Chairman of the Bored

"Countin' flowers on the wall
That don't bother me at all
Playin' solitaire till dawn with a deck of fifty-one
Smokin' cigarettes and watchin' Captain Kangaroo
Now don't tell me I've nothin' to do

— The Statler Brothers, "Flowers on the Wall"

After a few weeks, the novelty of being home all the time wears off. You break your old habits, and start forgetting things that don't matter anymore. You start asking yourself questions like "What the hell is a timesheet?" and wonder why anyone would waste time out of their productive day to do something as asinine as to tell someone else what they'd been working on all day. To me, that would seem counter-productive. You forget about that. It just doesn't make sense, so it's wiped from your memory banks.

The job hunt is going slow. You keep seeing contradictory reports on the news saying that unemployment is going down, or that it's going back up. That things will be okay by mid-year NEXT YEAR. You send in your requisite three resumes a week to satisfy your Unemployment requirements and sit waiting by the phone that just...doesn't...ring.

The dog, (remember her?) is now just kind of used to you being home all the time. It's not a big to-do anymore that requires her to have a smiling face or enough of a thing that she gets excited. When she smiles now, you know it's because she wants some water, or to go outside. The cats ignore you, but that's okay, because that's what cats do.


In this economic downturn, (both recession-wise and unemployment-wise) I've become a customer of our local dollar stores. Luckily, the part of town I live in has two. One has good deals on some things I need, and the other has bargains on other items I want. So I split my time between the two when I go out shopping and am friendly with the cashiers at both.

Who knows what they think of me coming in so often, and during the day no less. I'm sure they've noticed the deterioration. I've lost a few pounds since I lost my job. Probably due to not eating out at lunch every day. I've grown out my hair and my beard, just because I can and because it doesn't really make sense to go get a haircut when I'm not making money and I don't really see anyone except for my wife, and the two cashiers at the two local dollar stores.

Perhaps they think of me as a wealthy eccentric who roams the aisles of cheap establishments, constantly on the prowl for tchotchkes and trinkets and the recently faded trends of the last year.

I'll take "Low-rent Howard Hughes" all day long, for the record.

More than likely, I don't even get noticed. Or maybe they think I'm just another asshole that comes into their stupid little store and buys things and floats out into the customer ether or wherever all those people that pass by the register mosey off to.

I think about all of this (and everything else) too much, because I have entered the stage following "FREEDOM" called "BOREDOM."

Freedom is the best stage to be in because your optimism is at an all-time high. You are positive that what has happened is a good thing and that you have nothing to lose and nowhere to go but straight up to the top! It's all going to be okay and nothing can stop you! You get to sleep late, and stay up late, and do anything you want to do anytime you want to!

The dog used to "smile" at me because she was excited I'm home.

I'm fairly sure I saw her just roll her eyes at me today. Nothing like a sarcastic canine.

Things change. Deal with it and move on. This, too, shall pass.

Your freedom becomes a burden. You run out of ideas of things you can go do. Or you run out of things that are feasible for you to do, because, well, you're out of work and can't just go on vacation or fly somewhere.

Another downside of your "freedom" is that the work that conveniently got in the way of the things you didn't want to do around the house is no longer there as an excuse. Or, you can look at it as an chance to finally do all the things you have been needing to do forever. It's all in how you look at it, I suppose.

John Lennon once said that "Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans."

Sometimes life is what's happening while you don't have any plans.

And that's okay.

"I've been traveling on a boat and a plane
In a car on a bike with a bus and a train
Traveling there, traveling here
Everywhere. in every gear

But, oh Lord, we pay the price
With the spin of the wheel, with the roll of the dice
Ah yeah, you pay your fare

And if you don't know where you're going
Any road will take you there"

— George Harrison "Any Road"