Just how I like my Christmas elves... large and creepy.

After visiting the mall this weekend, I’m extra happy that temporary holiday season job at the big department store fell through. What a horrible nightmare of crowds and slush and noise. Holiday spending may be down, but holiday shopping is alive and well. As is the Queens Christmas spirit, which translates into lots of pushing and screaming and grabbing. I’m actually making a documentary about it; the working title is “Holiday Kill! Kill! Kill!” I did find a little temp work to prop up the bank account. Rather, a little temp work found me.

Wifey’s company sends out holiday gifts every year to contacts and clients. Most companies do. It’s a corporate holiday tradition to get in a little branding with the giving. Though in my experience, few companies are as classy and generous about it. They hired me to run the show, to be head elf. I was happy to oblige.

I’d forgotten what it’s like to wake up for work. Sleeping in isn’t my usual approach to weekdays. But I never have to be anywhere for anything either. My schedule is fluid and flexible, yet stuff always fills up the time. It felt oddly freeing to wake to an alarm and know that I had an hour to leave the apartment. Those with jobs may be wondering exactly what kind of crack I’ve been smoking. The 2008 model Norm would’ve asked a similar question. But unemployment is a seemingly endless series of uncertainties. Something defined and concrete frees up the brain to think about other things.

That something was putting gifts in boxes. Wifey’s employer sends out snazzy-looking hats emblazoned with the company logo. They design a new one each year. As a rule, I prefer my baseball hats to advertise for overpaid, underperforming sports teams, not corporate brands. Overexposure to crap-tastic corporate conference schwag has scarred me for life. But sports teams are just corporate brands anyway, and these hats are sharp. So what do I know? That’s right, nothing. You can say it. I know the truth, or, uh, I don’t. I’m so confused.

There were five of us to do the job. Each person was a friend or family member of a company staffer and in a similar situation – unemployed and/or cash-poor. The project was straightforward and is best presented in list form, last week’s diatribe notwithstanding…

1. Separate box tops from bottoms.
2. Put tissue paper in box bottom.
3. Put hat on tissue paper.
4. Put top on box.
5. Put bellyband on box.
6. Repeat steps 2-5 approximately 1300 times.

Some boxes got mailing labels and postage. Most didn’t. That was the extent of the project.

With our marching orders, we convened in a conference room and set about separating the boxes. The space was a little cramped, the back wall a floor-to-ceiling window that looked out over much of the office. It didn’t occur to me until later that we were on full display. Within a couple hours, we filled the room with swaying stacks of box tops and bottoms. A gentle breeze would’ve toppled them all, spelling disaster for the fearless crew, or at least minor annoyance.

We didn’t talk much initially, being complete strangers and all. Nor did anyone want to make an executive decision on what online radio station to play. Group deference led us to a middle-of-the-road pop station. I’m not up on what the kids like these days, not since the end of my DJing days many years ago. So figuring out samples in songs was a fun diversion while working. One co-opted Elton John‘s “Tiny Dancer” in the name of Hip-Hop. Another put a melody over Gary Glitter‘s “Rock and Roll, Part 2” – the “Hey” song played at every sporting event ever, by law. I mentioned that the artist who recorded the original, went to jail for child pornography. Nothing like a little light trivia to break the ice and let everyone know I’m completely normal. After that, we all became fast friends, chatting about everything from Michael Jackson to AARP to hair salons. Did you know that hair stylists have to rent individual chairs in salons? I didn’t.

After separating boxes, we filled them. Two people took on tissue paper duty. Two others did hats and box tops. I did a bit of everything, from getting more supplies to breaking down boxes to hat stuffing. All the boxes were stuffed by late morning the next day, and the belly bands affixed by lunch the day after that. We hit a little snag with postage, because I miscounted the number of boxes. But that soon resolved itself.

With the boxes done, two of us stayed on to put together holiday gift bags for extra special contacts. The bags -themselves reusable shopping bags – contained some serious schwag, including fancy brownies, a cookbook, spices, a dove made of blown glass and more. All of the gifts came from companies that do something good for the world. And a booklet was included to explain what.

The work was mindless and monotonous, as assembly line-type work tends to be. My feet and lower back hurt by the second day. And a dull headache lingered throughout. But my coworkers were friendly and hardworking. And we had unlimited access to the stocked snack closet and all the holiday sweets that came through the office. I was happy to be productive, and to push back my unemployment insurance by a week. Box stuffing isn’t a career move, nor will it bolster the old resume. The experience was worthwhile though. I always think of temping as a horrible soul-sucking experience. But this time was different. I didn’t sense the least bit of condescension, maybe because they knew me already. More likely, it’s just a good company with good people. I also felt like what I was doing mattered in some small way. It’s nice to have a purpose, to be relevant again.

Bully! (courtesy of www.oldtimestrongman.com)

I was walking down Broadway last Friday evening, south of Madison Square Park but north of Union Square. This is a ritzy part of town, where nannies pay other nannies to push strollers and restaurants offer $25 lunch specials one week a year, by reservation only. Design Within Reach – whose name assumes the customer makes seven figures – has a store selling furniture too expensive to actually touch. Canvassers plied their trade on the sidewalk up ahead of me. I tried to swing wide, not needing a piece of garbage at that moment. But one of them made eye contact and held out a flyer. For some reason, I took it.

It was a three-day pass to a high-end New York City health club. I needed to shake up my routine, and I could resist the sales person’s hard sell. Monday morning, bright and early (for an unemployed slacker), I arrived with my gear, ready to work out. I even wore a nice gym shirt – one without stains and holes that still retained some semblance of its original shape. Upon first glance, one might mistake me for respectable.

I’ve tried many different local gyms, as a change of scenery rather than a first step toward switching. Sometimes it’s more convenient to feign interest and take a tour to get a free workout than trek halfway across the city. This isn’t really lying. I am interested in other gyms… in the general, long-term, information-gathering sense. I might even make a switch someday, if a big pile of money magically appears in my living room. Switching at this moment just isn’t going to happen. The average gym membership in NYC runs about $75/month. My gym membership – a college graduation present many years ago – costs me less than a third of that. And lest we all forget, I’m unemployed.

The sales associate – a former pharmaceutical rep in Jackson Heights I would soon learn – asked me the usual questions. How often do you work out? What are your fitness goals? Have you ever had personal training? Each question began with an implied, “given that you’re so incredibly buff…” Or maybe that’s what I inferred. Who can remember these piddling details? She then gave me the grand tour of what might be the nicest gym I’ve seen, definitely the nicest in NYC. My perception might be different if I’d attended a division one university or my alma mater had renovated its athletic facilities the year before my graduation rather than the year after. The place is four floors and 4000 square feet of new, clean and in working equipment. (I’m used to old, dirty equipment that stays broken for weeks.) Trainers wander the floors putting away weights and offering advice or a quick spot. Classes with names I can’t pronounce and punctuated with exclamation points are available throughout the day, as are massages and physical therapy. There’s a boutique and a cafe. I could go on and on, because that’s what I do. But let me sum it up in three words… cool eucalyptus towels. They’re available on every floor to wipe my sweaty brow.

Back in her office, the sales associate showed me the membership plans and asked if I was ready to join. I was, if she was ready to wave the membership fees (Initiation: $645; Monthly Dues: $173). I love me some cool eucalyptus towels. To get out of the conversation, I said I would need to discuss the matter with my wife. She might also be interested. And I couldn’t make a final decision without working out, of course. This being a high-class joint, she didn’t push the matter. There was no pressure, no hard sell.

The first trial workout was the best, probably because I felt the most gung-ho and the least self-conscious. The facility is light and open and not especially crowded. Many people there had personal trainers putting them through their paces. The rest, I can only assume, were surrogates – paid to work out on another’s behalf. And then there was me, wandering around wide-eyed, trying out all the equipment. Everyone was beautiful. Everything was shiny and new, from the filtered water fountains to the fancy Macs for class registration and music downloading. The house speakers played model runway and swanky club music. I worked out near a huge window overlooking Broadway (the road, not the theater district), thinking “look at me, mom, I’m a fancy person now.”

The weird feeling didn’t hit me until the next day. I was on a cross-trainer machine that mimics a running gazelle. I looked stupid, but everyone does on that machine. The middle-age woman next to me discussed kitchen remodeling with her friend. The issue was where to live while the work happened. She leaned toward Florida, because she likes it there in the fall, but hadn’t made a final decision. Her friend agreed. I didn’t have an opinion, having never remodeled a kitchen or been to Florida. Money didn’t seem to be a concern at all. Renovating a kitchen to them was a little like buying a cup of coffee is to the rest of us. I felt a little out of my element.

I switched to a recumbent bike with a video screen, and tried to run down riders on the redwood forest course. The pedaling avatars just disappeared as I approached. The machine wouldn’t even let me off the path. Where’s the fun in that? So I tried the college campus course, where I could pick off a few Abercrombie & Fitch-wearing coeds, or at least a mascot with a giant head. Again, no luck. I worked up a good sweat, but still felt a little off, a little on edge, like I was someplace unfamiliar. I needed a cool eucalyptus towel and a massage to bring me down. The massages cost extra, so I settled for the towel.

I was self-conscious, which led to the anxiety. It wasn’t because I had no intention of joining the club, but because I had no choice. I couldn’t join. Places that I walk past all the time – places like this gym – are off limits. I can look around, take it all in, but then I have to leave. Unemployment gives me free time, but then takes away most of my options. I felt like an impostor, like the people there knew I wasn’t a member and couldn’t afford to be. I don’t have a job or the money for fancy things, or really anything. If gainfully employed, I wouldn’t spend my money on a high-end gym membership. But I could, theoretically. The choice would be mine. Everyone around me had chosen to be there. They are rich and can work out mid-morning on a weekday. I am poor (or at least feel poor) and would really rather be at work. But I can’t, so I work out instead.

I didn’t put all this together until after my last workout. I was in the shower, where I do my best thinking, using up the gym’s fancy conditioner. Hot water streamed from the deluxe shower head. Wooden slats the kept my feet from touching the floor. And that’s when it occurred to me. I dressed, packed up my stuff and went to Quiznos for lunch, which I bought with a coupon.

Fake is the new real. (courtesy of wikipedia.org)

After a long day of not finding a job, it’s relaxing to engage in an even more mindless activity. Channel surfing, second to sleeping, is the greatest time-waster ever created. My thumb and a few buttons on the remote control give me 200 stations of useless television programming, and occasionally something worth watching. I always start with channel 2 (CBS on Time Warner Cable in NYC) and work my way up…  3 (TNT), 4 (NBC) and so on. Somewhere in the 150s – amidst the American Life TVs and the Gospel Music Channels of the cable world – I get bored and return to 2. I like a good “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” marathon as much as the next guy, but I can’t help hoping for something a little better. Unemployment taught me that. Cycling through the channels drives wifey crazy. She prefers to scroll through the on-screen guide – a wholly different approach to channel surfing that bears no resemblance to mine in any way, whatsoever, at all, in any universe, even the ones without TV.

The other night, around 8:00, I plopped my ass on the couch and commenced with the remote clicking. Wifey wasn’t home, and I was killing time before dinner. Nothing was on, at least nothing that could overcome the slim possibility of something one click away. Then my world changed forever, ever so slightly for the better. I happened upon one of the funniest movies ever made… if you were a goofy teenage boy in the suburbs in the late 1980s.

“Coming To America” is the touching tale of Prince Akeem’s (Eddie Murphy) quest for a soul mate amidst parental and societal pressures. Dissatisfied with his country’s marriage customs, he set outs for Queens, accompanied by his assistant Semmi (Arsenio Hall), in search of true love. Where better for the future king of Zumunda to find a wife than my home borough? Such indisputable logic sets the tone for the rest of the film. The Prince falls for Lisa McDowell, whose father owns McDowell’s, a fictional restaurant that rips off McDonalds. As the owner describes it, “they got the Golden Arches, mine is the Golden Arcs.” The Prince gets a job at the restaurant and sets about winning Lisa away from Daryl Jenks, heir to the Soul Glo jheri curl haircare products fortune. Hilarity ensues and endures, as it is wont to do when Eddie Murphy is on screen and you’re 16 again. Nothing rounds out a heartwarming love story like poop jokes and racial stereotypes (Lifetime… are you paying attention?). I laughed, I cried. Rather I laughed until I cried. Okay, so I chuckled occasionally.

The story takes place in my neighborhood Jackson Heights. And I soon realized that the fictional McDowell’s is really the Wendy’s over on Queens Blvd. (technically in neighboring Elmhurst). I’ve walked by it a million times, including the other day on my way to Target. This discovery was the most exciting thing to happen in weeks. I couldn’t wait to tell wifey, though I knew she wouldn’t appreciate the revelation to the same extent. Her comedic palette is nowhere near as refined as mine; we can’t all be comedic geniuses.

A pilgrimage to the McDowell’s location is in the early planning stages, as is a party to celebrate the movie’s 21-year, three-month anniversary. Arsenio Hall is already on board, because really, what else does he have going on? Eddie Murphy’s people have yet to get back to me. Rumor has it he’s in the studio recording the followup to “Party All The Time” (as in my girl wants to…). The new single, “Take Her Meds Because Now She Has Liver Disease” should be a big hit. In the meantime, to pay homage to the film and the local tradition of ripping off national restaurant brands, I spent the afternoon at the local Starbucks wannabe.

Halfway between my apartment and the gym is a coffee shop called Esparks. (I’d post a link to the site if there were one.) It’s a copy of everyone’s favorite national chain, right down to the font in the logo and the dark wooden interior. Like the fictional McDowell’s, Esparks is easily mistaken for the real thing. The coffee shop sits on a busy corner across the street from a car wash and the pediatric emergency and trauma center of the local hospital. Huge glass windows face each street, and a giant creepy picture of smiling kids. I’m no doctor, but I’m fairly certain that kids going into or coming out of intensive care don’t look quite that healthy or happy. Light streams into the coffee shop, as does local foot traffic. Many people just stop in to use the bathroom.

I arrived a little after 3:00, hoping to score a window seat with an electrical outlet… no such luck. A worried-looking woman with a giant mole on her face was camped out there. Empty coffee cups and dirty napkins littered her table like she’d been there a long while mulling things over. Maybe she’s the resident crazy person; every coffee shop has one. I bought an ice coffee and some cookies, found a seat in the corner next to the bathroom and continued my unemployed Wednesday tap, tap tapping away on the computer.

The afternoon was uneventful… some blogging, some job searching, some fantasy football scouting, all accompanied by my trusty iPod. In other words, the usual, except I wasn’t in my apartment. Doctors or people who like to wear stethoscopes around their necks wandered in for a caffeine fix. The mole lady gazed expectantly at every passerby. Other computer types stared at their screens and typed away. “Your Body is a Wonderland” and “Californication” – somehow audible over Boards of Canada – assaulted me over and over from speakers in the ceiling. Eventually I poured scalding hot coffee into my ear canals to soothe the pain.

Despite the obvious similarities to Starbucks, Esparks is fine as coffee shops go. The coffee is decent. The cookies may have been bought at the grocery store and repackaged into individual servings, but they contain copious amounts of sugar. And that’s all I really care about. Free wireless and outlets built into the benches invite people to hang out. And nobody cares how long I stay. Aside from the occasional weirdo, what’s not to like?

A couple of teenagers carrying their computer stuff in an Ikea bag sat down next to me just when I was thinking about leaving. They appeared to be settling in for a marathon gaming session. An older man showed up to meet the mole lady. She perked up immediately, like a lost puppy who’d just been found. They bought still more coffee, and then settled back in at the same table. The sun was going down, and commuters were going home. The daytime crowd gave way to the evening crowd. And I’m sure later the evening crowd will give way to the overnight, caffeine-deprived, worried parent crowd. I was no closer to having a job, at least as far as I can tell. Maybe one of my resumes will find its way through the ether to an HR person’s desktop; stranger things have happened. But I’d paid homage to one of my favorite movies in my own special way. It was time to go home and channel surf.

A picture is worth a thousand cliches. (courtesy of revcowboy.files.wordpress.com)

My employer and I parted ways last October. I wasn’t blind-sided or steamrolled by the layoff, but the hit really cleaned my clock and rung my bell. The incident was unfortunate, though inevitable. With the failing economy, the company wasn’t getting the job done on either side of the ball. They were in search of an identity. Management was in the hot seat and under fire (over fire too, I suppose), but in no position to turn on the after-burners. The writing was on the wall, and something had to change. Heads rolled. It is what it is.

The company may not have been the right place for me, and I was looking to explore other options. After all, I need to feed my family and make a living… this is America, where everyone deserves a second chance. But I always gave it my all at work – 110% – leaving everything on the field and nothing on the table or to chance. I came to play, mentally prepared for each day, and worked as if it were my last. I never lost focus, and was never flat. Is it possible that I was part of the problem and not the solution? No. I’m a difference maker, have been at every company I’ve ever worked. I’m a scrappy and unselfish player, but also an impact player who can take over a game. I have great vision, owing to the eyes in the back of my head. Who does the boss call when the game is on the line? Me, the go-to guy, the team player who can carry the team on his shoulders. I’m a proven winner, the real deal. Former employers can’t say enough about me. I may bring a lot to the table, but I’m only human; I’m only one man. My last company was missing some other pieces of the puzzle. They needed to circle the wagons, take stock and get back on track.

I’m not pointing fingers. In the end, my boss did what was best for the team. I tip my hat to him for making a difficult decision at a difficult time; he didn’t want to dig himself a deeper hole. In the end, I can really only blame myself – the man in the mirror – for not taking my game to the next level. Mistakes may have been made. Ultimately continued employment just wasn’t meant to be, nor was it in the cards, stars or offing or written in the sky. I learned a lot in my time with the company and made a lot of friends. I can hold my head high, knowing I did my best. But the time had come to move on, hopefully to greener pastures.

There is no “i” in “team,” or “paycheck,” which I no longer had. There is an “i” in “bills” though, which would continue to show up on my doorstep. Coming off a heartbreaking loss, what would be my next step? Could I pick myself up by my bootstraps? Could I get back in the saddle on that horse and ride, or at least lead it to water? While my job loss was a bitter pill to swallow, I just had to put it behind me… move on with my life. Whatever mistakes were made were in the past, and I’m not here to talk about the past. This was my wake-up call. Opportunity was knocking, and I had to answer the call.

Without a job, I had room to operate and play my game, let Norm be Norm. I had a solid foundation to build on. The first step was to collect my thoughts, get my act together and put my ducks in a row. My resume had to be whipped into shape. It needed to show my mental agility and toughness, along with my depth of character, to silence all the naysayers. The next step was to go out there and execute. If I could bring my A-game while firing on all cylinders, a new job would be as good as in the bag. After all, the game is won and lost in the trenches, where the devil is in the details. I would march right down the field and score, then leave the rest up to God. I could afford to take my time, one day at a time. But I couldn’t afford to milk the clock. I didn’t have all day.

I know how to play the game. I wasn’t coming out of nowhere as a job candidate. I’d been around the block a few times, seen some things and given a lot back to the community. But events of the past year really took the wind out of the economy’s sails. There were no jobs to be had, not even as a speed merchant, field general, play maker or workhorse. Even the best in the business were having trouble navigating these difficult waters. My layoff hasn’t been all bad. It’s let me spend more time with my family and pursue other interests.

These days, I’m down but not out with my back against the wall, in a do-or-die situation behind the eight ball. Things are tough out there. It’s been a long job search journey, with nothing to show for it but an excel spreadsheet filled with notes about all the resumes I’ve submitted. New York City and its employers haven’t exactly rallied around me. Maybe they think I’m past my prime, not a wily veteran or elder statesman, but someone who doesn’t know when to quit. I feel like there’s a monkey on my back and an elephant in the room, both staring me right in the face. The ball just hasn’t bounced my way; I haven’t gotten any breaks. Sometimes that’s just how the cookie crumbles, even for the Norm Elrods of the world.

But I suppose we make our own luck and control our own destiny. So I just have to remember what got me here, dig deep, stay focused, step up and make plays and then play to win. It’s a whole new ballgame, and I will not be denied. I have a strong supporting cast, who have rallied to my side in this time of need. I’m heading in the right direction, playing with confidence and doing all the little things I need to do to win. All that matters is the final score, and the game isn’t over. Finding a job takes time. But I’m just one big play away from the promised land. To get there, I just need stick to the game plan and keep the drive alive. No one’s throwing in the towel just yet. So let’s look on the bright side and call 2009 a rebuilding year. Tomorrow is another day, and the sun will rise. Maybe I’ll find a job… that’s why we play the game.

Who’s ready for some football, and all the laughably cliched interviews that precede and follow each game? I know I am. Go Skins!

Did I forget my deodorant this morning?

Tourists and Manhattanites don’t come to Queens. They’re still scared of Brooklyn‘s tonier neighborhoods, where killer mothers, nanny henchmen and four-headed demon newborns of death rule the parks, boutiques and cafes. So this side of the East River, a little north of Brooklyn, where all the foreign people live, might as well be Sadr City for all the visitors trekking out here. Some crazy unemployed guy has an apartment here too, where he composes mad rants about the state of his life for the enjoyment of millions (by which I mean his wife, his mom, twelve unemployed people, six spam-bots and three of the Google hamsters running on a giant wheel out in Mountain View, CA. That is how they keep the Internet going, right?) Outsiders just avoid the whole borough of Queens. Someday, when average property values cross the half million-dollar mark, that may change.

But something happens here every summer about this time. Tennis fans return to roost, like swallows to San Juan Capistrano. The 7 train – called the International Express because of the many ethnic neighborhoods it passes through – becomes decidedly less international. Ultra-proper English can be heard. Country club attire can be felt brushing by. Hands can be seen protecting wallets and iPhones from would-be pickpockets reading or sleeping on their way home from work. The annual visitors follow the DIRECTV blimp floating high above Flushing Meadows. It’s US Open time again, and locals are warned to hide their Heineken. Here come the tennis fans.

I’m a card-carrying white person, but I’m not so big on the tennis. Sure, all the back and forth, combined with the grunting and sweating, can be exciting. But I still prefer to watch eleven large men in pads running into eleven other large men in pads, all of whom are grunting and sweating. (Maybe those last two sentences don’t belong together.) I played a lot of tennis as a kid, in summer camp and with my grandfather. We would hit tennis balls on his neighbor’s court many afternoons and then ruin our dinners with watermelon and root beer floats. But even fond childhood memories couldn’t make me a fan of the sport. Tennis can be kind of boring.

I went to the US Open qualifiers last Thursday. The week before the tournament, the wannabes and also-rans compete for the chance to lose to the players you’ve heard of. The timing once again lined up with my unemployment – another seemingly annual event. Entry was free, but the crowds were sparse – mostly teenagers and old people. It was a great way to spend a breezy summer afternoon, without shelling out your hard-earned tax dollars.

I watched Sam Warburg take on Michael Berrer on the largest of the courts outside the stadium. (Stadium courts are reserved for the real tournament.) The crowd routed for Warburg – the American – though he didn’t show much personality. He did let out a convincing grunt with each racket swing. Sometimes there would be a delay between swing and grunt, as if he’d momentarily forgotten and then remembered he was contractually obligated to make the noise. Berrer – the German – was much more fun to watch. He yelled at himself after bad shots and pumped his fist after good shots. He repeatedly excoriated the official for obviously bad calls. (The officiating was horrible all around.) His accent made the complaints sound more menacing than he probably intended. The players were evenly matched, and points sometimes stretched beyond my interest. Each player just toed the baseline and ripped shots at his opponent, only to have them returned. My neck tired from the constant head turning. Warburg twisted his ankle late in the match, giving Berrer enough advantage to pull it out.

I found myself easily distracted throughout the match, first by the corporate sponsor banners lining the court’s perimeter. Chase, American Express, J.P. Morgan, Citizen, and, of course, Heineken… are these companies targeting me and my vast spending power ($430 a week, baby)? Am I supposed to leave here and go buy a beer or a watch or an investment that gets repackaged and sold to another giant financial institution, over and over, until the economy crashes, I lose my job (were I to have a job, which I don’t) and they get government money to market to me at professional sporting events? I guess actively not caring about these companies and their products further proves I’m not a tennis fan. Maybe I’ve lived in Queens too long.

More interesting than the match and the advertising was the ball boy etiquette. Each match had a six-person ball boy crew. (Half the crew were, in fact, girls, but I’m not going to derail my informative yet whimsical prose with a pointless gender dispute.) Two were stationed behind each player and two manned (see, womanned just sounds weird) the net. Before a point, a ball boy offered the server a ball, and then another, and then another, from which the player chose two. The player served, the other returned it, blah, blah, blah. Afterward, a net ball boy fetched the shot that ended the point. Another offered each player a towel to wipe his brow and racket handle. The others threw balls to each other, ensuring that ball boys behind the server had an ample supply. The process repeated for a couple games. The players then got a rest, but a ball boy’s work is never done. One held an umbrella above each player’s head to block the hot New York sun. Others provided towels and water. The remaining stood at attention until the match started back up.

Being a ball boy is a science and an art. I found myself waiting for points to end so they could execute their duties. I even wondered what it would take to be a ball boy, aside from a time machine and parents who pay my bills. Could I dart across the court at any moment, scoop up a tennis ball and duck into my corner before a 120 mph serve took my head off? Could I remember how many tennis balls to offer up the serving player, and how and when he wants his sweaty towel? I don’t mean to sound flip. I actually thought about this stuff. Alas, it’s not the job for me. I need work that allows me to buy beer, watches and financial products. Maybe then I won’t find tennis so boring.

Help, someone get this large man off of me! (courtesy of espn.com)

Are you ready for some football? Why, yes, Hank, thanks for asking. I’m actually ready for a lot of things, and football is chief among them. Here’s a quick list…

• football (like I said)
• a paycheck
• this
• the end of summer
• a new Boards Of Canada album
• The World
• the end of the “Obama isn’t a U.S. citizen” nonsense

Football is on my brain these last few days, as training camps everywhere get underway. That the season is only a month away really hit me yesterday. I was sweating on the elliptical machine, like an offensive tackle waiting for the buffet line to open. (My gym has been skimping on the air conditioning lately.) Various ESPN analysts droned on about what team would sign Michael Vick. My guess is the team won’t be named after an animal… just saying. The volume was too loud to concentrate on a magazine, so I watched and didn’t care. Then they cut to the “Tom Brady watch” to show the wunderkind picking a wedgie and discuss how his technique – thumb and forefinger followed by a quick shift of balance – might affect his rehabilitated knee. I continued to watch and not care.

At home and showered, I wandered over to The Washington Post site – one of my usual procrastination destinations – to read about my beloved Redskins. During the off-season, it usually takes about three seconds to catch up. Nothing is happening. But what was earlier in the week a page of stale articles was now a fount training camp “news.” I read that the team signed its first-round draft choice, the quarterback is ready for a new season and many other stories that don’t change year-to-year. Sportswriters must just have these articles written and swap out the names and a few verbs each year. I looked at pictures of players working out, talking to coaches and signing autographs. I watched videos of reporters discussing how the team would fare this season. Everything was pretty stock, but who cares? I was experiencing football for the first time in months. A starving man will eat anything and love it.

My next stop was Chris Cooley’s blog, where he talked about the first day of camp. Cooley is the Redskins tight-end who blogs about his life as a professional athlete. He offers access into his world that few celebrities are willing to. The tone is very average Joe rather than “Cribs,” this is my Bentley, this is my king-size water bed where the magic happens. It’s obvious this guy has money. It’s also obvious he’s an interesting character with a sense of humor and a good heart. Fans – this one included – eat it up. Wifey probably thinks I have a man-crush, given how often I bring him up in casual conversation. She listens and nods, because marriage means she has to. But she really couldn’t care less. An hour later, after taking in all the football info I could process for the time being, my workday started. Ah, football, welcome back. How I’ve missed you so.

The Redskins actually began training camp a couple days ago. Very large men convened on Redskins Park in Northern Virginia to toss around a ball and beat each other senseless twice a day for the next six weeks. Between practices, they’ll spout cliches to the media about giving 110% and taking it to the next level. Fans clad in burgundy and gold will cheer their every move. Today, I joined them, in spirit anyway. The opening of training camps brings a deluge of football news. Up-to-the-minute team-related news is available online whenever I want. I can even follow the team’s practices via Twitter, which seems completely and totally useless.

The distraction from my routine is welcome, invited even. Football is the perfect break from the daily grind. Pretty soon I’ll be drafting for my fantasy team, following injury reports and watching games in bars filled with screaming idiots. Wifey will have to endure my stories of player exploits on and off the field. Few things make me forget unemployment. Few things take me out of one reality and put me in another. Football is one of them. So I am definitely ready for some football.

How appropriate that a giant metal thing symbolizes my home borough.

Attending a midweek afternoon baseball game is the height of unemployment decadence. I developed a taste for it after my 2008 layoff. Shea Stadium – the New York Mets‘ old home field – was only a few subway stops from my apartment. And an upper reserve seat behind home plate could be had for $5-$10 at game time. I would sit out in the sun with some peanuts and my iPod, watching millionaires run around. No one would bother me, or even sit next to me. Life was good for a few hours.

I realized yesterday that the Mets would be hosting the Atlanta Braves today, start time… 1:10. My secretary cleared my schedule; today became a day off. In other words, the responsible part of my brain yielded the captain’s chair to the slacker part. Warp speed ahead.

I rolled up to Citi Field (Federal Government Field?) about game time with tax dollars in my pocket. The sun glistened off the brand new stadium. The sidewalks were clean, particularly for Queens. The crowd outside was sparse, as expected; it was a Wednesday afternoon in May. As it turned out, everyone was stuck in one of the many 30-deep box office lines. I made it to the window eventually and asked the weary old lady behind the glass, “how much for the cheapest single ticket available?” She responded, “$92″ – the exact amount Carlos Beltran earned in the time it took to read that sentence. All the cheaper seats were gone. I thanked her and turned away, mumbling something about how the new national pastime must be to f**k the little guy. Scalpers were nowhere to be found. On my way back toward the train, a Mets cheer went up from the crowd, followed by the faint clinking of champagne flutes and the wafting scent of escargot. I think they maybe played some baseball at some point too. But I can’t be sure.

It was too nice of a day to just go home. Besides, what kind of unemployed slacker bails on playing hooky? That would just be pathetic, an embarrassment to hardworking unemployed people everywhere. I wandered over to Flushing Meadows Park on the other side of the tracks. For those of you non-New Yorkers and outer borough-challenged Manhattanites, this is like Central Park for Queens, with litter replacing the flowers and ducks.

Multiple paths diverge from the entrance. I took the middle one (and that made no difference). It arced past a putting green and some public tennis courts, where a wheelchair-bound guy held his own, and through a sea of soccer fields. A few games were going on, one of them particularly contested. People in these parts love their soccer. Whenever roving bands of cheering men and their musical car horns take over the streets below our window, my wife and I just assume Colombia beat Peru or Ecuador or some other such national team. Past the soccer fields, the park opens up into a series empty fountains and unkempt gardens and then becomes a lake.

I turned and headed up toward the Unisphere, built for the 1964-1965 World’s Fair to celebrate the beginning of the space age or the putting pictures of big stuff on crap to sell at gift shops age. I forget which. Some teenagers skateboarded in the empty fountain at its base, recording their tricks on video. A young kid rode his bike, trailed by his parents. No one else was around.

I strolled over to the Queens Museum of Art, on the far side of the Unisphere. The scale panorama of New York City and other exhibits could be seen for a $5 “suggested donation.” A friend of mine once paid his entrance to the Metropolitan with a button, but $5 seemed a fair enough price. I wandered through the panorama, looking for my current and previous New York apartments and various lesser landmarks, like the Statue of Liberty. Much of the museum was closed off to change exhibits, and deserted besides. I maybe saw 15 people, including staff, in an hour there.

Afterward, I proceeded up past the US Open tennis courts and across a field interspersed with trees and bushes. People slept in the shade. Some kids walked home from school. I thought about camping out on a bench to read or take a nap, and then decided against both. There’s no need to do it all at once. I have to space things out, ration myself. Unemployment might last awhile, judging by the last six months. I need all the slacking activities I can get, especially since weekday afternoon baseball games are no longer an option.

Fear the turtle, and possibly other reptiles.

I’m halfway through my fifth month of unemployment. Some days are better than others; some days are worse. Some days are productive, and some days feel like a big, fat waste of time and energy. And some days I struggle to get out of bed. Ever ride a roller coaster that isn’t much fun, makes you vaguely ill and never seems to end? The scariest thing is that I’m kind of used to it. But today is different.

March is a damn fine month to be unemployed if you like college basketball. The individual conference tournaments ran last week, and the NCAA tournament starts today. 48 games will be played by Sunday, and more will follow next week, the following week and through early April. CBS – the station that broadcasts every game somewhere – might as well change its name to “collegiate basketball station. Only one game airs at any given time, though every game is available online for anyone who has a PC or an Intel-based Mac (that is, everyone in the world except me). It’s basketball overkill… death by sports. Still, death by sports is a hell of a lot better than death by job search, or death by death. Death by chocolate is pretty good though.

For all of my years unemployed, this is my first time not having a job in March. I used to watch the games online over lunch at my desk, and then leave the browser window open in the background while I work. The audio play-by-play was enough to follow along and cue me to click over for important moments. Apparently millions of other people do the same sort of thing…

It’s tempting to watch NCAA basketball at work, but be cool

Last March, 92% of those who watched games online did so at work. The CBS site comes equipped with a [boss] button, likely for that very reason. My guess is that overall viewership and the share of that viewership watching at work will both shrink this year. NCAA basketball is  pretty damn important, but not worth getting fired over. Professional football on the other hand…

As tradition dictates, I filled out my tournament brackets. If employed I would have entered an office pool for $5 only to lose to someone who isn’t positive the game of basketball isn’t played with sticks and skates. Picking the games is largely a crap shoot, even for those who follow college basketball. So many teams are evenly matched. And almost any team not seeded #16 can win if they get hot at the right time. That kind of potential excitement is why we watch. My brackets are pretty conservative, with a few upset picks. I won’t get it exactly right; something crazy always happens.

I was most interested in watching the mighty Terrapins of Maryland take on California today. But CBS insisted on showing Connecticut vs. Chattanooga. Connecticut is a #1 seed and Chattanooga a #16 seed. In the history of the NCAA tournament, a #16 seed has never beaten a #1 seed. Sure enough, halfway through the first half, they cut away to my preferred game and stuck with it. The last score I saw had CT up by 40 points.

Maryland beat California pretty handily, which is exciting. They’re one of those teams that’s hot at the right time. I have them picked to beat Memphis on Saturday, but that won’t happen. I’m just being a homer; Memphis is a much better team. Still I welcome the distraction of rooting for an underdog. It feels appropriate these days, and there’s the chance they could win. That’s why they play the game, right?

Fear the turtle!

The desperate pursuit of mediocrity is what dreams are made of.

Football season has been over for weeks. Pittsburgh fans are still starting fires in trashcans, though these days it’s to keep warm, not to celebrate their team’s championship. The Washington Redskins still managed to make headlines yesterday, with the start of the free agent signing period. On the day teams begin talking to available players, the Skins went ahead and dumped large piles of money on players’ doorsteps. If only I were a player… or had a doorstep…

The team signed or agreed to terms with three sought-after free agents. The contracts will total $182 million, $72.5 of which will be guaranteed. Pro football contracts are generally not guaranteed, due to the sport’s high risk of injury. Otherwise teams would be stuck paying players who had stopped playing due to injury. And we wouldn’t want injured unemployed people collecting money now would we? That would be Robin Hood Socialism or worse, France.

The annual Redskins sweepstakes winner this year is stud defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth. The most coveted free agent signed a deal worth more than $100 million. That amount includes $41 million in guarantees – the highest amount in league history. Cornerback DeAngelo Hall agreed to a $55 million deal, with about $23 million guaranteed. He played for the Redskins half of last season after the Oakland Raiders – his former team and maybe the NFL’s most dysfunctional team – cut him for not being a team player. Offensive guard Derrick Dockery will sign for $27 million, $8.5 million of which is guaranteed. Dockery started his career in Washington before a two-year stint in Buffalo.

Congratulations to these players for taking what they can get. I would happily sign away much more than they did for much less than they’ll be paid; I’m not getting much use out of my spleen these days anyway. But this spending spree begs a couple of larger questions…

1. Why would anyone ever think education is the path to success and give up sports? (I really blew that one.)
2. Why did the team lay off 20 team employees (not players or coaches) earlier in the year if it has all this money just sitting around?

The answer to the first question is pretty easy… I was never that good of an athlete. I could catch a football, but didn’t much like getting hit. I could field a groundball and catch a throw in the dirt from third base, but was average at best with a bat. My sports career was over with high school. Education seemed to provide opportunities for me – a determination a lot of people make. Good grades and test scores, as I’ve discovered the hard way, don’t lead to financial security. They don’t even ensure employment. But running into people at full speed sure seems to. Pro athletes are receiving and signing mammoth contracts while the rest of us are losing our relatively low-paying jobs.

The laid off include rank-and-file Redskins employees. The huge contracts proffered to players make this hard to explain away. Maybe the layoffs were a PR move. Fans identify more with their team if they see it experiencing troubles similar to their own. And this builds fan loyalty, and leads to dollars down the road. Big organizations also have different budgets for different things. So staff salaries might be drawn from one pot and player salaries from another. Given that owner Dan Snyder lords over everything and can do whatever he wants, I don’t buy this explanation. A mere $1.5 million could have kept all of these people employed for another year (assuming an average annual salary of $50,000 plus another $25,000 in benefits). And that’s pocket change to moneybags Snyder.

The signings are likely designed to make money in the long run. Big-time talent gets fans excited in the off-season, driving sales of tickets and merchandise, regardless of the economy. Big-time talent wins games (at least that’s the thinking), which will excite fans and again drives sales when the economy is better. And good teams get more national exposure and more advertising revenue. In practice, the Redskins rarely get their money’s worth.

Big-time free agent signings have never made the team more than average. And that will be the case this time. Individual players get hurt and have bad seasons. Rarely if ever do they make mediocre teams into Super Bowl contenders. They just expose weaknesses in other areas. So I can look forward to disappointment when football season comes around again.

But this fan is a little pissed off for another reason. It’s not the staff layoffs, nor the high player salaries. Businesses do what they feel they have to. I understand that. What bothers me is when businesses blow smoke up my ass. The team laid off staff to save money and then turned around and overspent on free agents. Haynesworth is a great player, and was due for a payday. But even he was surprised by the offer, meaning he would have signed for a lot less. Making a huge splash like that when many of your fans are struggling makes the owner look out-of-touch. Given that he still thinks he can buy a championship through free agency, I guess that shouldn’t surprise me.

Throwing around record amounts of money at a time like this (and after laying off average people for purported financial reasons) is also disrespectful to the team’s fans. Athletes, as employees, deserve every penny someone is willing to pay them. But they’re not like the rest of us. Laid off office workers are. And this is an insult to them, and everyone else suffering through difficult times.

Thanks, Redskins, for thinking about your fans. That’s some good looking out.

The Washington Redskins – the football team I grew up on and still follow – was eliminated from the playoffs last week. This week they lost their final game to the San Francisco 49ers on a last-second field goal. It was another disappointing game and another torturous season from a talented team that, at times, showed signs of becoming a contender.

The season turned south right after my layoff. At the end of October, the Skins were 6-2 and poised to make a run at the postseason.  The running game was working, and the defense was snuffing opponents. They were playing Redskins football, as it’s called in and around DC. I lost my job, and the team dropped 6 of their next 8 games. Critical breakdowns in what once worked led to an 8-8 finish. By many accounts, the team had lost its way.

This isn’t a post about how football (or any sport) is an allegory for life. That’s been bandied about ad nauseam. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. Who cares? And, obviously, my layoff had nothing to do with the team’s misfortunes. The timing is purely coincidental.

Football is entertainment. And the ups and downs of your favorite team is a distraction from life’s larger problems. For me, it’s one of the few things that can get me out of my own head. During Redskins games, I don’t worry about finding a job or paying the bills. For three hours I submerge myself in a world that exists on a TV screen in my living room or in a bar. I get a break. And now that their season is over, I have to wait 9 months for that weekly distraction.

I know the playoffs are coming. And you could argue that some of the best football is played in the playoffs. Maybe so. But as any fan of a team will admit, it’s just different when your team isn’t playing. You don’t get as excited for the kickoff. You don’t cheer as loudly at the touchdowns. You don’t complain as much about the little mistakes or revel as much in the little successes. You just care less.  And more importantly, you don’t lose yourself in the game and forget about your reality.

I am fully aware (and extremely thankful) that my problems aren’t that bad in the grand scheme of things. I have my family, and I have my health. I’m in no danger of going hungry or sleeping on the street anytime soon. Unemployment can be overcome, though it will take some doing in this market. And the bills will get paid.

Without my team to root for, unemployment gets a little harder to take. Still, I wouldn’t trade this season for anything, except maybe a better record and a playoff spot (i.e. another week or more of football). Thanks to the Redskins (and everyone else’s favorite teams) for the welcome distraction. I really needed it. And thanks for making life a little better. See you next year.