Day at a Time, I Suppose (It's a Wire Reference)

I have now been unemployed for one month and one day.

I wish I could say that this time has been one of deep reflection, a time to pursue grace and samadhi, a time of quiet productivity, but it hasn't. I'm dumbstruck that the days have passed as quickly as they have , but in truth I've always been overwhelmed by the tyranny of free time. Having been exiled to house-husbandry, my mind has become a mudroom of domestic ambition: I think a lot about reorganizing the contents of the freezer, getting that picture framed, sweeping the leaves off the deck, but somehow at the end of each day none of these things seems to get accomplished -- or half of one does. One week of this kind of personal mismanagement I suppose is excusable; a month not so much. I am clearly unqualified for Martha Stewart's mantle, but perhaps I can return to Michigan and help run the auto industry into the ground.

Anyway, I have little to report in this post. I always thought that my job was going to turn me into an irredeemable bore, but without it, I don't seem to be any more fascinating. Still, for the sake of completeness, here's the backsell: my job leads have all soured; it turns out our house was burgled much more successfully that we'd initially realized (and let me just leave it at that); and 'Pockets lost her wallet today (en route to the airport).

I firmly believe that we are all makers of our own luck, so I am trying to figure out how we can remake ourselves out of this tangled string. Though I haven't quite yet figured it out, I will. But this all prologue to what I want to say. I want to end this cheerless post with an uplifting declaration of self-awareness: Some might turn to faith or embrace humility in trying times, but not me. I turn to schadenfreude. To wit: Elizabeth Wurtzel, who turned self-indulgence into a best-seller, who took a 160 LSAT to Yale Law School, who convinced David Boies to give her a flex-time job, failed the Bar Exam -- which is only funny when it happens to terrible people and/or celebrities -- and then has the gall to suggest that Yale improperly prepared her for the Exam when everyone knows she, like the rest of us, took a prep course to, you know, prep for the Bar. Alternatively, she suggests that she partied too hard when she should have been studying, which leads me to wonder, ftw, I thought you needed a flex-time job so that you could do all this writing, you fancy-pants writer? Also, what? I thought Yale didn't prepare you for the Exam? Which is it? Anyway, she is an epic fail -- again not because she failed the Bar, which good and decent and intelligent people often do, but because she is a lame, undeserving, ungracious celebrity -- and her failure makes me happy. That is to say, I'm still a terrible person. Because I have not done a lot of Prozac and gotten published and because I have not bedded David Foster Wallace, I'm jealous and mean, but that means I'm still me; so we can all rejoice. Yay for my petty, petty soul!

Also--and, yes, I'm going full-rant on this one--what's up with this? We, as a society, are kind of irked, yes, by Ayman al-Zawahiri's blood commitment to the destruction of America, but when he calls our Best Friendsident "a house negro" that's when we all start paying attention again?? It's like Qaeda HQ saw that it was heading towards the outer reaches of our cultural memory and decided to throw up a game changer to win the news cycle. This kind of makes me wish McCain was President. No one throws up a game changer like that decrepit motherfucker.

Vote. Rocked. Yet again.

look up schadenfreude in the dictionary...

and i believe you'll find this article there.

in other news, thank goodness 30 rock is back! yeah, i guess it was a little bit weak, but you gotta love "we no longer wanna hit that."

"you're going to love this neighborhood, E. it's really gentrified"

the above is what a real estate broker told me when i was looking for an apartment in the BK. ouch. was it my american apparel attire that tipped him off?

yes, i get that the BK is not the rough and tumble borough of yesteryear. it is now a veritable smörgåsbord of babies, bugaboo strollers, doggies, yoga mats and white people. how is every tousle-haired lad and lass able to afford a $600+ stroller? what's up with the f train anyway? i once saw one dude on my commute to work reading edward said's orientalism. c'mon now. why not just wear your m.phil. instead?

i usually enjoy "the hunt," a schadenfreude-tastic column in the times' real estate section. it usually features some hapless high-income individual who decides to leave behind the frenzied world of his/her midtown high-rise to the serene confines of his/her UES high-rise. this week's was priceless. i thought for sure gawker would tear it apart, but since they left this void, i will fill it.

long story short, some guy named beau frank was paying over $3K/month for his soho apartment and decided it was time to buy, buy, buy. here are some pointers for you sad sacks who have yet to become landed gentry. [ed note: what is wrong with you?]

1) he decided to take a risk: “From what I’d heard, Brooklyn was an O.K. place. I knew nothing about it, so I went off word of mouth.”

2) he knew what he wanted and was unwilling to compromise his high standards: Last year, he began the hunt at the Court Street Lofts in Carroll Gardens. He loved the enormous space, but the neighborhood seemed drab. He much preferred Williamsburg, which felt to him suitably like Manhattan.

3) seriously dudes, don't fuck with this one; he's onto you: “I am spending three-quarters of a million dollars and there is no elevator?”

4) enlist help from people who really get you: “He is a hip guy; he needs to be in prime Williamsburg,” [his broker] said.

5) and hey, you can't have everything, so be willing to bend a little: He decided he could live without a fireplace and could tolerate the industrial edge to the neighborhood.

and in case you didn't read the article but wanted to see just what satisfied mr. frank, go right ahead. seriously, you should click on the link. here is a sneak peek: Williamsburg. It's very name evokes all that is happening, all that is hip.