Tips for Helping Unemployed Loved Ones

Hi Everyone,

First off...promises I can't keep. I really am going to try and update more once we get back from our vacation. I've been very swamped at work these last two months, which leads to a.) less procrastination time during the day and b.) being dead ass tired when I get home from work in the evening. However, soon we are leaving for a lovely 8 day vacation and hopefully I will come back refreshed and ready to attempt to entertain you once more internet audience.

2nd...some news. As of Friday the 12th, JP is no longer working at CoStar also known as the least fun anyone can have with a telephone ever. He left on fairly good terms with his co-workers and boss; it turns out they didn't hate him at that company as much as he previously thought. C'est la vie I suppose. He is currently taking the next week off completely, going on vacation with myself, his brother and two lovely cousins, and then slogging back into the search for a job. For anyone who was worried/wanted to kill him during his last bout of unemployment, I will say that he's in a much better frame of mind than he was after the 2008 Presidential election. He has a much clearer idea of what he'd like to do (teach/work with kids/work on a political campaign...whichever route presents an opportunity first) and *gasp* actually seems hopeful about the future. In all seriousness, if you have any support in any form for him, I know he'd mock you mercilessly to your face ummmm I mean appreciate it a lot. Which brings me to...

C.) Tips for Helping Unemployed Loved Ones

The economy, while not as bad as it was a year ago, is still not what anyone might call stellar; that being said everyone probably knows at least one person struggling to find a job in this merciless and unforgiving market. I seem to know quite a few very successful, very deserving, and/or very talented people who are trying to find the beginning of their career path right now along with the thousands of other unwashed, scraggly recent college graduates . I'm sure you, my not so anonymous internet audience, have been in a position where you have to support (or prop up, or shove forward, or drag through the mud and the muck screaming and kicking that they just want to go home and hide under their bed until they're old enough to retire) someone you care about in this situation. So I'd like to offer a few humble bits of advice that I've found helpful as JP's constant unemployment cheer leader. If they help...AWESOME; if not well at least you can chuckle a little at the ridiculous antics I undergo in an attempt to distract JP from the whole lack of job thing.

The first of these is "Foster Creativity." Some people are secret artists, singers, writers etc and encouraging these talents can help boost a person's morale when the job search isn't going so well. JP's secret talent however is voices. Really they should be called characters as each voice has a specific personality and unique set of quirks. At any one time the guy has about ten or eleven odd characters to draw from when life gets too repetitive. Its somewhere between sketch comedy and schizophrenia really; for instance tonight he brought out a perennial favorite we refer to as Larry, the dirty bum from South Philly. When trying to picture him using this voice...think of the voice in the video I posted last week only not singing.

In my quest to watch every quality Disney movie ever made, my sister and I were finishing up Atlantis. If you've seen this movie you know that some explorers find the Lost City, there are ancient people there blah blah blah...the part you need to know about is that there are a number of oddly reptilian birds that show up at various points throughout the movie. Near the end Larry chimed in about how he wished all these damn "Lizard-Birds" would stop flying about and distracting him. This evolved into a lengthy dialogue about how he'd like to own a "Lizard-Bird" as a pet. At this point I really had two options, walk away slowly while trying not to look horrified OR continue the conversation and see where the Larry journey might lead. Tonight I got lucky as Larry felt the need to elaborate on how he'd feed the Lizard-Bird on cheese nips and the peanut butter and jelly you get all mixed up together in the same jar rather than on a more traditional diet of "meat and seeds" because clearly this is what most people would feed their Lizard-Birds. I know it might sound weird, but I was just relieved that Larry hadn't started planning on how he was going to BBQ the fictional animal over a trash can fire in Newark and make the homeless men fight over him while he video tapes it for youtube (this is a very REAL example of the weird disturbing shit Larry can come up with).

End result: engaging one of JP's characters tonight allowed all of us here in #224 to laugh until we cried (as opposed to looking at him with terrorized eyes as he chooses the inappropriate fork in the conversation...anyone who knows JP will understand what I'm talking about here lol). Additionally, making me and my sister laugh cheered JP up considerably after a very disappointing first day of "freedom" from the Star. It also doesn't hurt that his improved mood led him out to the living room to play video games, allowing me to write this long-winded ridiculous blog entry which makes my boyfriend and myself look absolutely insane.

Crap...he's back and bitching at me to clean up our bedroom. Where's Larry????

Love,

Jill