Pheonix

Last Monday I managed to shed the burden of being a despicable stain on society's fragile fabric, and once again became a productive member of society. The feelings of success are only slightly offset by the feelings of exhaustion, but that's a small price to pay for my ticket back to happiness.

The road of unemployment is a deceiving one, filled with traps and false hopes. You start with endless optimism, bursting with hope for a better job and the excitement of new possibilities. But as the days turn into weeks the excitement sours to boredom, and the optimism gives way to despair. One minute you're opening RSP accounts and debating which credit card will give you the most airmiles, the next you're waddling through the frozen aisles of Food Basics with a meaty fistful of food vouchers, getting excited by the ice-cream displays before keeling head first through the thick paned glass, smashing your skull and collpasing into an icy grave of choc ice and popsicles.

You start to lose grip on the very fabric of reality. Through jaded dole scum eyes you peer through job boards and contemptuously dismiss postings you deem to be beneath you (the number mysteriously grows the more you look), and begin to think that maybe, just maybe, not working isn't so bad after all.

The horror! Thank goodness then, that I was lucky enough to nip it in the bud before things progressed further. Now that I no longer have time to ponder these distasteful questions, I can focus on what's really important. My airmiles, and getting my RSP funds back on track.

Susan Williams

I'd like to take a slightly serious moment to link the obituary of the late journalist Steven Wells. It wasn't until I stumbled upon his obituary in the Guardian that I became aware of his work, but I was soon reading through his archived material with increasing excitement.

For many years he wrote articles for NME, but crossed over recently into sports columns. More importantly he penned the most foul-mouthed, aggressive and hilarious rants I've ever seen in print, but did so creatively and intelligently (and sometimes even compassionately). It's very rare to find writing so expressive and unique, and even rarer to find a man so uncompromising in his opinions and beliefs. In an age of sponsorship deals, corporate marketing and political correctness, I wish there were more writers like Wells who had the talent to ram the big black dildo of dissent up our collective asses.

Rage in Peace.

Free food makes me giddy

Strolling through Ikea, window shopping for furniture I can't afford for a place that I don't yet have a mortgage for, I was impressed with the ideas the Swedes have for maximizing every last inch of space available. Since my in-limbo condo is pretty small, if I ever do manage to gain employment and erase my dole scum status I'll likely end up ordering an Ikea bedroom in its entirety. Walking through the the showrooms I saw beds that had hidden compartments, sliding doors, even little hooks to hang clothes on that retract into the wall when not in use, and started wondering how to improve on the experience. Just imagine: walking into a crisply minimalist room with linen sheets stretched tight across a harsh Malm bedframe. Sliding carefully under the cool covers so as to not create wrinkles on my starched sheets, then having the bed fold silently into the wall with me in it, leaving my bedroom gleamly empty. The silence is broken only by the gentle exhaust of a humidifier, and perhaps my muffled sigh of suffocation.

Much later I was struck with similar glee as I came across raspberry bushes, and stopped for a moment to realize how amazing free food is. We get so used to the idea that food costs money that we often forget that our species somehow managed to scrape by for a few million years before having a grocery store. The raspberries were still not large enough to pick, but in another month or so they should be ripe and I'm going to have a field day. Yes, some bastard kids wills probably get to the best ones first, and the location besides a public footpath means they're probably not the cleanest, but screw all that... I will pick free raspberries. They will likely make me sick. They will likely taste of dog piss. They will definitely taste of success.

Cashews and C.V.'s

I'm sitting on the sofa munching cashew nuts and dried apricots, slightly exhausted and yet slightly wired after a long day of not doing very much (it's an enjoyable experience).

No job leads for me yet, although I've been to quite a few resume critique sessions and I think that my resume is now so amazing that the next HR drone that looks it over will immediately break down weeping at the sheer overwhelming perfection that they have just witnessed. It is the Michelangelo of resumes, sculpted through democratic lobbying and varied advice from the nice women working at The Centre (the 'C' is capitalized reverentially) in Burlington - Halton region's proverbial Mecca for the unemployed. There I have focused my C.V. skills and have prepared myself in body and mind for the rigours and hardships of finding a job. I will not be deferred by any obstacle that may land in my way, and will turn every problem into a solution that can only lead to the orgasmic conclusion of being hired.
In-between the fevered job hunt I also found time to cook a chicken tikka masala from scratch. I usually don't do it too often, as it takes hours, involves multiple stages of prep, and never quite turns out the way I want it to. But a strange urge gripped me in the early afternoon when I saw a lone piece of ginger at the bottom of my crisper compartment, and I vowed that I would perfect my curry making skills. Perhaps my positive attitude to employment is leaking into other facets of my life?

To cut a long story short I spent nearly 3 hours cooking the bastard, carefully following a recipe and throwing in every last ounce of personal flair for full effect. Unfortunately the tikka was just OK. I did forget the crushed cashews and was too lazy to cut some coriander from my herb garden in the back, but I feel that I'm still missing some vital essence of curry. It didn't stop me from eating it until my tongue burnt though.