4:30 a.m. - 2005-11-04
Painless, Verging on Pleasant.

I woke at noon to a most profound rain, a rare intensity causing me to rush to the bathroom and poke my lenses in so that I might open my kitchen window and simply watch the deluge; great silvery sheets of water marching across the street in vertical waves. Lovely, grey, dramatic day.

I made oatmeal and green tea, then put on my red fleece robe and Converse Low-Tops--as I have no rubber-soled slippers--and walked a basket of laundry down the hall. A load of darks. Evidence suggests that I am growing fond of pinstripes.

I ate my breakfast as I stared at the State Unemployment Insurance website with fear and loathing. Working two part-time jobs and losing just one was too complicated for the online application, and it became clear that I would have to call in.

I was so intimidated that I started another load of laundry on the 3rd floor. (Colors).

If I can't have results, I want my choice of pajamas.

I knew every detail of my lost job. The very day I started, the last 4 digits of the zip code I never used, all sorts of esoterica. I was, however, inexplicably unprepared to describe the minimal job I still have. So I spent an embarrassing percentage of the afternoon playing a politely hysterical game of phone tag to obtain rates, addresses for the City and a smaller entity I did related work for, start dates, ad nauseam. Finally, my cordless phone curled up & died, just as I was ready to hunker down and sit on hold. I couldn't have worn down the charge in one afternoon, but I've never let the battery drain as explicitly instructed by the manual. I think I've broken it. Luckily, I possessed analog. Well, a hand-me-down 12-dollar touch-tone, anyway.

I put in a load of whites, slapped on an olive oil hair masque, and navigated through a phone tree to wait.

I was firmly ensconced on hold before realizing I had no book within reach besides a terrible freebie I snatched at a convention. I settled in grudgingly, trying to distract myself from the ill-chosen Hold Music ("Na Na Hey Hey [Kiss Him Goodbye])". After 10 minutes, I was rewarded with a kind person named Grace who took down scads of information and gave me about 800 simple things to scribble on green post-its with a fine-tip sharpie.

And it wasn't that bad.

I'd had nebulous expectations of being treated like a terrible loser, or someone (of any social status) in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles, but Grace couldn't have been more kind. Twenty minutes of my time and there. Damage control, produced like a rabbit out of a hat. (A slow rabbit, with a wallet). It was an amazing trick.

I thanked Grace profusely and hung up. I dashed in and out of the shower and into clothes, and was out the door in 10 minutes to catch a bus to my evening shift at the pool.

The bus was 2 minutes early and I watched it fly by in dismay. I would be late. The day had gone so well--relatively speaking--that I felt suddenly defeated. Just one good day I wanted--just one good day. My standards as to what constitutes a good day have even lowered themselves most accommodatingly.

I've lost, I thought.

Never mind that applying for unemployment and catching a bus would not constitute many a person's idea of a successful day.

Then I caught sight of another bus three blocks behind the first...& out of service, fuckity fuck. But what the hell--it was worth a shot. I stuck my thumb out and saw the bus slow, then pull over.

"How far ya going?" the driver said.
"As far as you're going in a straight line."
He laughed. "Two miles."

"That would suit me down to the ground."

And so I got a ride almost all the way to work with no stops, while the driver and I talked of swimming theory and our respective childhood near-drowning experiences and the article I'd read about EMDR therapy for trauma survivors.

"My therapist introduced me to that!" the driver said.

"Get outta town!"
The things I end up talking about with strangers.

And then then I was at the end of the line and I saluted him and strolled to work along the lake path in the indigo light, with the wind blowing in steadily off the water. An unexpected treat.

It was the best thing that could have happened to me--not only because the wind was sharp and cool and bracing, and the darkness blue and beautiful, but because my minor calamity had collapsed under really neat conversation, badly needed fresh air, and the nerve to ask. I need to remember that interesting little things come out of misfortune large and small.

Thumbs out, then.

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