Hello from my futon.

Me thinks I have a computer virus or some such as everything is freezing up and moving slowly.  Hmmm.

In other news, I need some more compressed air as my keys are crunchy, due to food particles underneath them.  Gross!

Oooh, there was a sunny day in Vancouver yesterday – April 14, 2012.  Sunny and warm, I say.  So, the Glenda and I headed over to Queen Elizabeth Park.  It was two buses and we met at the second one.  She was already on it.  I found this exciting for some reason.  I also enjoyed using my bus pass as I haven’t been using it as much now that I’m NOT WORKING.  Hey, settle down, Karen, settle down.

The park was abuzz with people and flowers (cherry blossoms et al).  We walked and took photos.  Then we took the buses back to Glenda’s house (well, no, we didn’t actually take the buses right to Glenda’s house that would be weird) and suddenly I was eating carrot cake.

“Just a small piece,” I said.  She plopped a large piece in front of me which I ate.  Well, yeah.

On Friday evening (an action packed weekend!) I had gone to Tracy’s and we watched ‘I love you, Phillip Morris” on NetFlix.  I enjoyed the film and found it absorbing in that for two hours or so I did not obsess about NOT HAVING A JOB.  Sorry, settling down.

Crunch, crunch go my computer keys.

I’ve really been appreciating commenters on the blog – particularly Thomas and Carrie who are very kindly sharing their job search struggles. At the same time, I’m needing to keep my chin from being completely on the floor.  I don’t want my nihilism to breed the nihilism of others, if that makes any sense.  Or vice versa. 

La la.

Today when I was walking home from my wee United Church, I fell-o-rama. I think my weak ankle may have twisted (this has happened before but not so violently).  It was totally like it was happening in slow motion – first bang on my knee, then somehow on my back and my neck is jerking back and the back of my head smashes on the sidewalk.  Wowza, I was stunned for quite a few minutes after and just kinda sat there.  It was so bizarre how the actual fall seemed to go on and on and again, in slow motion.  Still kinda shaking from it.  No one stopped to ask if I were okay, so perhaps it felt worse than it looked.  Ugh.  Usually this doesn’t happen unless I’ve been jogging or some such and weakening the ankles.  It is always so shocking.  Bonk and bonk.  Glenda suggests I wear my bike helmet all of the time.  Good idea.

If you can, watch Nurse Jackie either on TV or online.  Wowza this season 4 is great.  Edie Falco plays Jackie, a nurse and a drug addict who has totally messed up her life.  This season she is finally in rehab (until she leaves early) and she is finally letting herself be vulnerable and such.  Sounds trite but she is an amazing actor so it is not.  The rehab therapist is played by Laura Silverman, the sister of Sarah.  She’s great in the role and that surprises me for some reason.

I’m still reading like a crazed person – have whittled down the 13 library books to 9 now I think.  Enjoyable.  Some fiction, some non.  I’ve got one I”m going to start tonight – Prophet’s Prey (punny) – about Warren Jeffs and the fundy Latter Day Saints.  That is more fluff than anything really but oh so interesting because we know of my love of the outcast fundy Mormons.

I also have ‘Best American Science Reading’ and ‘Best Canadian Essays’ and such like that. Oooh and the Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories from 2007.  That should be great – I love short stories and the authors in it are superb writers and it will introduce me to some that I haven’t read.  I also have ‘Incontinent on the Continent’ by Jane Christmas (yes, that is her name).  I’ve read it before and enjoyed it.  Christmas takes her elderly mother on a month long trip through Italy.  She’s a good writer so it”s funny, poignant and Italy-ish.   I also have ‘Zoetrope, which is a collection of stories from Zoetrope, a fiction magazine founded by film director Francis Ford Coppola.  I’ve wanted to buy the magazine but wowza it is pricey.  The book is from 2003.  I found most of the above that day at the downtown library after the depressing ‘dude’ interview described in my last blog entry.  Do I read too much?  Not sure that is possible but maybe.  It could be seen as a way of escaping from the world but not really in my case.  I thought for awhile I might be a book hoarder but no, I read em and return to the library or try to sell them.  I think I mentioned before that last summer I put out a blanket in front of Grandview Park and sold some of my books – made upt $50 I think. Sold em for $1 each (later upped to $2).  I didn’t do it for the money really, I just loved chatting to the people (even those who offered me a great deal on a few different street drugs.  They read too!).  I’ll do that again once the weather warms up.  A bit trickier without a car but I’ll figure it out.  Please get me a job working at the London Guardian in their books section.  The Vancouver Sun has a tiny tiny books section. Tiny. Wee, tiny.  I also seem to be one of the few who enjoys reading, “Quill and Quire.”  But again, too expensive to buy regularly and lots of libraries don’t carry it.

Oh!!!!!!  OH!!!!!!!!!!  OH!!!!!!!  My sister Sherri (comma left out on purpose) got me a People magazine subscription for my birthday and the first issue came on Friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I worship People magazine as I’ve mentioned before.  It is like Soap Opera Digest but even better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Thank you, sister Sherri who lives in Ottawa with husband and daughter and is a social worker and unlike me, has always been employed. 

A new week is starting.  Here’s hoping my phone rings during the week during the day!!!!!!!!!!  I generally hate the exclamation point.

Walking and an apple turnover craving, etc.

Well hoi polloi, wowza and the like, I walked a lot today.  This is a good thing that has resulted from smooshing my car all up.  From squishing it down into scrap metal.  From destroying its very soul.

Yup, I walk more.  Walked to the library, to the bus, from the bus, from Cambie and Broadway home (about, hmmm, I don’t know, several kilometres) and out again to a restaurant.  Walked, walked, walked.

I also spent way too much money today for an unemployed person.  Well,  Gail and Rosie!! (remember, baby Rosie) and I went to Book Warehouse and you know where that leads.  That’s right, the next thing I know I’m buying a book that I already have on hold at the library just because it comforts me to know I can read it tonight.  I know, I know!!!!!  You are so right, Gail should have so stopped me by pulling it out of my hands and tasering me as necessary.  This is nothing she hasn’t done before.

Then, I went out for dinner tonight with H. who is in town for several days from Japan.  Poor dear has to go all the way to Windsor, Ontario and then when going back to Japan does it on some kind of epic long journey that fills my mouth with too much spit just thinking about it.  She buses, planes, trains, trains, buses and etc.  I cannot imagine.  I find sitting on an airplane for 11 hours about the most amount of that kind of torture that I can stand.  And no peanuts!  Imagine.  H. and I used to work together but she escaped, left, she left! two years ago to go work in Japan.  She was my semi-boss for awhile.  We chortled, I had a taco salad in the fabulous edible bowl.  An edible bowl!

On the way home I stopped at Safeway to get margarine.  I know, I know, don’t buy margarine!  Buy butter!  Hmmm, old habits die hard.  Besides, margarine is comforting.  I was NOT going to buy the People magazine with stories of the year.  NO I WAS NOT.  I’d even left a message on Gail’s voice mail to say, “I’ve walked a massive amount and I’m not going to buy the People magazine with stories of the year so that semi-balances out my book buy that you did not taser me and thus stop me from doing.”  But somehow, when I buy People in Safeway, it makes it okay.  Now Safeway sometimes carries Soap Opera Digest but not as regularly as it should.  Sometimes I’ll think it is a Soap Opera Digest but it is actually an Archie Digest.  Disappointing let me tell you.  And then I saw these apple turnovers and had a craving.  DO NOT BUY THOSE APPLE TURNOVERS WHEN YOU ARE NOT WORKING, I said to myself.  But again, when it’s at Safeway, it is okay.

Starting Jan. 1, 2012, I must curtail all unnecessary spending.  No excuses, no drama, no spending!!!!!  After all, I am only living off of my savings now.  If I think about that too much, I kinda freak out and have to go and buy a Soap Opera Digest.  I’m applying for EI again, but that can take months to sort out, particularly since the feds have seen fit to lay off a whole bunch of workers.  Apparently when you call the 1800-206-7218 number to say, hey, how’s my claim doing, there won’t be enough workers to answer the phone.  Tis true.  I’ve been testing this out and the message is always the same (worded slightly differently) – ‘You have called at a busy time.  Our call volume is high.  No point in calling back, because we have one worker here and he is busy.  Often he calls in sick because the stress of answering 4,287 calls an hour is too much.  When he eventually quits (and thus he won’t be eligible for EI) he will not be replaced.”

Uh, yeah.  Normally it takes the feds four weeks to figure out a claim.  Who knows how long it will take now.  And and and it is only based on what I’ve worked this year (2011) so I won’t get much anyway.  Had I simply stayed laid off earlier this year rather than working, I would have had 34 weeks of EI.  But, no, I worked.  No reward for that one and that claim ends Dec. 24.  Sigh.  And yes, I know, I know.

So, yeah, luckily I’ve been a fairly good saver over the years and for about five years of my most recent job, I was making a pretty darned good wage.  Of course, I didn’t realize then that the good financial times weren’t going to last so I spent money on going to Turkey and such.  Nonetheless, I’m good for a few months at any rate.

Worrisome times people, worrisome times.

In good news,  I had 62 views in 24 hours!  An all time high!