Forensic Scientist

I don't know how they found out, but ever since I became unemployed I've been stalked by Forensic Scientists. They lurk in my Spam. Sometimes as many as five await there, like they know "Hey, she's unemployed and desperate she's going to check her spam to see if there is an answer to all her online resumes." They are correct. Daily I check the spam area of my e-mail, hoping that something was sent there accidentally. The minute I open it, there they are "Forensic Scientist wanted!" Sometimes as many as five e-mails. Who knew there was such a shortage of Forensic Scientists? Are bodies just piling up in morgues? Morticians standing there helpless, because the bodies have not been examined by their local Forensic Scientists. Turning to bereaved families and saying "I'm sorry, you'll have to postpone the burial. The Forensic Scientist hasn't arrived and for all we know you murdered your dearly departed."

In moments of unemployed panic I find myself eyeing those e-mails. I see myself in a white lab coat, with a deerstalker cap looking down at the body as a breathless assistant watches my superior deductive skills.

"Why its quite obvious! See the dent on his right middle finger? Obviously he was old school and used a number 2 pencil to work. Showing a mathematician of some renown, due to his expensive haircut. No, I'm quite sure this is not a case of brain fever, but of murder most foul!"

Then, I see myself: a large woman dressed in white, something I didn't even wear at my wedding. Standing before a cadaver with the unpleasant knowledge that I am to cut the poor person open. Quickly I hit the delete to send the Forensic Scientists into cyber space. I also note that I'm reading just a tad to much Sherlock Holmes.

When no one is awake

I got up with my husband at 4:30AM this morning. This is not unusual, I usually wake up with him, have breakfast, pack his lunch and hang out till he leaves. I love best when he works his early shift, because it gives me a reason to be up at this time. I have always had jobs that start early in the morning. Even in college where I worked at a coffee shop, I was the opening person. I love early morning hours, times when no one else is around. I like the silence, the thoughtfulness of the dawn. I like the feeling that I am up and about, doing something useful, while others sleep. It's the ultimate private time. Before the weight of a day of words gets to me. I guess it is a time of weightlessness, a time where there is no pressing needs. I looked up on the computer thesaurus's to find another word for early: it came up with "youthful, first and before time". I think these all describe how I feel in the dark of a winter's morning.

At this hour, I give myself the peace to just move around in a sleepy body. A body so grateful for that first cup of coffee that the smell and taste is almost better than any meal I could eat. The first moment when I put my dog outside, standing in the door, inhaling the air made alive by its coolness. Feeling a Christmas thrill when I'm greeted with fog. I love the way clouds wrap the world. The warmth of house lights as they diffuse across the mist, and I love the feeling of the moisture as the mist settles on my skin feeling like the soft breath of the planet. A lot of my friends and my husband think I'm crazy for getting up early. That's okay, because right now, in this dark time, I'm alone, drinking coffee and totally myself.

Job Search

Job Search: two words that separately mean work and looking, but together mean joy and despair. When I finally find that dream looking job that matches my credentials I feel so much joy. I'm thinking 'Hey, look at this! I would be perfect for this job!' I send out the resume and cover letter thinking 'I'll hear from this place.' Then, despair, I don't hear from the place and then I get to go through all the phases of death: anger 'they don't know what they are missing', denial 'their process might just take longer, maybe I'm still in the running' and finally acceptance 'okay, let's see what's on jobdango today!'

In my head I understand that with a 10% unemployment rate, my job search is going to take a while. In my heart, I'm still frightened and feeling profoundly unemployed. I wonder if my dog can sense this? At moments when I stare blankly at the computer, feeling slightly depressed, Giger shows up and starts pawing at me. Her eyes seem to say "hey, stop staring at the bright shiny box, let's go for a walk!" Dog's are brilliant that way, they understand the power of the walk. So, on goes the leash and off we go, Giger to sniff and me to clear my mind, work out my screenplays, and of course, the occasional win the lotto fantasy.

I have turned into veal.

Last August my doctor told me to stop exercising, something you don't hear out of doctors mouths. In this case, any exercise brought on a period or made the existing one worse. By the end, I could only take my dog for a short walk. Then came surgery, and I was pretty much stationary from December 2nd until January 8th. The first exercise I did was to make our bed, this made me so tired I laid right down for a nap. Seriously, major surgery takes the energy right out of a person!

After I was laid off, I knew it was time to start building myself back up. Now, I've never been thin, or slender, or anything approaching those words. I have considered myself fit and fat. Now I lost the fit! I decided that with all the time I had I needed to organize my days. I began to take my dog out for daily walks. Walks are perfect if you are a writer, the fresh air really helps get the cobwebs out. Plus I can think as I stroll around the park, and my dog loves me. Talk about win/win. Then came phase II; if I was ever going to build back up, I needed to get in and work my muscles.

Joy from Prananda yoga studio got me one of her "hip opening" DVD's. Which is perfect, because after you let someone take a knife and a staple gun to your abdomen; you have to regain the trust of your muscles. My muscles were all locked up in fight or flight mode.

The first time I used the DVD I loved it. The woman who demonstrated the modified poses really looks like she needs all the props. So often with a yoga DVD, the people who do the modified poses are in perfect shape, and you can see them "pretending" to need the bricks, or straps, or blankets. On Joy's tape the woman is older, and you can practically see her thinking "where the hell is my strap".

I, of course, need straps, blocks, blankets and pillows to hit most of the poses. Basically, I look like I'm gift wrapping myself; but after the DVD, I feet better. I'm realizing that to get through this bout of unemployment I've got to have some areas of my life under control; even if I have to lasso myself with a yoga strap to do it!

*I recommend the hip opening DVD and Prananda yoga studio to anyone; especially folks who are a little shy about starting. The classes are small and there is a gentle stretching class on Saturday mornings that is amazing. I've put Prananda yoga studio link on this site. Check them out!

What to do first?

The first day of my not having a job was very strange. I got up with my husband, had breakfast, kissed him goodbye and then...there I was...at home. I went to work on the computer and within a hour I had: signed up for unemployment, updated my resume and sent a copy off to the recruiter. I got an e-mail back from my recruiter, thanking me for my pro-active nature and warning me that things are rough in Oregon, and I was probably in for a long job search. I decided to go out grocery shopping after that jolly note.

Over the past month, as I healed from surgery, I went out grocery shopping a proud woman. I had a job, I was on disability and I was healing. The first day shopping unemployed, completely different experience. I found myself looking at other shoppers, wondering why they were here during the day? Did they work weird shifts? Or were they like me?

I watched a group of four old women, I'm guessing the youngest was in her early 70's and I found myself loving them. Here were women who had seen so many changes in their lifetime, raised families, maybe worked outside the home on top of that, and they had survived. I overheard them trying to find "Whip cream" in the freezer aisle, I guessed they meant Cool Whip and told them where it was located. They thanked me and moved away, each with a hand on the one shopping cart they shared; an old women parade with the cart as a float. I figured if they could make it, I could make it. I also decided I was thinking to much and needed to get home and work on my script.

The following Tuesday, myself and my friend Joy went to a coffee shop to watch the inauguration of Barack Obama. It was so amazing to be surrounded by folks from every age group, clustered around a TV with a slightly blurry picture. We had to adjust the rabbit ears every once and awhile, but it felt great to be a part of a group. All together, all watching this historic moment. I cried, like everyone else and felt proud. I also had a moment where the most frightened part of me looked at the new president and thought "Help me. Please, help me." I wonder if he felt all the folks looking to him for change, hoping he could make it better, and I wonder if he had a moment and thought "I don't know if I can do this."

We cleaned out our desks and hit the bar!

I had never been laid off from a job before. I remember sitting in our office and looking at my co-workers and saying "I don't know what to do!". Arthur, who had been laid off before simply said "It's easy, we are going to clean out our desks and go to a bar." It was only at the bar that we got to look at our packets that our company had given us. First, we were given all our vacation pay, and they also gave each of us a severance based on years worked. My boss had been incredibly kind and just said "This has nothing to do with any of your work, this is just because the economy has crashed." The worse part, is I completely understood.

Our department, though we did generate orders, did not actually price orders. In a bad economic time this would be the logical first place to cut expenses. I understood, but I was still miserable, I loved this job. My boss came over to give me a hug while I was trying to hold it together which of course meant I broke down. His son who runs the warehouse came in and gave me this huge hug and said that he would "pray for me". I knew he meant that from his heart, which of course made me break down, again. One of the inside sales guys let me know that he was sure if times got better that my company would come back to me with a job offer. The only reason 4 of us lost jobs that day was because of the awful economic times. All I knew is that for the first time in my life I was about to be on unemployment!

After a couple of beers I left to go home, when I got into my car Talk of the Nation was on and the announcer said "We want to hear from you about how this down turn in our economy is effecting your life." I swore at the radio as I snapped it off. I got home and called my support system: my sisters, my friends and waited for my husband to come home. When Steve walked in, completely worried because I had beat him home I told him the news. He responded in his usual great way, he said; "you're not completely healed from your hysterectomy and you want time to work on your screenplays. Now you can do both, and you'll get unemployment. I have the feeling that this is all going to turn out for the best." And that ladies and gentlemen is why I married Steve.

And the New Year begins

December went by in a drug induced flash...if you can have anything as quick as a flash happen while on drugs. I stayed four days in the hospital, I was located in one of those sweet birthing rooms complete with flat screen TV. According to my doctor "As far as I'm concerned you had a cesarean and gave birth to tumors so you get to stay here." My family and friends came to visit, my boss stopped by with flowers and the nurses gave me a running tally on how many babies were born each day.

My doctor had warned that due to my long surgery I was going to feel like "two buses had hit me". She was right. On the second day I was determined to get up and walk. The nurses held out the carrot "if you walk to the bathroom we'll take out the catheter". I stood and for one moment, I honestly thought 'I can't do this', but then I felt the catheter and I slowly started moving toward the bathroom. Another nurse said, "if you can eat something we can take out the IV's, do you want to try some toast now...do you want to wait?" All I could see was the door to the bathroom so I responded with, "Bring the toast, I want to balls it out!" The nurses both cracked up and mentioned that the phrase "balls it out" had never been used in a birthing room before.

The rest of December was a blur of painkillers and trying to move around my house enough to begin to build up my strength. Oregon had the worst snow storm in several years an the snow stuck around for two weeks, including a white Christmas. I kept thinking, 'what great timing! I hate driving in the snow and here I am stuck at home!' I couldn't write, my mind was too muddled, but slowly I was feeling better.

I returned to work on Thursday, January 8th. I was greeted with choruses of "welcome home", it was great to be back. I saw this new year rolling out before me: here is a job I love with people I really liked, there would be no more pain or periods and I would never have to worry about pregnancy again! It was like my own little version of the sixties, without the fear of STD's. My husband and I got a life of consequence free sex! If that wasn't enough, Barack Obama was elected! I set up writing goals for myself and got ready to start a great year.

The following Monday, January 12th my whole department was laid off.