights.

Started getting a bit nervous because there really wasn’t anything that I was supposed to be doing. I don’t have a job. I wasn’t sure if I should be relaxing because this is the only time that I won’t be working for a long time, or if I should be trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. I’ve never been off of work for this long, and even though the money isn’t an issue, unemployment freaks me out sometimes and I haven’t been able to figure out why.

Decided I had better turn the PC on in any case. Got pissed at Thunderbird and had to re-input every fucking feed that I subscribe to because of profile corruption. If you use Thunderbird and you don’t want to cry when your profile blows up, you can either read this article and follow the instructions or you load mozbackup and load your profile from a previously saved backup. It’s up to you. I’ve done it both ways, and the mozbackup method is much faster and easier.

Day 24 (Wednesday)

#1GF! was sick and it was 94 degrees and humid, so I blew the whole day off and treated it like a Saturday. I played web games (like Bejeweled 2 and Yahoo Crosswords) and watched TV well into the afternoon. I saw an episode of No Reservations that featured an engineer who quit his job to learn to become a salami maker, and another guy who gave up a ten year career in computing to focus his life on cheese making. It made me want to get passionate about something meaningful. Instead, I sat and wrote for about four hours.

Near the end of the day, this conversation occurred:
#1GF!: I felt like crap when I tried to sleep.
Me: You tried to crap and fell asleep?!?
#1GF!: Uh no. Not at all.

Day 25 (Thursday)

I seriously wrote and read all day long. All day. Know what I have to show for it? Just about nothing. So, I went for a drink with #1GF! and a former co-worker. Coca-cola really has a way of wiping out the day’s trials and tribulations.

Day 26 (Friday)

Positively plowed through the OPML export from Dumb Little man and upped the number of blogs that I subscribe to from 20 to over 90. The web mojo was flowing so well that I started discussions on a new web project for my sister. I then spent a few hours straightening out an e-mail issue between my web host and the folks at Democracy. Actually felt like I put in a full day, but working on stuff that I like.

Day 27 (Saturday)

Went to a #1GF! family cookout all day. Before leaving for the cookout, I changed my shirt because I had spilled a single drop of coffee on it. Toward the end of the day, I had #1GF!’s one year old nephew on my lap for a couple of hours. When I took him off, there was a wet spot on my knee right where he had been sitting. It could have been pool water or baby pee, but I can’t say that it even bothered me at all. It’s strange that a single drop of coffee had my shirt off in 10 seconds, but a possible pool of baby pee didn’t really get an ounce of concern. I also realized that sometimes when I’m the only one without kids at a cookout, I feel out of place. When I start to think that it could be a topic of conversation, I feel weirder.

Week Four: What I’ve Learned

• I still suck as a painter.
• The further I get from corporate America, the less I think I want to go back to it.
• Sometimes you can get a refund without a receipt before you can with one.
• Again, backup your Firefox and Thunderbird profiles.
• Writing and editing take an assload of time, even when the results suck.
• I’m still not sure what to do with my free time.
• Desire for employment may have less to do with money and more to do with feeling like you’re part of something.
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