The intro to Crime and Punishment

From the start, here, we're warned this won't be quite like other books we've read, in that we didn't buy it while waiting for a flight to Chicago. No, it didn't say that, but probably because they hadn't quite gotten into commercial air travel, or anyone wanting to go to Chicago other than meat packers and mobsters, at the time the book was written. Rather, they point out books written by a Russian aren't like books written by English or Americans, because Russians, or at least Dostoevsky, has characters he doesn't think of as unlikable or weird, but we do. Sort of like Mad Men in reverse. He also uses the word, "analysands," which I would swear was made up if I didn't suspect it died somewhere around the same time "loan" became a verb. In further describing the characters, the introduction states: "They do not, like us, see life as progressive movement. No one is interested in what anyone else does, or wants to do, or in what his social or financial position may be. They have no careers." Somewhere in here, there's a basic description of Facebook/Twitter/blogging, 50 years before they really existed. And mind you this is just the introduction, written by some genius to explain the genius that is Dostoevsky. By the end of this book, there'll both be hidden insight into why the U.S has a space program and why anyone cares about Britney Spears. Maybe in the same sentence. We're also warned one of the main characters won't appear until three-fourths of the way through, but with no "spoiler alert." Though I guess it isn't technically a spoiler if you're still reading the introduction. Well, maybe. There need to be rules about these things. The introduction compares the author to other geniuses with unique insight into the human condition, such as Jesus, Buddha, and someone named Blake. Went to high school with a Blake. Could it be the same guy? He was pretty smart, not the least of which was represented in him always having a sandwich to eat in class about the time you'd mentally moved past the bowl of marshmallow cereal and onto the cold thing you were eating for lunch, great white shark-like. He didn't share, which was also pretty smart, because that would've resulted in bloodshed. There's also apparently a lot of Freud-before-Freud in this book, and the intro writer says we can find thousands of examples. Maybe, but it better be obvious to make this blog, involving both a cigar and Vienna. And maybe a cool beard. What do you mean, I don't know psychology? I took plenty of psychology classes in college, with professors and lots of damaged female students and everything. They were a pleasant to diversion to "History of Fonts" in the journalism major. More intro stuff next time. And maybe, some of, you know, the actual novel.

Starting again, something new

Two years ago, the author of "Laid-Off Journalist" went back to journalism, and this blog passed into blissful stasis. Which is another way of saying, I was too lazy to keep writing it and covering water board meetings.

But change is the only thing that remains the same, and after two years conspicuously absent of water board meetings, this blog is getting a dust off. With a new focus.

The idea could be like reintroducing Olestra, complete with stomach-turning side effects. But here it is: Taking old classic novels that in theory should've been read years ago, but weren't. Blame can be assigned to excessive attention paid to pro wrestling and Pearl Jam. Or going back further, a junior year crush.

As these novels are read, the thoughts and observations will be recorded here. There are those books people just mark up in the margins with that stuff, but these are my wife's books and marking them up is a good way to ensure I read these books before bed, by the lamp next to the couch.

The title says, "with jokes," because the idea is some of these observations may drift toward humor, in the way someone texting while driving drifts into a mailbox. Not intentional, but fun to watch if you're following them.

So where to start? In Northern California this year, we're having an extended winter, the kind where the local car wash nearly has to throw buckets of soap on passing vehicles to drum up business. In that vein, I'll start with some Russian literature, under the idea that the myth about 20 Eskimo words for snow means nothing compared to what's created by a long cold season and vodka.

Good news

When I started this blog in mid-December, I hoped it would last a week. Or less.
Instead, it went a little more than two months. Not a long stretch measured against, say, the Academy Awards show on Monday (I think Slumdog Millionaire just won for Best Wrap Party Buffet).
But today I say, with some sadness but more relief than anything, that this blog's original purpose is moot. I've found a job, full-time, with a desk and duties and coffee breaks and everything.
Writing this blog has been fun, and even a little cathartic, because the alternative would've involved crying and scotch. And I've never written it while I was in sweats, just because that felt like a forefeiture of my determination to act as if I was still an employed writer, who just wasn't getting any money for it.
It also led to some decent opportunities for exposure, and a TV appearance, and some comments that were encouraging even if they may have come from other unemployed people, or relatives.
But that still doesn't give me a reason for its continued existence, which was contained in a title that is technically still accurate (now and forever more, I will be laid off at one point in my life) but misleading.
So some time to ponder seems appropriate. Maybe it'll turn into a "working again" blog for a time, or ultimately I'll just talk about what coffee creamer I used this morning and mention that I'm tired of it raining, though living in Northern California at the moment, this is like a Baghdad housewife saying it's too quiet.
Still, I'm not pulling the plug here and now. This is a good forum, at least a few people read it, and the name is too good to abandon.
Then again, if I put it on eBay....

Waiting

I've long been sympathetic to people who wait for a living. Just the name, "waiter." Think about it. What could be less fun than waiting, for a living?
Of course, the term waiter is even dying out. Maybe because it's not really accurate -- at many restaurants, actually, the "waiter" is the person who wouldn't mind some more fizzy sugar water to wash down the salt sticks.
Or, the connotation is too strong. You think waiter, you think person who may be able to do 15 percentages of bills in his head, and can do percentages of spittle in water glasses on later visits if your percentage falls short of 15 percent. This makes you leave 20 percent, or even 22 if you're eating with someone who "used to be a waiter."
At the moment, I could be considered a waiter, for a living, of a different kind. This waiting is even less fun.
This waiting is the kind where you've gone on interviews, sent out resumes, even done some follow-up stuff, and....
And....
And....
Repeat.
There's no good solution to this. You hit refresh on the e-mail endlessly, see something in your inbox, then find out that you that despite the bodyslammed economy, Rolex watches and Gucci purses of indeterminate origin are still totally for sale.
Your phone rings, and you answer, and a parent asks, "So? Any jobs yet?"
They care, they really do. And part of it may be that they fear that if said jobs don't pop up soon, I may move back in with them.
But neither the spam-smelling e-mail nor the distracting parent phone calls get to the goal, which is work. And yet if I'm going to get to the fabled land of Employment again, I must brave the road stop of penis-enlargement come-ons and the roadside dinosaur of talking to my mom about snow at her house.
In the meantime, waiting. And writing here. And those off-ramps of distraction.

Visiting old haunts

About two months into unemployment, you think less about the job that left you behind.
But you never stop thinking about it entirely, for the simple reason that if you think about working, your most recent memory of it comes to mind, and in this case that would be the job that punted you out on the street.
In this situation, it's not unlike a girlfriend you had a bad breakup with, and you're still single.
Psychiatrists have all kinds of theories about the psychology of loss, and how we should deal with it. One they recommend is not to fixate or indulge in whatever is gone, but rather accept it.
With a girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever, this is pretty easy. Stop driving by their house, delete the phone number from your contacts, slam the gift coffee mug they gave with their face on it into a billion or so pieces.
I've discovered, though, that the old job, well, not so easy. Reason being, if you're a writer, and you want to get a writing job, most places hiring will want to see what you've written before.
Since I worked for a Web site, that means going back to said site, and digging up my best work to send along.
This analogy is easy to understand. If this were an ex-girlfriend, for example, it would be like asking a new woman on a date, and she asks,"Got any samples of past sweet character?"
And so you had to go to your ex's place and ask for the ticket stub to the concert of the band she loved, the $120 sweater you bought on a whim for her, and the snot-infested tissue papers from when you were nursemaid while she had a killer cold.
Just going to the ex's place would fill you with a hundred feelings, and probably put a bitter taste in your mouth, if she was the dumper (as a job that laid you off could be described.)
Even worse, every time you tried for a new date, you had to go there again. Yes, I know I should just save the best stuff I'd written for that site somewhere, but in my delusionally optimistic way, I always think when I retrieve these stories from the site that this is the last time.
Now I realize, on a week in which many people are thinking of affairs of the heart, this might be a downer. So I'll leave off with this: A new girlfriend appears to be in sight.
What that means happens with the ex, I dunno.

The etiquette of losing your job

The TV folks asked me to do another segment, this one on how to deal with people when they've been laid off. With fire tongs and a welding helmet, I was tempted to say.
But really, being laid off is different for everyone. Though I'm not buying billboard space to announce it, it doesn't bother me to say that I'm not working right now. Thousands, nay millions, are in the same boat right now, including a couple of the people who told me about six weeks ago that I was laid off. I hope their new year's resolution was to embrace irony.
If I had to make a list of tips for people who know people who've been laid off, it might be something like this:
1) Let them talk. If they don't want to talk about it, don't pester. If they mutter about bomb-making materials being tough to buy outside of the Internet, pester local authorities.
2) Don't barrage with cliches. "One door closes, another opens" is only applicable if they actually have some prospects and just aren't in the middle of a figurative Three Stooges routine.
3) While career changes might be in the offing, consider the person's background. A plumber who's just become unemployed is probably not interested in high finance, and might not appreciate a lecture on the joys of an MBA program.
4) Don't cut off contact. Though no studies have been done, unemployment checks do not transmit leprosy.
5) Don't whistle through the graveyard. Your friend or family member was laid off. They really don't need to hear you say, "Wow, I'm glad my job is safe." This is practically inviting a lightning bolt from human resources.
Mostly, though, I think people who are laid off just have a lot going on mentally. Obviously, they're worried about money, and they're worried about finding a new job. So saying things that will feed into their worry ("Do you think you'll have to sell the boat? How much might you sell it for?") might not be too helpful.
Instead, take your cues from them. If they want to vent, let them vent. If they want to curl up in a fetal position on the couch for awhile, make sure they have pillows.
And if they want to do karaoke to take their mind off it, that's okay too. Just be sure you're not going to an American Idol audition.

Who's the Boss?

Ouch, bad title. Even worse show.
The ongoing journey of discovery that is unemployment comes with pitstops marked, "Now Who's Really in Charge?" and "Is This the Right Path?" It is coincidence that these pitstops sound like self-help books.
On that first one, I'm recognizing something that was even true before I got laid off, and is more true now: My spot in house pecking order is third.
This would be good if this were a home for wayward boys, third would probably be up there with the headmaster and the cook or something. Instead, in this house, it's dead last.
That my fiancee outranks me is understandable. She works, her name is on the mortgage, and even if all that weren't true, she'd outrank me just on the basis of the stuffed peppers she made awhile back.
Coming in also above me, though, is the cat.
Sassy is a generally good cat, if only slightly less vocal than a skipping CD of a boys' choir. If I knew cat, we'd have conversations worthy of university programming.
As it is, I've figured out that most of her cries at me can be translated in one of three ways:
1) Let me outside, so that I can wander the backyard and perhaps pick up an illness.
2) Feed me. Not that cat food garbage, give me some chicken.
3) Really, as humans go, you're pathetic, right? Scratch me behind the ears and show your subservience.
And I dutifully comply. Because like a good mother, Sassy uses the strategy that if it's worth saying once, it's worth saying to the point of insanity in all listeners.
Lately, we noticed -- more like my fiancee noticed, really -- that Sassy was sneezing a lot. So the blanket she sleeps on was washed, the rug was vacuumed again, shelves were dusted, and there was close examination of whether there was any perceived leakage from the eyes, like a Virgin Mary statue.
Eventually, the solution was determined: Punt and take her to the vet. A task that fell to the person who can only hit "refresh" so often on CNN.com anyhow: Me.
Getting Sassy to the vet was easy, but not without difficulty. Getting her first into the cat carrier and then out of it at the vet's office was a chore, and if she had front claws there probably would've been side trips to a blood bank, for pickup and/or delivery.
(And she was declawed before my fiancee got her, so bugger off, PETA.)
But she was surprisingly docile at the vet, lying placidly on the examining table, and giving me little headbutts of affection as I reassured her. These headbutts were a good way to remind me that her breath stinks.
The vet's diagnosis: Eh, maybe a cold. Here, give her some of this stuff. And don't let her outside.
He also gave her a shot, which seemed to perk up her demeanor markedly. By this I mean that she meowed even more than usual when we got home, and just to make me paranoid, did so in different keys.
Man, if I ever go back to working, she's going to be mad at me...