Rolling Forward

5 Not-So-Silly Reasons to Hire Me

Hello, hello again from Funemployment Land. It’s like Disney, but somewhat less expensive and it doesn’t include a monopoly on much of current pop culture.

You’re probably wondering why I talk about myself so much. For starters, I’m an only child, so it comes with the turf to an extent. Not to toot my own horn, but my job right now is to do just that – toot my own horn.

If I don’t advocate for…

Funemployment 2: Electric Boogaloo

Two layoffs. Two different companies.

Less than a year apart.

Maybe I’m just too volatile.

Maybe I’m too obsessed with good grammar.

Hell, maybe I’m just too damned old.*

*40 is the new 30 people – get with it!

Last Friday, as we packed 10 months of toys, notes, cards, and other riff-raff I’d acquired into one box, I felt a strange peace come over me that I hadn’t felt in a long time. Call it…

When I got laid off in 2013, my husband lugged me kicking and screaming to the oral surgeon to get my wisdom teeth extracted. While great for my waistline, I was otherwise miserable. Here I am, laid off again in 2017. This time, I have what I am lovingly referring to as the “Jiu-Jitsu Plague,” meaning it spread through our school like a preschool chicken pox party. Did I mention I attended one of…

“You’re just having a really kick-ass fall break.” – Former Naptown teammate This past weekend, I posted a picture at my Brazilian jiu-jitsu school. Unfortunately, no job means sacrifices have to be made, at least temporarily. That includes having to take a break from my outlet and semi-safe space (I say semi-safe because this does involve choking and arm bars). I’ve struggled with this, as it’s…

Funemployment Day 3: The Wu-Tang Clan

‘Tis best not to f**k with the Wu-Tang Clan. Or, so I’ve heard. Yesterday, I had lunch with two friends. During that time, one told me the tale of her time buying certain not-quite-legal substances from current and former members of the aforementioned Wu-Tang Clan. I think this predates their time in financial consulting, but the details are a bit hazy. As we sat talking and laughing about my…

“I am going to make it through this year if it kills me” – The Mountain Goats “This Year” We’re almost to the end of the year. It began with David Bowie passing off this mortal coil, immediately followed by my Dad doing the same and a whole mess of other bad shit happening. A couple days ago, a friend asked what good things happened this year. It couldn’t have been a total loss right? They’re…

I Loves a Good Fiddle

Flashback to Christmas 1995: At 17, I was going through my first real break-up. It was soul-crushing because, well, I was a teenager with untreated depression and anxiety. My parents tried everything to shake me out of my melancholy. It didn’t really happen until I left for college the next summer. Ahh, young Goth love…or something. Anyway, one of the ways they tried to distract me from my sunken…

As the tributes to Prince poured out of my radio on the way home from work yesterday, the DJ (former MTV VJ Mark Goodman) said, “2016 will be remembered as the year so many great musicians died.” Great musicians and icons have left us. Prince, Bowie, Glen Frey, Lemmy at the end of 2015, the list grows ever-longer. Well, yes, and I lost a parent whose musical knowledge was still expanding, even as…

CLICK!  The sound of being hung up on, now all-too-familiar, again last night. Only, this time, it was my Dad on the other end. How is it in the span of less than two weeks, the roles are now completely reversed?  As of now, my Mom is enthusiastic about going to assisted living, making new friends, and being able to drink coffee whenever she wants.  She is seeing a therapist a few times a day at…

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces.” – Bridget Jones As my parents’ collective health began to fail, two things happened to change my course: I am changing jobs.  I found my new home in downtown Carmel, Indiana at Fat Atom Marketing, where I’ll be joining as a Marketing Specialist.  This firm does…

“My Mom attempted suicide.” “My Mom tried to kill herself.” “She said, ‘I’ll kill myself before I go into a nursing home.'” Phrases I’ve said repeatedly in the last week of my life. At this time, my Dad’s mental and physical condition appear to be deteriorating, with no real explanation as to why.  It was just Saturday that I bragged to him about winning the music trivia contest at the…

Last week, my Mom and Dad welcomed a new roommate–hospice.  Trudging through a typical Northern Indiana lake effect blast last Wednesday, the social worker who has worked with my Dad for the last six months spoke to us about pain management options.  At this point, he has so many medications that I could only deem it as a drug dealer’s personal paradise.  I sifted through the pill bottles and…

Two words with one huge meaning. Over the weekend, my father was in the ER three separate times with unbearable pain from cancer.  It is eating him from the inside out.  We are reaching a turning point and, while I wish my Dad could live forever or have whatever Keith Richards is still having, I know the reality of the situation. When I was growing up, my Dad and I had a strange relationship.…

In college, I had a super-bitchin’ “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” planner.  I used it voraciously my senior year of college, as I had plenty of homework, extracurricular stuff, and a part-time reporting job.  It stayed in the front pocket of my backpack and is currently sitting in the underground bunker known as my parent’s basement. Over time, I’ve tried to adapt and put everything on my phone.…

Pee, Poo, and You

Pictured here are two stuffed creatures, courtesy of our friends in Sweden, reminding us of one certainty in life: You will have to use the restroom.   In my 37.5 years on the planet, I’ve “taken care of business” in some fairly dubious locations, including the bathtub at age three.  I emphatically informed my Mom a “brown snake” had jumped into the water.  Shocker-she didn’t believe me.  I also…

Billy Squier Was Right

  “Christmas is a time to say I love you,” he said. This year, I’ve been making the conscious effort to get into the holiday spirit.  Donating money, donating gifts, and generally trying to be a halfway decent human being over the last month of the year. 2015 was not easy.  In the last week alone, we had to buy a new heat pump, I turned my phone screen into a Spiderman comic, and my Mom spent a…