It's Friday, the first evening of Boston's storm of the century. Wind is blowing.  Blue snow is coating the streets with an iridiscent sheen. A small tree outside our window has turned white. Its branches, as frail as Harvey's forearms, are waving like frozen veins against the icy gale. I'm holding onto the image, because I am homesick for my parent's country house. If we were caught in a blizzard back home, we would be outside sledding. Being stuck in an East Coast city feels like an unendurable layover. I'm watching nature from behind windows like some kind of environmental voyeur. While I feel stagnant and rotten, the earth has somehow never seemed so robust. 

     

         I got a text from Harvey, who must have seen the storm on the news, that said: Don't forget your roots and your North Woods survival skills.  Hannah filled the bathtub with reserve water, in case we lose power.  I used it to wash my hair. She probably should have told me what she was planning to do with it before I watched her dip her cup into it and take a sip.  She'll be okay.  If she does end up in the hopsital it'll be because she's going crazy being stuck inside all day.  She's not used to having a three day weekend.  She's a teacher, and she's better at being busy than being idle.  When I looked up a moment ago, she was standing on a chair, bouncing up and down.  "Welcome to a day in the life of the unemployed," I said. 

 

          In conclusion, allow me to yield to this digression.  It took me hours to decide what to call this blog. On quest for the perfect title, I wound up at Thesauraus.com. I love that website. Many a morning I have wasted, sadistically sipping my coffee, while I send words that aren’t quite good enough through the wringer. On this particular venture (adventure, endeavor, exploit, pursuit, undertaking), I was looking up the word ‘unemployed.’ My findings were quite droll. The word ‘unemployed’ has a whole slew of connotations, ranging from phrases as offensive as ‘loafing’ to ones as positive as ‘free.’ Some words, like ‘unused,’ were kind of sad. Here are my favorites: between jobs, resting, closed down, disengaged, at liberty, on the bench, leisured, on the shelf, unexercised, idle, inactive.  I suppose those are all applicable, depending on my day.  And I have to say that after several months of being 'between jobs,' I'm getting really good at being unemployed.  So good, I would say, that I'm not just on the shelf; I'm taking up space on the shelf.  I did have a job for a day a few weeks ago, but more on that later.