Day Four

I booked two tickets to Greece today for Mikki and me. What better way to christen a new era than by making rash decisions involving foreign countries and significant sums of money?

Ah, Greece, the perfect cocktail of culture, sex, and frugality--where better than the land of ancient ruins, thong bikinis, and a population as unemployed as I?

Day Three

My mother called me today and expressed her disappointment in my not valuing my intellectual capacity to the fullest, urging me toward graduate school or... a boob job--a biweekly harangue that she drips onto my forehead like Chinese water torture.

No matter what I tell my mother, she will not rest until I pursue an MBA or marry a rich man. On the regular, she cites specific episodes of Millionaire Matchmaker as examples for me to follow.

It's ridiculous, but the encouragement from my mother isn't totally deranged. I have been creatively impotent, and I've feared the whole "use it or lose it" adage applies. Which has something to do with why I quit Cafe Gypsy.

As far as her advice on seeking a rich man... well, refer to "Note One" entry. Maybe that Chinese water torture is getting to me.

I still haven't given my mother my notice yet...

Note One

It's amazing how supportive everyone is of my not being able to support myself financially. And I'm not even on Day Three yet.

Thank you all for this strange paradox.

Speaking of being supported, I would like to put it out there that while I'm unemployed, I will not be dating. I cannot afford to be more than single--only to play piano (free), write (free), and eat leftovers (seems free).

If you want to date me, you have to pay for everything. God speed with that.

Day Two

Woke up at the crack of dawn, but it's not what you think; today has been the most unproductive day yet. 

As a favor, I woke up to shake Mikki, my sleep-deprived roommate, out of bed for her morning shift at Cafe Gypsy. I lambasted her for hitting the snooze, for disregarding the fact that she knew she had things to do. Then I went back to sleep until noon. 

I ate organic banana chips and watched Glee. 

It's 1:00 now, and it's time for me to go pay the rent. I nervously recount my collection of cash tips organized on the floor of my room, hoping this will offer me some peace of mind. Instead, my stomach turns--probably a combination of apprehension and too many banana chips. The money, it's enough, but I know it's finite, and finding solace in my funds is not the point of all of this. 

I still have two hours to turn this day around, before working the evening shift at Cafe Gypsy. It's Cinco de Mayo, and the Lane Hotel Ballroom has been reopened. I anticipate dollar signs and misery.

Day One

I gave my official four-week notice today after Cafe Gypsy's staff meeting. The exchange with my boss, Duke Devy, was anticlimactic to the point of not needing any sort of narration.

I was neither forever banished from the Cafe, nor was there any futile pleading or counter-offering. Not even something so subtle as a sigh. Contrary to my expectations, Duke was cool about the whole thing. He was very cool, in fact. Maybe too cool... or maybe I'm just looking for a story where there is none.

I told Pat Pillar--the lovable but inscrutable scamp-customer of Cafe Gypsy--about having given my notice. He, too, reacted contrary to my expectations; shocked and inconsolable, he asked me what I was going to do with all of my time.

Suckled by a trust fund, he of all people knows the treachery of not having an occupation. My quitting was a mutation of a routine that he constructed to keep his days filled with things to do, a bird's nest of mundane activities: sleeping, eating, browsing the web, frequenting a restaurant filled with muses and beauties...

Because what really is there to do all day, everyday? This is the Grendel of unemployment, the manifestation of some deeper human deficiency that I will certainly encounter over the next few months of self-employment.

Or maybe I'm looking for some sort of purpose, a story in myself where there is none.

Day Zero

Maybe I'm having a quarter-life crisis. Maybe it's because Mercury is in retrograde under the sign of Taurus. Or maybe I'm just burnt out.

For the last two years of my life, I've been working at this restaurant in downtown Manhattan--let's call it Cafe Gypsy--where I've made good friends, good money, and have had the good fortune of just plain being employed. But in less than twelve hours, I'll be throwing it all away. I'm quitting.

This is a chronicle of my soon-to-be gainfully unemployed life.