Last night, Boston received a skyfull of snow, a dumping measurable only with yard sticks.  In the city there's no place to put the celestial offering, and we are left with side streets clogged like tubes full of old toothpaste.  We spent the day shoveling, packing snow up along the side of the house to try and clear a path for the cars to get out.  The cars can move now, but the street isn't clear and probably won't be for a while.  Around midday, a plow made it halfway up Grant before it became stuck and attracted the help of the entire neighborhood.  Exposed cars tightened the workable space, adding heightened tension to the already stressful situation.  The poor driver was near tears.  As soon as he was free, he backed up as fast as he could and drove away.  There has been no sign of a snow plow on our street since.   Throughout the day, we made our way around the neighborhood, helping push the unfortunate souls, returning home from their police shifts, and the arrogant idiots, who were trying to deliver pizza.  Men were reluctant to take my advice when I offered towels to slip under the wheels for traction.  I learned to let them struggle a while before offering a hand.  One man spent several hours stuck on our street, roasting in the glares of our neighbors who were hoping to keep the street open in case the plow returned.  He accepted my help and followed my instructions, and we maneuvred him out of the trap, only to watch him slide into a deeper rut a few yards down.  He thanked me anyway and proffered forty bucks.  "I feel bad," he said.  "You mentioned you were unemployed."  I couldn't take the money.  "I'm from Wisconsin," I said, by way of explanation.  Hannah and I walked to the grocery store before dinner and saw at least one car abandoned in the middle of each side street.  Meanwhile, on the highways and main thoroughfares, traffic was zooming around like money passing through the hands of the privileged.  Public transit is closed until Monday.  My only hope of getting to the aiport for my ten o'clock morning flight lies with the taxi services, none of whom are answering my phone calls.  Thanks for the unforgettable send-off, Boston. 

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.

The sun, my interminable alarm clock, was sounding through the window this morning, when I felt the familiar pangs of writer’s guilt creeping like ivy up the lattice framework of my bones.  Slothful tendencies, like waking up late, don’t necessarily lead to an idle life.  But when warming up the bed becomes the most stressful pursuit of the day, I must concede that it has been far too long since I’ve written anything.  And there’s no excuse for it.  No kids.  No real job. No fake job either, although that sounds like something worth pursuing.  My poor writing degree is starting to smell like molding compost.

            After prying myself from my sheets, I turned on some music and did a morning work out—(dancing in front of the mirror.) Then I stripped down and stepped onto my sister’s scale.  It was feeding me some fiction so I took off my socks.  My traitorous body gained two pounds from jumping jacks.  To take my mind off the enigma of weight loss, I opened a notebook that I use occasionally as a diary and started scribbling what you’re reading here.  After I got a couple of paragraphs in, I realized that journaling is like dancing when no one’s around to see you doing the windmill.  And there’s no courage in that.  So here I am, submitting my writing and embarrassing life to you all.  May you earn some respite from your tediously productive lives by reading about someone who’s turned unemployment into a profession.  Enjoy.