Wordsmoker

Several months ago, I wrote a post about how I intended to fill my time since I was about to be unemployed. I got a job that was supposed to be permanent back in July, but it turned out that my employers were complete idiots, and also maybe sort of sadistic, so I got laid off in October. Now that I’ve finally found a job, I decided to take a look back and see how many of the tasks in my original post I actually accomplished, and to evaluate the ways in which my time was actually spent.

1. Gardening
I live in an apartment, but I have lots of green space, so I’m going to plant a garden! There’ll be some upfront cost, but from what old people tell me, gardening is relaxing and can take up lots and lots of time.

Yeah, about this one. I did, indeed, plant a vegetable garden out front. Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, various kinds of squash, and basil. You’ll be pleased to know that I made one tomato sandwich with the one tomato I actually managed to grow, and made one small batch of marinara with the basil, before everything fucking died. It didn’t help that it was one of the hottest summers on record, so much so that it actually gets is own Wikipedia entry.

2. Amateur Star Gazing
My friend said she’ll give me a telescope, and I’d just have to pay for the gas to drive out to BFE to get away from the city lights.

I got the telescope! However, it’s really, really hard to use, and I’m allergic to reading directions, so I’ve only used it a few times to look at the moon, and the recent lunar eclipse. Pretty cool and all, but definitely a waste of a perfectly good telescope. I did have it set up in front of the window to freak out the neighbors, but it became less and less fun over time.

3. Watching and Indexing Porn
This isn’t really my thing, but I’ve heard from a lot of people that there is a ton of free porn on the internets. I could probably fill a couple of hours a day sorting through all of it and bookmarking the ones I really like.

This got real old, real fast. There are only so many cumshots a girl can look at before it just gets played out.

4. Starting a Blog
I mean, I’m really interesting. Surely at least 10,000 people a day would want to read about what I ate for breakfast and where my daily walk took me.

Upon further reflection, I realized how nauseatingly uninteresting I am. I’m not even interested in hearing about me in order to write about me. I’m jus… sorry, drifted off there for a second. What were you saying?

5. Going on daily walks
This will allow me to see all the houses I’ll never be able to afford because I’m unemployed and have an assload of student loan debt and am a social worker so I’ll never make any money.

I actually DID do this, for the most part, unless it was incredibly hot or incredibly cold. The house next door is for sale at a price even I could afford, but knowing what lived there before, I’m sort of afraid of what it might look like inside.

6. Taco Bell
Either I will get a job there, or just eat 79 cent burritos all the time because that’s all I’ll be able to afford.

This got real old, real fast. There are only so many tacos a girl can eat before it just gets played out.

The last thing was some screed about hiking and how I hate big open spaces, and suffice it to say that nothing has changed in that department.

What did I do with the rest of my time, you ask? Oh, you’re not asking? Well, I’m going to tell you anyway. I looked back and tallied it up, and I applied for fifty-nine jobs, as near as I can tell. About forty-five of those jobs included cover letters, which are a real bitch. The rest of the time, I pretty much just watched Top Gear and Doctor Who.  So, the moral of the story is: anything worth doing is worth putting in fifty-nine times the effort needed to achieve the desired result.