Where did all the white people go? (courtesy of Wikipedia)

I hate a lot of stuff, or at least it can appear that way to the reader passing through. My cousin suggested over dinner a few weeks back that I change the blog’s name to Hate Less and Less. The suggestion didn’t quite make sense; he’s not too bright. But the spirit of the comment resonated with me. Some vitriol comes through in these here pages from time to time.

I never thought of it as hate so much as annoyance. Things irk me. Hard as it is to believe, I’m not perfect… far from it. But I’m basically a nice guy with a positive outlook. I don’t walk the sidewalks scowling at old ladies and kicking small children. Nor do I lambaste random strangers and give them wedgies as they pass by. I could; the world is filled with easy targets and people wearing underwear. But I don’t.

A protracted job search would wear on most people. The daily grind of looking for something so elusive can be overwhelming. Just ask one of the millions who’ve seen their unemployment outlast their unemployment insurance. I’ve managed to supplement government help with freelance and temp work, when I can get it. That’s kept me going. All things considered, I’ve fared pretty well. But maintaining a good attitude is a struggle.

Life is hard for everyone sometimes. But I don’t hate anybody for my problems. What good would it do anyway? It’s not their fault. Besides, there’s already plenty of real hate to overshadow whatever inspires me to hold forth with precise and fluid prose in the hallowed pages of this irreverent and insightful blog. A quick scroll through the TV news channels reveals as much. It’s all talk of mosques and immigration… how foreigners are coming to take our freedoms and our jobs and make us worship Allah and speak Mexican. Election season promises to dial up the hate even more; what better way to show leadership potential than to trash the little guy? I can hardly wait.

A lot of this hate is aimed at my neighbors. Jackson Heights is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the country, with 100+ different languages spoken, including English, thanks to Wifey and me. The array of cultures is amazing, with every continent represented, including Antarctica. My downstairs neighbors are penguins. I take credit for adding Wasp to this extensive and varied list. Most Saturdays find me strolling the shopping streets in crisp white boating pants, with a popped collar and an Izod sweater tied loosely around my neck, tossing dollar bills over my shoulder as I spew random stock market and nautical terms, such as Dow Jones, capital gains, starboard and, uh, sailboat. I’m proud of my heritage.

Not surprisingly, many of my neighbors are undocumented and/or practice Islam. I don’t know most of them personally. But I see them in line at the store and the bank. I sit next to them in restaurants. I stand behind them on the subway platform. I bump into them on the sidewalk. They’re pretty and ugly. They’re nice and mean. They’re rich and poor. They’re hardworking and lazy. They’re generous and stingy. Every adjective – positive and negative – applies on some level, as it does to every group of people. The people we hate are the same as us. They are us.

So why do we Americans hate ourselves? Where does this self-loathing come from? I wish I knew, so I could give the nation a giant lollipop to allay our national crying fit. There are so many real issues to address, such as the stagnant economy that keeps so many of us un- and under-employed. Instead we go on hating the new guy because he’s different, as we have since the birth of the nation. He threatens to upset the status quo, and slightly change our glorious way of life. And that scares us. We hate because we’re afraid.

I’m scared too. But rather than hate, let me put forth something that I like. I like my neighborhood – Jackson Heights. I like that it’s a true melting pot, in a country that embraces the term yet so rarely achieves the true meaning. I like that it offers an opportunity to people not afforded one before. I like that Jackson Heights is Ground Zero for the American Dream. People from all over the world come here for a chance, and they get it. To hate that is to hate America.

How New Yorkers see the world, courtesy of that other New York magazine. (courtesy of The New Yorker)

Queens doesn’t exist. Or maybe it just disappeared one day while everyone was checking their smartphones and being social. There’s a giant void between Manhattan, Brooklyn and Nassau County. Woodside… felled. Flushing… down the toilet. Jackson Heights… sunk. Only the quickly gentrifying Astoria remains, visible from the Upper East Side on the rare occasion someone looks east and wonders, “what’s over there?”

I suspect the rest of Queens might still be here too, somewhere. I manage to leave and get back to my apartment everyday. None of the many trains that stop in Jackson Heights resemble the Hogwarts Express. Besides, whole boroughs don’t just disappear, at least not literally. We New Yorkers do ignore the parts of the city we don’t visit. We forget about them, go about our lives in blissful ignorance. What other explanation could there possibly be for Queens’s poor showing in New York Magazine’s recently published issue covering the City’s best cheap restaurants?

Eat Cheap 2010

No one who’s ventured across the East River to the outer borough that’s not Brooklyn could argue that the food sucks. Queens is anything but a culinary wasteland. Jackson Heights alone has some of the City’s best Thai and Indian food as rated by other reputable food resources, not to mention Colombian and Mexican and Vietnamese. Hipsters make pilgrimages to my neighborhood to sample the street food; I see them under the 7 train with their pegged jeans and printout maps every weekend. And everything in Queens is cheap, cheap, cheap. Wifey and I can eat out for less than $25 total. We smile when we pay the check, because it feels like stealing. And then we walk home.

In New York Magazine’s rundown, any entree under $25 qualifies as cheap. The whole bill at many of the restaurants mentioned would be much higher…$60 or $70 for a couple who shares an appetizer, orders two entrees and washes it down with tasty beverages. Not everyone can afford that price for dinner. And even fewer people would call that cheap. Of course, all the individual food items covered are less than $25. I don’t mean to suggest otherwise. But calling them cheap eats can be a little misleading.

The $25 dividing line is also an important clue. New York Magazine’s readers are professionals, with a certain income and standard of living. Or at least they aspire to those things. I read the magazine (translation: look at the pretty pictures) to seem smart on the train once it crosses out of the Land that Food Forgot. And because the colors make me happy. The Magazine is an excellent source for commentary on local, national and international events. It’s also known for its informative restaurant reviews. When I need a recommendation for a nice place to take wifey for her birthday, that’s where I turn. Many of my friends do the same, which is why wifey gets a lot of expensive free meals around her birthday.

The restaurants covered in this issue are mostly in Manhattan and Brooklyn, because the Magazine’s readers are mostly in Manhattan and Brooklyn. A few restaurants in Astoria – the Queens neighborhood where priced-out Manhattanites and Brooklynites go – are mentioned. Now more than ever, magazines, like politicians, have to pander to their base. I get it. Times are tough for a printed publication in a digital world. And I don’t begrudge New York Magazine trying to serve its readers. A media company needs to make a buck, lest its paying customers go elsewhere and its writers and editors find themselves on the fair-trade, organically baked bread lines.

But the Magazine is named after the whole city. And the last time I checked, the City had five boroughs. Claiming to represent the best cheap food in New York is just plain misleading. I eat some of the best cheap food in the city all the time. And it’s not in Manhattan or Brooklyn. It’s in Queens… usually Jackson Heights for me. The borough is home to some of the best cheap eats anywhere. How else could an unemployed guy and his wife afford a decent meal out? By failing to show the whole picture, the Magazine does its readers a great disservice.

Maybe it just doesn’t give them enough credit. Queens, outside of Astoria, probably seems like a foreign country, something to pass through on the way to the airport or the U.S. Open. It feels strange to me sometimes, and I live here. People generally gravitate to the familiar, in this case familiar foods close to home. But New York Magazine readers are a smart and curious lot. They know there’s a bigger world out there. And they want to learn about it. Sooner or later they will see that big void across the East River and wonder what’s there. If New York Magazine doesn’t tell them, somebody else will.

The contents of my bank account. (courtesy of http://static.squidoo.com)

So much has changed since I last held down a job and forced it to stay. Some of it’s good; some of it’s not so good. And some of it just is. Let’s review the high points. Class, please follow along. This material will be on the final…

• I have two beautiful young nieces, whom I’ve secretly vowed to make avid football fans, once they’re old enough to understand one immutable truth. Large men running into each other and falling down is a beautiful thing.
• The country has a different president. Maybe you noticed. Maybe you voted for him. Maybe you even swooned as the world crowned him America’s savior. And maybe you recognized he’s just a man with a lot of work to do and a lot of people standing in his way. Any way you spin it, I was last employed during the Bush administration.

• Another oil company ruined another body of water. We’ll learn shortly if Gulf shrimp tastes better glazed with crude. I generally prefer a tangy lime sauce.
• More countries were struck with natural disasters. It’s one thing to whine about unemployment in my upright apartment with wifey across the room tapping on her computer. It’s quite another to earn $5/month picking mangoes and then have your home reduced to rubble and your family killed. Huge catastrophes have a way of providing a little perspective.
• My bank account is a little emptier or, as I prefer to see it, more spacious.
• The number of cell phone stores within a block of my apartment jumped from six to nine. The number of 99 cent stores stayed constant at four. And the battle for eyebrow supremacy between my neighborhood’s eyebrow waxing and threading meccas seems to have ended in a draw. The age-old question that’s plagued mankind for centuries (how many eyebrow super emporiums can a neighborhood support?) has been answered. Two.
• “Lost” ended. And I found my Tuesday nights.

Change is the only constant. So it’s not surprising that the working world isn’t what it once was either. I lost my last full-time job in October 2008; I accepted a temporary contractor position with full-time hours in February 2010. A lot is different, including me and my views on things, stuff and what not. And I’m not sure exactly how I feel about it.

When not working for the man every night and day, I will try to figure it all out. The main themes are already becoming obvious; the subtleties are taking their time. And then in the wee hours, by the glow of syndicated sitcoms, I will try to blog about what I learn. Of course, I might just fall asleep. Writing an unemployment blog while employed seems disingenuous. So I need to bide my time until I’m again without job. This should happen soon enough, given my track record and the limited scope of my current project. Then I can get back to my true calling.

They told me the girls would like me more if I got in shape.

I hurt myself at the gym the other day. The exact moment is still fresh in my head. There I was, back flat against the weight bench, two 400-pound dumbbells poised above my head. Nickelback played through the speakers, angering me to the brink of insanity at the unfairness of life. My muscles twitched; sweat dripped off my brow. Four spotters stood at the ready. I brought the weights down to my chest and pushed them back up with a loud grunt. The assembled audience clapped and cheered in adoration. Bob Costas expressed his disbelief to the home audience, using words too big for sports. Only I heard the snap in my chest.

Okay, so maybe it didn’t happen exactly that way. Mike Adamle was doing the play-by-play. Or maybe it was just that creepy gym guy who says random things until he ropes someone into a conversation. And the dumbbells were only 300 pounds each, maybe 250, definitely no less than 200. Fine, I was doing push-ups… lots and lots of push-ups. Are you happy? There are two details I’m sure of: Nickelback playing and being pissed off about Nickelback playing.

I didn’t really feel the injury when it happened. The workout, though a bit more strenuous than normal, was like any other. My chest was sore the next day, and not in a good way. By that evening I couldn’t lift my arms without shooting pain. Sleeping was near impossible, as laying down was just excruciating. So I watched what seemed like a full season of “That ’70s Show” on Teen Nick. The next day, it hurt just to have my arms hang at my sides. I considered cutting them off at the shoulder. But lifting a machete was too painful. The only comfortable position was sitting upright with my arms on the table or armrests, relieving any pressure on the injury.

I’ve hurt myself before, many times. I’m a boy, have been all my life. And I played lots of sports that involve helmets. But this time was different. I’d rendered myself completely useless. Not only could I not find a full-time job, despite my repeated best efforts, I couldn’t even move. I was officially just taking up space. It was a really bad day, one of the worst of my unemployment.

Prolonged unemployment makes a person feel useless. Take it from someone who knows all too well. When a hundred resumes go out and your phone stays silent, it’s easy to get really down on yourself. I fight this feeling everyday. A lot of my fellow unemployed do too. Please correct me if I’m wrong, if you’ve interviewed all 14.8 million of us and found the vast majority to be confident and well adjusted. I’ll douse my computer in honey and eat it piece by piece, starting with the sharp parts. Mr. Jobs, your name will taunt me no more.

Going to the gym is my outlet, my shield against that overwhelming useless feeling. It gives me a sense of accomplishment. It helps me validate my existence. Look at me, world, err… Jackson Heights, err… other sweaty people in this ugly building on Queens Blvd., I’m good at something! That something is lifting inanimate objects twelve times using proper form. Working out makes me feel good about myself, or at least less bad. And hard work yields visible results, unlike submitting resumes. I’m in pretty good shape for someone who spends too much time at his computer and eats too many cookies. Take away my workouts, and my mental state goes downhill faster than Lindsey Vonn.

The injury, painful though it was, healed pretty quickly. There is some lingering discomfort from something that happened months ago, when I was doing dips with a Volkswagen strapped to my back. But I am otherwise fine. I returned to the gym yesterday and felt good after. I went again today and feel even better. All the soreness is good soreness.

As if somehow connected, things have picked up on the job search front too. Some recruiters recently inquired about my resume and, even better, returned my calls. I have a few quality freelance opportunities, including an exciting month-long gig that starts tomorrow. I know deep down that I’m not useless. And it shouldn’t take a workout or some job search success to remind me. But I’ve been unemployed a long time. And keeping one’s confidence and spirits up is hard work in itself. A little validation helps once in awhile, no matter how it comes about.

Have card, will not travel

Life used to be so easy when I had a job. Okay, maybe that’s overstating it a little. Subway travel was easy, or at least buying a fare card was. Life was hard then too, just in a different, more financially enriching way. And subway travel was and is always an adventure, like the flume ride at Busch Gardens with a few minor differences…

• No one wants to be splashed with any liquids found on the subway.
• Those clothes some people wear near subway station entrances aren’t quaint and historic, they’re just old.
• People smell worse on the subway, sit closer and are generally not having a good time. They might be screaming and waving their hands in the air though.
• Occasionally someone makes a pass at a woman on the subway and touches himself in a highly inappropriate way. This may happen at Busch Gardens too, but I’ve never seen it.

When employed, I didn’t have to do anything to get a fare card. It just showed up in the mail or on my desk once each month, like magic. Every company I’ve ever worked for subsidizes the cost of commuting in some form. Employees can set aside up to about $100 each month through a system like TransitChek. That money is automatically deducted from their paycheck – pre-tax – and used to buy a subway fare card or commuter rail tickets or transporter passes for beaming to and from the USS Enterprise. The employee chooses the preferred method of travel and type of ticket, and the rest takes care of itself. (I advise against beaming, unless you’re a main character. It won’t end well.) Those were the days, when subway travel required no more thought than where to go and who not to sit next to.

I always opted for the 30-day unlimited fare card, which gave me full access to the trains and city buses. The pass cost $81 when I was last employed, or about $60 after the tax savings. It was a pretty good deal. Any given month includes about 22 workdays on which I’d commute to and from the office. That’s 44 subway rides, each costing $2 then, for a grand total of $88. So even without using the fare card for any other travel, I saved $7, which was really more like $21 given the tax benefit. The savings were usually much greater, since I used it evenings and weekends to gallivant around the city in search of revelry.

Fast-forward to my post-layoff, pre-employment existence, currently known as “the rest of my life.” A monthly unlimited fare card now costs $89, and a single ride $2.25. I don’t take the subway as much these days, as even a brain-dead hamster might deduce from the facts at hand. Where is there to go anyway? No office chair requires the presence of my ass every weekday morning at 9:00 a.m. Aside from some networking meetings and the occasional interview or field trip, I rarely have to ride the train.

I don’t buy an unlimited monthly fare card anymore either. It’s no longer cost-efficient. Only a rare and very busy month would get me on the train 40 times – enough to make it worth the price. And the freedom of having it is an expensive luxury for an unemployed guy. I usually put $20 on a fare card, which gives me a $3 bonus, and then use as needed. That lasts me a couple of weeks. If my schedule is packed with meetings and errands and tea dates with royalty, I buy an unlimited weekly card for $27, and time the start for maximum usage. Then it’s back to pay-as-you-go.

When on an unlimited card, I don’t think twice about subway travel. It’s paid for, and more rides mean better value. When not on an unlimited card, I find myself avoiding subway travel. Is the $4.50 this trip will cost really worth it? “No” is most often the answer. I go to the local gym instead of the nicer one in the city. I go to the local coffee shop rather than the bigger one a few stops away. I shop in the neighborhood rather than in some other neighborhood. Most anything worth traveling for can be found in Jackson Heights, in some way, shape or form. The other day I met a contact for coffee in Manhattan and had an errand to run after. I walked the ten or so blocks instead of grabbing a bus or the train. This wasn’t any inconvenience. If employed and/or packing an unlimited card, I might have still walked. But that would have been my choice. Saving money wins out these days.

The seemingly insignificant difference between an unlimited fare card and a pay-as-you-go fare card has changed my life. I don’t go out as much, even for free activities. I think about whether I really need to spend the couple bucks on subway travel. Small amounts of money dictate my actions in unemployment. My days may be more free, but, ironically, they’re less free as well. I avoid spending money, and as a result, avoid going anywhere.

Selling crap only gets you so far.

My neighborhood – Jackson Heights – is more working class than many New York City neighborhoods, but more middle class than some others. It’s ethnically mixed but dominated by first and second generation immigrants from South America and India and other parts of Asia. Some significant portion of this group is undocumented, or they prefer to get in their wind sprints when government authorities show up. The neighborhood still includes residents who arrived shortly after World War II and never left. Every single one of them can be found weekday mornings in the cereal aisle at Met Foods. As if this mix weren’t crazy enough, the neighborhood is also stalled in the early stages of gentrification. Hence, me (or as I prefer to be called, “evil yuppie scum”), and people like me.

Local businesses reflect the neighborhood’s makeup. But significant changes are afoot, as the economic downturn creeps through Jackson Heights. I see evidence everyday in my comings and goings – to the gym, the subway, Espresso 77 or my favorite Colombian bakery. Even looking out my bedroom window reminds me of what’s beset the neighborhood. Businesses are closing, and people’s lifestyles are deteriorating. And things will get worse before they get better.

Can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want this store.

A quick stroll around my block – 83rd St. to Roosevelt Ave. to 82nd St. to 37th Ave. and back – revealed 14 failing stores or empty storefronts. They include four clothing shops, two banks, two restaurants and various other businesses useless to me. In five years of living here, I spent maybe $40 at all of them combined. That tidy sum bought me some so-so Colombian food, passport photos, a toy train for my nephew and an umbrella that broke right outside the store two minutes after its purchase.

While I’d prefer these stores to be something else (batting cage… burger stand… anyone), I understand that I’m a minority around here. Proprietors of the dying and dead stores weren’t thinking of me when they put out a shingle. But uninteresting stores beat the pants off of empty stores. And there are way more empty stores now than at any point since I’ve lived here.

I guess I'll have to shop at one of the 4186 other cell phone stores in the area.

Some store closings are normal. Businesses that are profitable carry on (generally), those that aren’t don’t. When a store closes, a new one takes its place. That’s how the system works, in good times and in bad, here and everywhere. But the system seems to be broken. People aren’t buying things. Banks aren’t lending money. And entrepreneurs are scared to take risks. Stores can’t borrow to tide themselves over until sales pick up. And when they close, no new store can or wants to move in.

Empty storefronts dot the neighborhood, and more will follow soon. This leaves room for enterprising street vendors to set up shop. Some stretches of sidewalk present a sort of pedestrian slalom of tables and carts, even in good economic times. It’s worse now. The empty bank on my corner is now a de facto flower stand. Competing sellers will sometimes set up next to each other. The corner under the 7 train subway station is essentially a big cafeteria in the morning, with any number of people selling breakfast food and drinks out of shopping carts. Some street vendors are licensed and some not. The breakdown isn’t the issue so much as the sheer numbers. Many of these people would be making money some other way if they could.

Struggling stores rent out floor space to stave off closing. The Yofiore yogurt shop brought in a cell phone vendor before closing. A shoe store now has someone offering health insurance in a small space up front; the clothing boutique that once occupied the spot has since moved inside, I believe. Closed stores open up temporarily as something else to make a quick buck. What was once a passport photo place sold flowers this past Valentine’s Day.

Competition for buyers has also picked up. Until recently, I could expect to be offered a few flyers during the block and a half walk to the train. That number has doubled or tripled, and the people passing them out are more aggressive in trying to get them into my hands. I now have to actually walk through people’s outstretched arms sometimes to get by.

I can’t say if there are additional homeless or people who dig through recyclables these days, though I tend to notice them more. Nor do I know what’s happening at the local Salvation Army or Jewish Community Center thrift store. But if pressed, I’d guess numbers are up. My situation hasn’t deteriorated that much since losing my job a few months ago. But day-to-day life in Jackson Heights has to some extent. I expect the decline to continue, at least until this country gets itself turned around.

“There’s no place like home,” Dorothy once said, before becoming a drug-addicted gay icon. Maybe it’s because “home is where the heart is.” So does that mean if I try to go somewhere else, without my heart, I’ll die? It’s also true that “you can never go home,” unless you’re Bon Jovi. This presents an interesting and potentially fatal quandary. I have to be but can’t be at home. Finding a job doesn’t seem all that daunting when faced with a rift in the universe. While I’ve managed to sidestep these dueling cliches so far, my luck ran out today. 

Home is the place to be most weekdays, regardless of my employment status. Everything I need – stereo, computer and food – is right here. And so are a few things I don’t need. Don’t try to hide from me, dirty dishes. I know you’re there; I can smell you. And every evening, wifey returns. What could be better than that?

Home wasn’t so great today. A pipe burst in my building’s basement, forcing the super to cut off the heat to fix it. February is not the warmest of months in NYC; it was a balmy and breezy 35 degrees outside. With the help of my less-than-airtight windows, the temperature inside my apartment dipped into the high 40s. Even the onesie can’t withstand that, as much as it tries. After all it only comes with feet, not hands (hmm, now there’s a thought…). 

Today was also a special election for a vacated state senate position serving my neighborhood. Campaigning in most neighborhoods involves volunteers handing out flyers. Campaigning in Jackson Heights involves volunteers yelling things in Spanish through very loud speakers mounted on moving trucks. Interestingly enough, this is the same tactic used to sell pay-as-you-go cell phones. Every 20 minutes a very excited someone implored me to vote for a political someone… I think. I don’t understand much Spanish. When traffic backed up and the truck was marooned below my window, the message was repeated over and over. While they didn’t actually get me to vote (or buy a new cell phone), they did manage to piss me off and make me crave Mexican food. 

Mix in some random drilling in the stairwell outside my door and the cats’ incessant meowing, and voila… a perfect day… to be somewhere else.

I should have just been a fruit guy, the guy that sells fruit during business hours on many Manhattan street corners. Life would’ve been so much easier. And the career choice would’ve saved me years of going to school, looking for work and toiling away for companies that eventually downsize me out of a job. Not to mention hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition, expenses and lost wages.

The other day I had a routine doctor’s appointment in midtown Manhattan. The plan was to workout at a branch of my gym nearby (a nice change of scenery), grab an overpriced sandwich somewhere and have my checkup. On the corner of 54th St. and Madison Ave. – a block from the subway and a block from the gym – I passed a fruit guy. He wasn’t just any fruit guy. He was the same fruit guy (on the same corner) who’s stand I frequented when I first moved to New York almost ten years ago and have seen periodically ever since. That’s what I call job security.

One of my first jobs here was at an internet start-up in Brooklyn, which (you guessed it) ended with a layoff. The commute from my apartment in Astoria, Queens was a trek, broken in half many mornings with a workout in midtown. For those of you following along on your handy MTA subway maps, that’s the N train from Ditmars Blvd. to 5th Ave. and then – after lifting – the F train from 53rd St. and Madison to York St. in Brooklyn (the F used to run along the V line and continue past the 2nd Ave. stop). After every workout the fruit guy sold me melon, sometimes grapes or an apple. He always seemed to have customers and be in a good mood. We weren’t BFFs or anything, but he always remembered what what I wanted, asked after my job or my family. He called me “boss,” as in “how’s it going, boss?”

A few temp gigs followed the internet start-up job. I still frequented the same gym, and sometimes grabbed an apple as a post-workout snack. My next full-time job, at a big Midtown company, put me very close to my gym. By then I was also in grad school and logging very long days. My travels didn’t take me by the fruit guy’s stand. I laid awake nights worrying what he’d do without my thrice-weekly $.50 purchases. It turns out he managed just fine.

In early 2004, I moved from Astoria to Jackson Heights, also in Queens. My new commute again took me by the fruit guy’s stand, allaying my fears. But having discovered the glory of the fruit smoothie as a breakfast option and that I could create said glory in my own kitchen, I no longer needed to make a purchase. Sometimes I even avoided that street corner – crossing Madison before I got there – because he still recognized me. There he stayed, day in and day out, month after month.

After my second layoff in early 2006, I quickly found employment outside of Manhattan. So Midtown – and thus the fruit guy – was never on my itinerary. That company laid me off in early 2007, bringing me back into the city and opening up my schedule. The fruit guy was in his usual spot for most every weekday gym visit. Occasionally I bought something, but he’d forgotten me by this point. My next full-time employer hired me in late 2007, putting me closer to a better branch of my gym.

I didn’t see the fruit guy again until yesterday, in the same spot he was ten years previous. He’d grown older – from what I could tell walking by – maybe reaching 40. His stand seemed to carry the same stuff, seasonality aside, of course. And he was still employed, in the same job, in the same location and apparently earning enough to make it worth his while. Or he’s independently wealthy and sells fruit because he loves the social aspects of Midtown sidewalks during business hours.

Assuming he has to make a living like the rest of us, his choice seems to have worked out. He works for himself, makes a livable wage and can eat all the fruit he wants. He even gets to spend beautiful days outside. And his business is pretty recession-proof; people need to eat and fruit is a necessity, not a luxury. On the downside, the hours are long and bathroom breaks seem to pose a logistical problem. Traffic exhaust isn’t the most pleasant thing to inhale all day. And if he doesn’t work, he doesn’t get paid.

One thing’s for sure though, the fruit guy wins when it comes to job security. And ten years of job security is looking pretty attractive to me right now.

I discovered my true calling, while trolling Craigslist for jobs. This may be hard to believe. Who discovers the perfect job online? That’s right, me! I was just scrolling down the page, clicking on link after link, and there it was, nestled between Interactive Finance Manager and Media Planner.

Get Paid to Wave

Upon first glance, I seemed to be qualified…

• I like to get paid.
• I can wave.  I don’t have it highlighted on my resume.  Nor have I highlighted skills that sound better than waving (beckoning or gesticulating, for example) but really, at their crux, are just waving.

And the position has perks…

• It’s in marketing, my chosen field. Technically, it’s in advertising, which is part of the marketing family. You know, like that one cousin everyone has who talks about how great he is, but really only got there by spending other people’s money.
• I can listen to music all day – either on my trusty iPod or from the chorus of voices in my head performing the modern Greek tragedy of my life.
• I’ll be working outside. Granted, my station would be a busy Brooklyn street corner. But most street corners in Brooklyn feature a view of a tree, sometimes two.
• I could wear whatever I want, provided I wear an Uncle Sam or Statue of Liberty outfit over it.

My wife wants me to give it a try, and I’m tempted to. But a couple of things make me hesitant. First of all, both Flatbush and East Flatbush, Brooklyn are really far from Jackson Heights. Second of all, I don’t know if I have the right temperament for this kind of work. I’m not a gregarious, work-the-crowd kind of people person. I’m friendly and can be outgoing, but I’m not the life of the party.  Oh yeah, and I can’t dance. So there’s a real chance that I won’t get the job. That would wreck my psyche and force me to spend the next week curled up in the fetal position sucking my thumb. I don’t know if I can take that chance.

Oddly enough, the prospect of standing outside in January dressed like Uncle Sam or the Statue of Liberty doesn’t bother me. Stay tuned for the post documenting my hours of intensive therapy to discover why. In the meantime, I have some serious soul-searching to do about this job.

Businesses continue to fail in Jackson Heights. It’s sad to watch. Every walk down Roosevelt or 37th Ave. reveals a recently vacated store. Some I’m happy to see go – like all the cell phone places or the shop at my corner selling cheap umbrellas, NYC t-shirts and an assortment of useless junk. My wife and I get way more enjoyment out of speculating what businesses could fill the voids in a perfect world (New York Sports Club, Barnes & Noble, are you out there?) than we ever did out of the now-closed stores. But there are no new stores coming in, just padlocked security gates and “For Rent” signs. I’d rather have the crappy stores back.

The KB Toys on 82nd St. is in the process of closing. There’s something extra sad about a toy store going out of business. It’s downright depressing when that toy store goes out of business right after Christmas, the biggest shopping season of the year. And it’s almost suicide-inducing when you have to watch its demise – from Christmas through New Years – from your bedroom window while looking for a job yourself.

Were sales so bad that even the holidays couldn’t keep the store afloat? In a neighborhood swarming with kids, did that few parents buy presents? Did the owners just delay the inevitable long enough to make what money they could? As it turns out, the company is bankrupt and shuttering all 460 of its stores. I’ve been watching the sale signs get more and more desperate day by day. Now they’re up to “everything must go.” Before too long they’ll start selling the furniture and fixtures.

One day soon it will just be a KB Toys sign and an empty store. And that’s how it will stay, for a very long time, or at least until a mega hair/nail/eyebrow salon takes over. The toy store’s employees will venture into unemployment or, if they’re lucky, other employment. I’ll be in my apartment searching the internet for a job. And when I look out the window, I’ll see that depressing reminder of my neighborhood’s struggling economy. I’m not looking for work near where I live (yet), but it doesn’t make me excited about my prospects.