Month: August 2004

Never let it be said I’m not doing anything with my unemployment. It’s not much, and it mostly involves watching Babylon 5 from the beginning on DVD and playing with the dog, but it’s not nothing. Like today, for instance. I drove my mother to work after we dropped off my parents’ car at the mechanic — it died on me yesterday, pulling out of our driveway but seems okay now — and I picked her up again this evening.

Exciting times, I know.

I also, should any of you be interested, finally uploaded some new photographs, including a few left over from last month and a few more recent ones.

I didn’t, unfortunately, have my camera with me at last week’s small capper get-together in the city. But at least you now have photographic proof that I’m somewhere other than Pennsylvania, right?

From today’s New York Times Magazine (registration or BugMeNot required):

Penn State, with its quasi-Ivy League pretensions, was the perfect place for Paterno. It was situated in the country, in the middle of the state in a Norman Rockwell little town, State College, that was nestled in a bucolic valley, Happy Valley, and surrounded by protective, lush green mountains. There is something eerie about Happy Valley, with its neat colonial houses, manicured hedges, spotless malls, friendly people. Happy Valley seems like a place out of time, or maybe just out of a movie — “The Stepford Wives,” say, or “Pleasantville.”

I’m not absolutely sure that’s an inaccurate description.

Well, I’m still unemployed. What started out as something almost like a vacation (albeit with all my stuff in tow) has quickly become a whole lot of nothing at all. The most exciting things I’ve done this week are getting my new insurance policy set up for the car and getting a copy of my birth certificate, which I’ll probably need when I go to register the vehicle at the DMV. (To say nothing of my new driver’s license, for which I’ll need additional identification.) I’ve applied for a few jobs, watched a few movies, played with the dog, been here so plumbers could install a new hot water heater — which, come to think of it, might actually be the most exciting thing that’s happened this week — and done not a whole lot else.

Graduate school might still be an option, but it carries with a lot of additional questions and potential problems, and I’m not sure I want an advanced degree. What I want is a job. I’ve largely given up on Texas — I’m barely even checking the want ads there anymore, I’ve noticed — but I’d like something that would get me out of the house, get the problem of “what next?” off my shoulders, and help me feel like I’m not completely mooching off my parents.

Of course, add to that the fact that I’ve been thinking about starting another mix CD exchange…

Boredom can be pretty stressful if you let it.