And we pause for a moment for dumb celebrity excuse of the day

I'm not even sure I've ever seen anything Mischa Barton has done. If it weren't for People and OMG and the rest of the tabloids, I might not even know she was an "actress". So when I read that she had "broken her silence on involuntary hospitalization" the first thing I thought was, "Wait. She was in the psych ward?" I didn't even know she had been hospitalized. But thanks to Yahoo, I now know not only that but the reason why:

"Here's what happened: Before the show started, I was traveling abroad for contract stuff and I went through a terrible surgery -- a wisdom tooth surgery, all four removed. It was a nightmare," the actress explained. "I've never had surgery before -- it all went wrong and I had to have a second surgery and it almost delayed shooting because it was a nightmare to me, because I couldn't deal with the thought of not getting there on time. So with the travel, and surgery and prep for the show -- it was hell."

Uhm. I had to have surgery to have my wisdom teeth out and it was the first surgery I'd ever had. Guess what? I didn't wind up crazy as a result of it. I had to get up the next day and go cover the governor's inauguration. My dad had to drive me because I was so doped up on pain pills, and yet still, somehow, I didn't go crazy.

And what's more, I had my surgery done in Mississippi. So if I can find a just find oral surgeon to do my wisdom teeth extraction in Mississippi on a newspaper reporter's insurance, how, for the love of God, did a celebrity with money not find someone to do an equally good job in Los Angeles?

All of this leads me to only one conclusion: drugs/eating disorder. The same reasons celebrities ALWAYS go to hospitals despite their pleas of fatigue, or whatever else. She should have gone with fatigue as her excuse in fact. It wouldn't have sounded nearly as dumb as, "I had to be locked up in a mental hospital due to having my wisdom teeth removed." Seriously?!

Surfing is so uncool

Today I learned no one calls it "surfing" the Web any more. They say browsing. Of course, I've never actually heard anyone say "I've been browsing the Web all day." But I guess everyone I know and talk to is just uncool. Sad.

To call or not to call?

This is a new dilemma for job seekers. Back in the day when I was fresh out of college and desperately seeking any job that would get me the hell out of Greenville, Mississippi, I would call editors all day long trying to get a job — making sure they got my resumes, seeing if they needed anything else, just checking in, etc. That was part of the game. That was part of the job, to be honest, so part of getting the job was to prove you would be relentless in the pursuit of the job to thus prove you'd be relentless in the pursuit of the story.

But now we're in the age of e-mail and Facebook and LinkedIn...and Twittering, I guess. And job listings are all: NO CALLS. I saw one editor who was blogging about the process of hiring an assistant editor who wrote, "The quickest way to get your resume tossed in garbage is to call when the job clearly says, 'No calls.'"

Also, now that I've worked as an editor, I know how annoying those calls are, especially when you're trying to get all your daily work done and get the paper out. The last thing you want to do is spend even 10 minutes on the phone with a job seeker. I think this has probably also changed since I graduated from college. When I graduated I was mostly talking to people whose primary job was handling job seekers. Not H.R. people, mind you, but editors whose job it was to seek out and develop talent for their newsrooms. But with 10 years of layoffs between now and then, I don't think those people exist any more — except maybe at the highest echelons of newspapers (New York Times, Washington Post). And where they do exist, they have about 200 more duties than they used to. So they're busy writing editorials or overseeing the paper's social media endeavors.

I've been pondering all of this over the last few days as I've wrestled with whether to call or not to call regarding a job at the Chicago RedEye that I applied for. I've applied for quite a few jobs since my position was eliminated, but this is the one I've actually wanted. It's a job I have the experience to do, it's in the city I want to live and it seems like a fun place to work — if any print media place can be fun to work at in these trying times.

Last night my boyfriend brought it up. He's squarely on the side of calling. His thinking is, if you don't call you're mostly like not going to get it anyway. How many hundreds of resumes do you think they got for this job? So how's it going to hurt if you DO call. At least you'll stick out in their minds and not everyone is going to consider calling when a job says not to call a reason to toss a resume in a garbage. Most of the time that stuff is posted by H.R. anyway, and the real managers don't mind a call — not to that degree. So what do you have to lose?

After pondering the questions today, I came to the conclusion that I should call. But I'm going to call on Friday. RedEye publishes Monday through Friday, so they're unlikely to be terribly busy on Friday. Of course, they may not even be in the office on Friday. (a.m. NewYork — a similar local product that I interviewed at last year only staffs Sunday through Thursday.) But if no one's there on Friday, I figure I can either leave a message or call back on Monday. The BF is right. What do I have to lose?

Random E-mail #1

Lately I've been all these random e-mails. Not spam, but real e-mails to my yahoo account. Sometimes they're addressed to someone with my same name and sometimes to someone with a totally different name. This is the one I got today. It's totally random and even funnier because I didn't quit my job, but I am unemployed. At first I thought it was a joke from one of my friends, but then I realized 1. I don't know anyone with a kid named Parker and 2. I also don't know anyone named Scottie.


First off, I wanted to thank you for quitting your job to watch Parker everyday. That is a big sacrifice, and I am very appreciative. I hope you don't take anything I'm about to write defensively. There were some questions brought up by yesterday's events that I would like to ask you, and Scottie, and propose some solutions.

The events that took place last night, could've happened while I was watching Parker, so I hope you don't think I am blaming you or Scottie. But I am concerned by a few things.

1.) Parker needs to be on a regular and consistant feeding, and sleeping schedule. I can give you what my sister and I used this summer, which worked well for him. I think that would be a huge benefit to him. I am open to any suggestions you have, but would like to hear what his day is during the week.

2.) I am concerned that Parker was not fed dinner last night until 6pm. I understand the seizure took place, however he needs to be fed dinner before 6pm, every night. Parker eats a lot, as you have probably noticed and it worries me he is not being fed consistantly.

3.) I am also concerned I was not notified at 1pm, when him temperature read 101. I am also concerned that a Doctor was not called immediately. I am also concerned that no other fever reducing medicine was administered at anytime later that day. (to my knowledge).

4.) It also worries me that Parker was unsupervised at the time he collapsed. And, if he did have a fever that high, why it was undetected.

Again - please don't take these things defensively, I am not trying to attack anyone. These are questions I'm asking as a mother, who is very concerned for the well being of her son. I think if we can work together, it will be better for Parker.

We used this schedule regularly, everyday, and it works well.

Here is the schedule he was on during the days with Emily:

wake up 6 - 6:30am

eat breakfast 6:30 - 7am (usually consisting of a scrambled egg, cereal bar, toast, milk, banana)

play time 7:30am - 9:30am

morning nap 10am - 11am

lunch 12pm - 1pm (turkey, hot dog, cottage cheese, fruit, mac and cheese etc.)

play time/activity/walk/library/afternoon snack 1pm - 2pm

afternoon nap 2pm - 3pm (sometimes later)

play time 3pm - 5pm

dinner 5pm

bath time 7pm

bedtime 8pm

Movie Update

First off, I saw "District 9" last night. Best movie I've seen all year. Drop everything and go see it immediately. Not only does it involve aliens — which in and of itself should make you want to see it — it's an expertly done social commentary on man's cruelty in the name of science and the racism that seems inherent in all humans. The movie is set in Johannesburg and is shot like a documentary. The set up is that an alien spacecraft stalled out above Johannesburg in the 1980s and when humans finally were sent up to the ship, they found thousands of half-starved aliens, which were then relocated into a refugee camp in District 9 of the city. District 9 has become a slum and the people of Johannesburg hate the aliens and want them relocated. So a private company, whose primary business is weaponry, is hired to relocate the aliens in a camp to be called District 10 about 200 kilometers outside the city. And that's where the movie begins. It's impossible to do it justice in a paragraph. Go see it and tell me what you think. As a warning, my boyfriend hated it. He said it was the worst movie he's ever seen. Then again, his favorite movie is "Superbad." So maybe if you're a New York Italian dude who hates to read and just finished watching all five seasons of The Wire back-to-back, this movie isn't for you.

I also saw "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" recently. Listen, I know it's getting a lot of bad reviews, but you gotta know what you're getting when you go in. I mean, this isn't Shakespeare, people. It's G.I. Joe — Yo Joe!s and all. I liked it. Everyone in my party liked it. We didn't love it. We didn't think it was the best movie of the year. We didn't think it should win all kinds of Academy Awards. But it was good. Some of the back stories were stupid. But everything with Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow was awesome, so if you see if for no other reason, see it for them. They could have used a few more fighting chicks, though — ones that didn't have a love story attached. As if women only go to war to find love.

Hudson Valley RidFest

The past weekend was also the Hudson Valley RibFest. Like the improv marathon, it also ran Friday through Sunday, which is the reason I didn't attend any improv on Saturday. I was BBQing it up at the RibFest.

Now, coming from Memphis, I'm a little bit of a barbecue snob and nothing at this RibFest changed my opinion of this style of cooking in the north. There were six vendors. We tried four or five of them. Only one had decent barbecue — Butch's Smack Your Lips BBQ. Another place, Big Moe's M&M Ribs, had great sauce, but their meat was dry. They, however, did have very good spicy mac and cheese. So points there.

It was a fun day, though, and there was a beer tent. So that made things better. There was live music — upbeat, cover music that people could dance to, but no one did. And there were plenty of bouncy things for kids because God forbid they hold an event up here and not have a bouncy house for the kids. There would be kid riots and nobody wants that. They're so little, they can kick your shins before you even know they are there. Dastardly children!

Initial Assessment

Today I had to present myself at the New York State Department of Labor office for my "Initial Assessment." This is done in a small group (mine had eight) and involves going over the paperwork that the state sent us about our special skills, work history and career goals.

My group had two people for whom English was not their first language — one woman came with her daughter, so she could sort things out for her. One man who looked like maybe he was laid off from the Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue and four others who maybe lost jobs at a construction site or hotel.

After we turned in our paperwork, we met individually with a...well, I guess they are some kind of career counselors, I'm not sure. My person was named Bridget.

Bridget took a look at me, looked at my paperwork, looked back at me and then said, "I'm so sorry about your job." She sounded so sincere. I said, "Yes. I'm sorry about my job too." And then she said, "I loved your column." So I guess she really was sorry I'd lost my job and not just saying that because she was trained to. Maybe I should have directed her to this blog. Anyway, she asked me where I was looking and I answered that I was looking mostly in New York City since that's where all the media jobs in this area were and out-of-state. While all the other counselors seemed annoyingly upbeat with their people, Bridget just seemed depressed — like our H.R. director was when she told me I was being let go. She told me, "Something will come along for you. I wish I could say how soon, but don't worry. Something will come along." Then she gave me a sheet with some job search sites and said, "You probably know all of these, but here you go;" added that my resume looked find and I was free to go.

Everyone else was still meeting with their counselors, so I guess they needed more pointers on where to look for jobs or what to put on their resumes. But for me, the whole thing lasted about 30 minutes. Of course, because it fell in the middle of the day, I've done absolutely nothing productive by way of job search. Oh well, better luck tomorrow.

Unemployment Update: Let the rejections begin

Number of weeks unemployed: 5
Number of resumes sent out: 31
Number of rejections: 2
Number of ever-so-slightly positive responses: 1

So I've officially been rejected, by automated e-mail, for two jobs to which I applied. One was a part-time position with Sirius XM radio in New York City. The other was for a public affairs specialist with the EPA in Annapolis. No surprise. Though I was told my resume did qualify for the job. However, I was not one of the three names that was passed along to the department head doing the hiring. Three names. Out of how many resumes? Probably hundreds. Can you imagine? What is also depressing is that all of these places are letting HR directors whittle down the resumes before they get passed along. Shouldn't be up to the person doing the hiring? Why am I bothering with creative cover letters when all the HR director is going to do is look at the resume and go to their check list of job criteria? And what's more, how is the HR director going to know that most good public affairs specialists were once journalists? They don't teach you that in HR school.

On the upside, I did get an actual e-mail from someone who told me to send some clips. Granted it's for a job opening that doesn't exist yet and one which they may never get to hire for, but then again it was a response, which was encouraging after so many months of nothing. (I'm counting all the job searching I did before I got laid off because I knew the lay off was inevitable.) Of course, it's also for a reporting position at a daily newspaper, so I guess I'm destined to work for newspapers until either they or I die. It's a toss up, which will come first.

Improv Marathon

This past weekend was the 11th Annual Del Close Marathon. For 54 hours, improv groups from around the country converged on three theaters in Chelsea for non-stop improving. And though I only went to a few shows on Friday and Sunday, I can tell you that there is a lot of bad improv in the world — almost all of it from Pennsylvania. There is also some very good improv, much of which comes from Chicago.

A festival such as this is not something I would normally attend. I like improv — when it doesn't suck (I'm talking to you Philadelphia) — but I don't have patience for too much of the same thing. Like, I would also never go to a Shakespeare festival or a documentary film festival, for example. But my friend Linus, who doesn't exactly live for improv, but at some point came very close and is now trying to recover, was in town from Chicago for the festival.

So the best of what I saw was:

Dummy: (As seen above) Jason Shotts and Colleen Doyle are a couple. They are also the longform improv duo named Dummy. With a combined seventeen-some-odd years improv experience and more than fifteen-aught months of roommate experience, prepare for things to get funny. And personal. And super gross. Jason Shotts has been a student/performer/teacher of improv for the last seven years. He has performed with such groups as iO’s Henrietta Pussycat, Willie Nelson Slept Here, Cougars, The Lindberg Babies 2.0, Brad Renfro and FELT. He has also performed at comedy festivals such as the Chicago Improv Festival, the Del Close Marathon, The Out of Bounds Festival, the i3 Raleigh Longform Improv Festival, the Dirty South Improv Festival, and Chicago Sketchfest with the ensembles Dummy, Sketchcore, BirdDog, OTIS and International Stinger. Colleen Doyle grew up in Cleveland, where she wrote greeting cards and performed with The Second City. Since moving to Chicago she has had the good fortune to write and co-star in Babymakers, play in Maine with ImprovAcadia, cavort on the high seas for Second City aboard the Norwegian Dawn, and make stuff up with the ensembles Chairs and Showpony. Currently she performs with Swanel at iO, as one half of Dummy, and as an understudy to The Second City National Touring Company.

iMusical: The Improvised Musical joins the unpredictable playfulness of comedic improvisation with the emotional power of musical theater. A cast of singer-improvisers creates a compelling new show with each performance, comprised of completely improvised scenes, lyrics and music, all inspired by a single audience suggestion. The Washington Post calls iMusical "spot on," and DCTheaterScene.com calls them "improv geniuses." They have performed to standing ovations at the Kennedy Center and comedy festivals from DC to NYC. Under the direction and accompaniment of Travis Ploeger, former longtime musical director of Chicago City Limits and co-creator of I Eat Pandas, iMusical explores the human condition via song and laughter... as only Washington Improv Theater can! www.iMusical.org

The worst was a duo called WhipSuit. I refuse to post their bio because they really hurt my insides with how bad they were. You can take a guess where they were from.

The last performance I saw was by Scheer-McBrayer, both of whom are on TV, making them some sort of improv royalty. But their performance was pretty flat. Their banter at the beginning was funny, but once they actually started performing, the funny seems to dry up — probably because of how unbelievably hot and stuffy the theater we were in was. This, of course, did not stop most people there from uproariously laughing at every other line. This is the benefit of being marginally famous — people laugh at you and pack the theater, no matter how bad you are. I mean, they were no WhipSuit, but then again very few are.

Rejection

Just received the following e-mail:

RE: Public Affairs Specialist, GS-1035-12/13, RTP-DE-2009-0199

Your application was tentatively qualified for the above referenced position; however your rating wasn't high enough to be evaluated for referral to the manager. Under the Delegated Examining process, three names may be referred for each grade level advertised.

Thank you for your interest in employment opportunities with the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency and encourage you to apply for other vacancies.

We wish you success in your employment efforts.

Who stands a chance in a system where only three names are evaluated by the manager? The federal government hiring system sucks. What does a computer, or even an HR specialist know about the skills a journalist brings to the position of public affairs? Nothing. This isn't like hiring a plumber. The managers should really be evaluating the candidates themselves.

More out of work journalist join already flooded market

The Journal News in Westchester County is about to layoff 50 people from its newsroom and is making everyone else reapply for their jobs. (We didn't even have 50 people in our newsroom.) Since the jobs are publicly listed, I guess, actually the number of people who lose their jobs could be much higher if they choose to hire outside of the paper. What bothers me — other than all these people losing their jobs — is that now I'll have even more competition for the precious few jobs that are out there. Awesome.

Unemployment Update: Still unemployed

Weeks out of work: 4
Number of resumes sent out in that time: 26
Number of responses: 0

So, it pretty much remains crickets out there when it comes to the old job search. I've not received one call or one e-mail, requesting more information, asking me to come in for an interview or even rejecting me. I actually WISH I could get a rejection notice because that would mean someone out there in the big ol' world is reading all these cover letters I'm writing or taking a glance at my resume.

The only think I AM getting are annoying e-mails from "human resource specialist" at a job search company saying, "After reviewing your resume online, we have found a receptionist position you may be interested in." Stupid Career Builder. You apply for a job through them and the whole world can see your resume, whether you want them to or not. That's why when I was employed, I could never apply for jobs through Career Builder — our executive editor would troll through the site looking for staffers who had applied for jobs and then making their lives living hell and/or lining them up for the next layoffs.

Speaking of Career Builder, apparently they seem to think the market is getting better. According to one of its surveys, almost half of workers laid off from full-time jobs in the last 12 months have found full-time work in the last three months. Wish I were amongst them.

At the drive-in

I went to a drive-in movie theatre for the first time in my life earlier this year. I remember they had one in Memphis when I lived there, but then I think they turned it into a farmer's market because no one would go. But on a Monday night, the theatre here was hopping. Granted, Monday night is discount night, and we were there to see "Funny People" — so that's probably a good combination for a crowd, but still I was impressed by the number of people.

I think part of the reason for its popularity this far north, is that you can actually go to the movie and not have to leave your car running with the air conditioner on. In fact, halfway through the movie, I had to get under a blanket, it was so chilly. Plus, while I got bit by a mosquito early on, I think there was just the one little guy doing all the work because I never got bit again and I had forgotten to bring bug spray.

The movie broadcasts over your car radio in a manner that I guess is similar to how the iTrip works for your iPod. You tune it into a station and that's that. Afterward my date asked me what I thought about the movie and I said I thought it was long (like most drive-ins, there was a double feature — the second film some movie I had never heard of by the guy who wrote "Little Miss Sunshine", but it was 11:30 p.m. at the intermission between the two films, so there was no way we were sticking around for that). Then my date said, "Let me ask you this: Was it better because we saw it at the drive-in?" And I said, "Definitely!"

Much like when I saw "Beowulf" in 3-D, this is a movie only worth seeing in the theater if there's an "experience" to be had along with it, because the movie on its on isn't going to be worth the price of admission. "Funny People" was too long, the characters not very deep or likable in anyway and all the Adam Sandler character learns from his near death experience, I guess, is how to be a friend...sort of, but not really. Like most movies that are TOOOOOO long, this one would have benefited from some cutting — like almost all of the stuff that goes on while they are upstate California at the "love interests" house, interacting with her kids. What WAS good about the movie is all the stand-up. They should have done more of that and just left the romance plot line out completely.

Wow. I've seen a lot of bad to mediocre movies this summer. Next up: "G.I. Joe."

The Government and You: Unemployment edition

So here's a fun fact. Though I've actually been unemployed for three weeks, to the state of New York, I've only been unemployed for one week...and they don't pay you for your first week of unemployment. It's officially known as the "waiting week".

Here's how the funness works:


Week one: Apply for unemployment. Wait.
Week two: File claim for week of unemployment. Wait.
Week three: Don't get paid for previous week of unemployment because it is the waiting week. File claim for week 2 of unemployment.
Week four: Get paid.

My head hurts with all the government math. Also, it took me from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. before I could get anyone on the phone to explain the above to me. The system was so busy that it would just tell you no one was available, try back another day, and hang up on you. When I finally got through to the part where you wait for the representatives,I had about a 20 minute hold. Luckily my phone has speaker. Cindy was not very helpful and seemed to think it perfectly fine to blame everything on the "unusually high unemployment". I was thinking, "Why the hell is this moron employed and I am not?"

I've witnessed a lot of dysfunctional governments in my time (Louisiana state, Memphis city, Village of Memphis, Miss./Walls) but seriously, New York state is by far the worst. The worst. I wish I could give it a prize and I wish that prize could be a bloody revolution akin to what the French did to all their royalty.