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2001-06-20 - 5:11 p.m. Quite an interesting day today. This is my second day of unemployment. I woke up promptly at 9:30, and started the first Tuesday at Christine, Inc. We have a nice work environment here at Christine, Inc. Pijamas are a requirement, no shoes allowed, the coffee’s good, and you can smoke as many cigarettes as you want as long as you can put up with the cats. The television must always be in the background, turned to either the Golden Girls or “Personal TLC”, which is a series of shows entitled (and I’m not kidding), “A Makeover Story”, “A Dating Story”, “A Wedding Story”, and “A Baby Story”—describing some of life’s turning points. It’s a girl’s workplace. I went to an informational interview at Bozell—the only information I gained from that interview was that I don’t want to be working in advertising anymore. I was talking to the woman who actually went through my benefits/severance packet with me at Stein Rogan. She doesn’t have anything for me. I don’t want to work there anyway. After that I ran back to my apartment, but stopped to get a manicure/pedicure in preparation for my interview tomorrow AM. My old boss called me on my cell asking for my freelance help on a project. “Well, Christine, I made it one whole day without you – I need your help!”. So, I’m gonna make a few needed bucks. But I was weirded out by the fact that I was talking to her on my cell while two girls painted my nails. Shit did I feel like a true upper eastsider. The fingernail girl actually turned my cell off for me. I don’t want to do that again. I had a second interview in the afternoon – a talk which made me realize even more that I don’t want to continue in the track my resume represents. I have a LOT of thinking to do. After I finally got through the interviews, I took off for a run in Central Park – to run the 3 miles my ½ marathon training guide says I should do today. I love that park – the reservoir loop is beautiful. I run on the outer loop from the reservoir, in the dirt, past horses and other runners, walkers, and people walking home from work/school/whatever. Yesterday I ran it with a friend and at the end, I met an elderly man by the water fountains who is trying to run for mayor of New York City. He stood there in his running shorts pulled up to his sagging breasts, a t-shirt, and sweatbands around his head and wrists (I understand the use of sweatbands, but have never thought to use one since they look so odd). He was collecting signatures on his little clipboard from the after work running crowd. He’s a democrat, so I signed his petition. I don’t have much faith in him though, since today, when I finished my run, he was standing there again and asked for my signature a second time. “I signed yesterday”. “Of course you did”. I guess I’m being hard on him—he most likely spoke to many people yesterday and today. But he seemed a bit more absent minded. Tomorrow early AM I have an interview in Greenwich, so I went to the 125th street station to catch a train to sack out at my parent’s tonight so mom can drive me. When I go to visit my parents I use the last car in the train because it’s closest to where the car is parked. So I waited for the train at the proper place on the platform. The doors of the train open, and I walk into a bar on the upper east side. Yes, I had walked into the bar car on the metro north train to Connecticut. I’ve never been on one of these before. It was crazy. I was one of three women in the entire car. Surrounded around the bar were packets of married and single executives slurping their Heinekens, Coors Lights, and Fosters and talking about nothing important. It was like walking into that Brother Jimmy’s place on a Thursday night. I was looked at in amazement—a blonde in an interview suit dress that gets on the train at Harlem-125th Street. But I managed to get out of there without anything more strange happening. Now I’m in Rye, watching Dateline as my mom sits in the kitchen working on her quilt, waiting for my dad to come home from a meeting at his hunt club in Mount Vernon. When did I start going to high school again? I’m really liking this no work thing. Damn rent and bills and food. Anybody want to give me a million dollars?
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