I’m at the coffee shop where I’ve been perched on an uncomfortable stool at a counter for the past two hours researching jobs, sending out a resume, checking in on Twitter, Facebook, and Gawker to help pass the time, when I there it was at the top of Monster.com: Communications Manager. The job I was “discharged” from. Of course the description has been tweaked, which I can’t help but take personally.

“Proven superior writing and editing skills requiring little or no peer/​manager review.” I’m sorry, but everything that goes to the public should have at least 2 pairs of eyes look at it. Maybe I should have made a bigger deal out of the typos I found in her and others printed materials…but I thought I was being the “bigger person.” I still pat myself on the back for the typos I found including the misspelling of “nonprofit” on a printed piece that was about to go to major foundations.

Hours: 8:30am-6:30 pm. Ironic since the boss only works four days a week in the office about 8 am – 3:30 pm (though she claims she works all the time offline. Sure). Let’s not forget I took a lunch hour maybe 5 times, the rest of the time I sat at my desk, nor did I have that much work to suck up 10 hours a day…oh the description also says “fast paced.” It was truly anything but. Not to mention now it’s a “temp to perm after 3 months position.” Smart, because now it outright says “I reserve the right to fire you.”

“…over-achieving traits in previous roles would be at home in this environment.” Read: snob. Do you think you’re smarter and better than those around you? Do you have an intellectual in notation in your voice? Do you feel the need to make others around you feel stupid (i.e. explain to someone with a Master’s degree in Nonprofit management the meaning of a 501C3?)?

I suppose I was hoping they would decide not to fulfill this role. That they would give serious consideration into looking into the boss’s management and (lack of) communications skills. I suppose I wanted her to get in some sort of trouble. It was a nightmare, and reading this assured me that I’m happy it’s over. I’m not happy I don’t have a job, but happy I don’t have to deal with the bull sh*t.

I had only been at the job for 10 and a half weeks so I didn’t even think it was possible, but it was tricky from the get go. I was not only navigating a new field, but a volatile personality. I can sit here and write a post about my nightmare experience, but I can’t change the damage that’s been done. My ego will be bruised for a while, I will panic about money and question every penny I spend, my plans of moving are derailed, I have doubts about my abilities, about my professionalism, about what I want to be when I grown up–except for the fact that I’m 31.

I’ve found a temporary office at the corner coffee shop where I’ve joined the ranks of the fellow unemployed, the freelancers, the folks retired, the college students, and the mom’s with stroller’s getting out of the house for a short break. I haven’t fully accepted that this is my life yet, but it’s a day-to-day process. I won’t allow myself to be completely paralyzed however. I have updated my Linkdin, sent out a couple of resumes, and swallowed the humiliation and contacted a few key people within my network. It’s important to me that I process this blip in my life (it doesn’t seem like a blip now, but I have been assured by some very smart folks that it will indeed be a “blip”), but also move forward.

I assure you, the underdog will triumph, again.

Last night, or really just moments ago, I woke up from an anxiety dream. I don’t remember any details, just the feelings of running around, never getting enough done, my chest still feels tight. My body, my subconscious, my entire being has taken fistfuls of jabs the last couple of weeks. At first I was strong because I felt I had to be for everyone else. Then I got depressed. Then sick. Now I’m angry, scared and not sleeping well. Part of me feels I have the right to grieve, and other part of me feels like I need to get out of bed, get out of my anxious head, and just go full stream ahead. I’ll snap back and feel more like myself soon, I hope. In the meantime, I hope my dreams provide me a little more direction.

I then went to dinner at my dad’s house and the start of “you should look into this and that” came from my dad and stepmother (who randomly burst out with “You should be an Esthetician! You like doing nails!”). I was pretty calm throughout all of this, but I could feel the panic and self-doubt slowly creeping in. Reality has officially set in.

I have dialogues with myself: I have no transferable skills. Yes you do.  What if I don’t find a job by June? You’ll figure it out. How am I suppose to work full-time and look for a job full-time? You’ll find a way to do it.

There are many more doubts than I had a couple of days ago when I actually felt good about knowing I’d be laid off. Now I’m not so sure. I knew it was going to happen and I know I need change, but looming deadline has got me a little freaked. The lack of decent jobs, the knowing there are thousands out there with more experience, knowing while I have skills, employers may see them as skewed. Marketing, proofreading, public relations, copywriter, advertising director, supervisor of web designer and graphic designer–I’ve touched a lot of things but may not seen proficient in one area or another. I also wonder if my educational and cultural organization experience, along with my master’s degree in nonprofit management is seen as suspicious as I am also looking at for-profits, writing jobs, and other organizations that my background isn’t in.

So I just need to keep talking myself down, figure out how to write great cover letters and how to correctly sell myself, and keep on searching. I still have four months to figure it out.

1. Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck

2. I Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know It’s Not This by Julie Jansen.

3. Granata Magazine. This issues theme: Work.

4. The Atlantic Monthly. The cover issue headline: The Recession’s Long Shadow

Yes, all of the above share a common theme. A theme I am all too familiar with and find fascinating yet fear. I learned yesterday my position will be eliminated at the end of this fiscal year. I have four months to find a job and get out. I was not surprised. I knew the day was coming. I actually feel a lot more relieved than devastated. Actually, I’m not really devastated at all. I’ve been in a work and pay plateau for two years now. I’ve been slowly looking for work for months, but now I really need to step it up. The problem-my life’s problem-I don’t know what I want to do. Though I’ve become good at marketing and public relations I’m sick of being a bull shitter for a living. But right now I feel it’s the only thing I know.

I’m not always gung-ho for self-help books, but there are valid exercises in both that I’m more than willing to explore. I’ve always said I don’t want my work to be my life, and I still feel that way, but I do want to be happy for the 40 hours I spend away from home. I do want to feel some sort of meaning, and if I don’t, I want to be paid considerably more to feel nothingness.

Life is a at a crossroads, but I’m really, surprisingly, okay. I feel confident that I will figure it out. Will I have crap days? Yes, of course. But I also feel strangely empowered to make even more changes in my life. So for a while, this blog, may become more of a spring-board of ideas about my future.

Welcome to my rollercoaster.

1. A few moments ago I was reading my latest park district catalog thinking about taking a new class (currently taking “Adult Potter” and man, do I have a lot crap to pawn off on people), when I read a description for “Woodcarving.” Cool, I always wanted to whittle. After being seduced with words like “learn techniques to make carvings in wood from a 30 year veteran” (what can I say, I’m easy with little adjectives), I was ready to sign up. Then I noticed for ages 55 & older. I went on to be seduced by “Jewelry.” “From glass to ceramics learn how to make bracelets, necklaces, brooches and more!” Then once again noticed the bold for ages 55 & older.

2. I have too many gray hairs to count. Also, speaking of vanity-I went through my teen years and 20′s without wearing makeup on a daily basis. When I turned 31 I started putting on light makeup every weekday morning. Just a little tinted moisturizer, neutral shadow, bronzer, blush, and mascara. Why did I start wearing makeup daily you ask? I got tired of being telling me I looked tired! When you tell someone they look tired, you’re telling them they look like sh*t. We all know it. I make a conscious choice not tell people they look tired because I don’t want to hurt their feelings.

3. I don’t bounce back the way I used too after a few cocktails.

4. I can’t stand teenagers.

5. Music I once loved to listen to loud, is now, a bit too loud.

6. I just don’t care about petty crap anymore.

7. I just don’t really get embarrassed anymore.

8. I use eye cream and wrinkle-fighting eye cream.

9. I’m too tired to finish this list.

Once I was really good at really leaving my job when I left the office. I never want my job to be life. I can do a rockin’ kick-a$$ job between the hours of 9 to 5, then it’s my time. I hope to find satisfaction and successfulwithin my job, but I don’t want it to be my life. Is there something wrong with that? In my opinion, no. Can’t you kick a$$ when you’re paid to kick a$$ and then lead a normal life? Not her. She’s a martyr. No one can stand it. No one looks up to her and sees her a model employee–she’s a pain in the a$$. She doesn’t earn more respect that way, she gets taken advantage of because she wants to be seen as a model employee and is willing to take crap and be taken advantage of because of it. I, on the other hand, am not. I don’t get paid enough. I make less than half of what she does and have to take her crap on top of it.

I’m a sensitive soul. So much so I cried at my desk after my outburst. I have no problem owning up to my mistakes and usually apologize for the littlest of things. But today, I feel no need to apologize. I feel no need to take any more manipulative crap from her. She needed to know where I stand. That unlike her, I’m not completely terrified. I will be okay if I lose my job. If it’s meant to be, it will be. I’ll figure it out if and when the time comes, and I’ll be a better person for it.

Amen.

Ahh, the (sometimes) genius of a great mash-up song–but I am hoping this year, my life will become a mash-up of sorts. I’m in need of massive change. I’m itching in my skin, bored with the routine and the recreation of the routine to shake up the previous one. I don’t care if there is a mash-up leading to a new job (which I’m really hoping for), or a mash-up in my romantic life (which I’m also hoping for)–I just need a mash-up of sorts, damn it!

In other news, I’m sitting here smiling to myself about my witty naming pop cultural year. I’d love to be a pop culture writer. Sigh.

When natural (or horribly man-made) disasters happen I am glued to the television. Watching the sadness and fear in faces,  hearing stories of death and survival, and honestly feeling like I will never be able to really do anything to help beyond writing a check to do something because I am not as self-less as I can be. I got so obsessed with the news coverage from Katrina I had nightmares. I wouldn’t let myself do it this time with Haiti. I couldn’t stomach it because I was so wrapped in my depression I couldn’t take on more.

But I’m a music lover so I watched the Hope For Haiti Now telethon, and not only did I discover and finally see coverage of the awful, gut-wrentching situation. I was horrified. My first thought was “I want to adopt to Haitian baby.” Now I know I can’t do that at this time, but I still want to do something. I’ve considerad volunteer opportunities but I’ve been lazy and spending too much time thinking about what I want to do, and not what really needs to be done or who needs the most help.

It’s hard not to be down at the state of the world. I’m angry about so many things in America, but I also realize I’m a  very lucky women.

So, now that this post has taken a completely different turn from the beginning, I just want to vow this: this year I will volunteer and on a very different note, I want to make more iTunes playlists…and write about how the songs I’m into a certain week is also like a journal. I miss making mix tapes, and I wish I still had many of them. They are an audio diary of our lives, and that’s important to me.

Jane Eyre–It wasn’t until I was almost 30 that I began to read classics. I didn’t read many of the big ones in high school or college. Though it was slow going, I’m loving Jane. I’m loving Charlotte Bronte. I find her character fascinating: she’s part feminist; at times confident, at times insecure; sheltered and supressed and sometimes just plain odd. I’m about 300 or so pages in, but I really look forward to my book club’s discussion–that is if we have one. Mostly it’s just talk of men, sex, jobs, houses, and gossip. I also want to read some analysis of it and maybe watch a BBC or Masterpiece Classic movie version.

I also love the writing. What I love about the classics is the language. It just all sounds so much more sophisticated. The love scenes are so pure and romantic. The character descriptions so blunt (I love the pure honestly of calling Mr. Rochester “an ugly man.”) I find it fascinating that dialogue and language is itself historical and classic. I hated history in school, but as I’ve become older I’m curious about many things and desire to learn more history. This concludes the book section of what I’m into this week (how’s that for segue?).

NBC and the Great The Late Show Debate–When I couldn’t sleep as a kid I turned on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. (What I really tried to stay up for Letterman, but I’m sure he’s a post for another time.) Though most of the world is keeping abreast on the terrible situation is  in Haiti, I get enough of what is going on NBC. Here’s why: Conan is calling his bosses out for making bad decisions, and I’m jealous.

I’ve always been a Conan fan and was terribly excited he would be on an hour earlier (when I may actually be awake and able to watch it more). Conan’s letter announcing his position was brilliant, classy, and in the right. Sometimes you just don’t mess with tradition, and that tradition is The Tonight Show. Conan has been the nice guy too long, and now he’s pissed and acting out. I’m jealous because that is just what I wish I could do at work. In the five years I’ve been at my organization I’ve watched its demise. The Board and those in senior positions have made tons of mistakes and many have suffered because of it. It’s frustrating and sad and really wish I could pull a Conan because if I don’t change my attitude soon I’ll be begging to be laid off. Get my three to five month payout, go on unemployment, and be forced to figure out what exactly I do want to do next. Even if I have to bag groceries for a couple of months–I’m to the point where I really want out. But I’m also scared because unlike Conan, I won’t get 30 million and I won’t feel secure in this state of the world. It’s a debate I obviously have with myself because I really am scared of what would happen if I did lose my job. And now that I’m totally off topic, let’s move on.

Roger Ebert’s Journal–I’ve always been a fan of the Eb’s (as I pronounce it, da’-eebez). His writing is really creative and thoughtful–be sure to read the entry on food and memory.

NPR’s Monkey See Blog-A must for pop culture lovers. (I secretly wish I was Linda Holmes. What a cool job!)