The Sweet Embrace of Unemployment

How will I tell my wife I lost my 401k?

According to an April 17th news release from the employment development department of California, the state reached 11.2 percentage of the populace unemployed. 62,100 nonfarm jobs had also been eliminated and the nation's unemployment rate rose to 8.2 percent. There are a mind-numbing 2,080,000 people unemployed in the state of California. Now before I go dropping more stats like it's hot I know you have a question. 

How is any of this funny in anyway?

Well, it isn't really. There are clearly a lot of people without jobs or without the financial ability to support themselves until the economy improves or the job market increases. There are signs of this everywhere. 

At the coffee and donut shop around the corner from my apartment there was a table and a few chairs where some old dudes would sit watching traffic all day. They recently replaced the table and chairs with a set of bleachers. 

I saw where a cocker spaniel living in the back yard of a house in Brentwood posted a listing on craigslist.com looking for a roommate and wasn't even asking to see their papers. 

The bum's signs are changing from; War Vet: need money for food to Day Trader: will settle for warm regards. 

Today is my first day on the skids. No work today. I'm a journalist though and like our opinions our hours are irregular. Where one door closes another one opens. So today I go out into the world to investigate into how those other 2 million people are doing. See what they are up to. I've been trapped in an office or the 405 for the last 10 months. Now I need to rediscover the joy of a bike ride and a slurpee at at 2 in the afternoon. Or maybe I will fly a kite and splash around in a shallow creak. 

Is that what everyone has been doing? Oh I've been missing out on so much! Wait, man how could I forget? There is this whole global pandemic thingy going on. Great. Nobody has a job so now we don't have any money and even if we did have any money we are too scared to go outside because of the pig flu. 

So let's all just stay inside, watch Glen Beck and work on our seven signs of the apocalypse 1/8th to scale models complete with exploding baking soda & vinegar volcanoes. 

I'm not sure what everybody that is unemployed is doing right now to be honest. I think I'll go to Malibu Beach. You think it would be safe in Malibu but you would be surprised how many pigs that are there. OH!!! Take that for your probable immunity to the swine flu Malibu, California. 

A new day lies ahead full of increased credit card debt, alcoholic drinks before noon and my 5th and final attempt to learn how to play Sudoku. The future is in my hands as soon as I put some pants on to go outside and brave this new world. 

Opportunity is around every corner in a city like Los Angeles. There are people looking for opportunity and those looking to give it, there also probably a couple more people looking for opportunity at that corner. I guess it's more like a four way stop. The person looking to give opportunity of course waves on that first person to go but that person just keeps sitting there then finally waves back. The other person at the stop is like "What the fuck? Won't somebody just go?" Then the person giving the opportunity finally just goes and causes a wreck between two people looking for opportunity that just wouldn't make up their minds. 

Yup opportunity is out there for me, just gotta go take it. After I take a nap. Talking about all this opportunity has exhausted me.