How I Spent The Fifty-First Week Of The Rest Of My Life

What does it all mean?  What did 2011 teach me?  In this year that I, technically, started my own business and sent out I don't even want to say how many applications (more than 200 but less than 300), but what do I have to show for it other than a futon mattress in a strange city.  I love this strange city, mind you, but I do find myself missing Chicago sometimes and wondering what I could have accomplished there.

Goodness knows my life would be totally different.  And I was spending far too much there to keep living the unemployed lifestyle - even though I now pay about $40 more a month in rent.  I guess that's not too bad.

Living in Woodbridge definitely taught me that I can survive, though not thrive, without a car anywhere and being near Manassas taught me that not all small towns are isolated little pieces of crap.  Rockville has taught me that not all suburbs are homogeneous places of boredom. But none of these places has yet helped me find a job.  Well, Rockville got me on the books at a temp agency.  I'll have to see where that leads.

I'm staying put for at least another 11 months.  Which probably won't include this blog.  I still have one more entry next week to put it through to the one year anniversary of my becoming unemployed.  Though, for those still reading the blog, it's pretty obvious that I don't have much to say on a weekly basis anymore anyway.

Here's how I "spent" last week:

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20 ($37.40)

• 11:33 a.m. Roti Mediterranean Grill - $8.52.  After my interview at the temp agency and signing official paperwork, I took the train to Farragut West where it stopped for traffic ahead.  I decided to walk to Farragut North and enjoy some Mediterranean.
• 7:49 p.m. Giant Food - Flagship Center - $28.88.  Even though I still had food left from my last trip, I wasn't about to turn down a ride from my brother as he went shopping.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21 ($11.45)

• 1:05 p.m. FedEx Office - Free.  I was hoping they could just fix my laptop that had stopped working the last time I was there.  It turned out that I had to be on the phone with HP support for quite a long time.
• 2:55 p.m. Public Tenley - $11.45.  Since I was relative in the neighborhood, I decided to watch the Fulham match against Manchester United here.  I left at halftime since it was such a drubbing.
• 4:50 p.m. Washington Sports Club - Free.  Walking to the gym drunk should have warned me that working out drunk was not a good idea.  Of course I did it anyway.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22 ($13.49)

• 1:22 p.m. Motor Vehicles Administration - Free.  Finding out that I had to have my middle name on all of my documents after getting all the way out to Gaithersburg did not make me a happy person.
• 2:49 p.m. Capital One Bank - Free.  Getting some more temporary checks proved also to be stressful as I learned my permanent checks had gotten lost in the mail.
• 3:01 p.m. Lebanese Taverna Cafe - $9.49.  After all of the bad news, I just said to heck with it and got some comfort food.
• 3:26 p.m. Starbucks - $4.00.  Even though it was warm enough to get an iced tea, I decided to get a hot tea since I needed to relax.
• 8:22 p.m. Planet Pizza and Subs - Free.  My brother got a free Groupon for this Montgomery College tradition.  I wasn't going to pass up free.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23 ($39.02)

• 11:28 a.m. FedEx Office - $13.02.  Faxing is about the most expensive thing that I do in my life it seems.  But this time was to fax in some paperwork to the temp agency so, hopefully, it will pay off.
• 11:55 a.m. Washington Sports Club - Free.  Having a FedEx next to my gym is at least convenient.  It allowed me to get out of there by lunch.
• 12:46 a.m. Tynan Tea & Coffee - $7.00.  A grilled cheese sandwich has become my standard applying for jobs meal as of late.
• 7:51 p.m. Mama Ayesha's - $19 00. Using my last Groupon for food in Washington D.C. felt.  Of course I'll buy more once I have a job, but they turn out to not save me much money.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24 (Free)

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 25 ($9.00)

• 2:00 p.m. Occupy D.C. - Free.  I usually go and feed the homeless on Christmas in some way.  Since most of the people left in the camp for Christmas wee just that, I felt like I did a double duty donating food.
• 3:09 p.m. National Channukah Menorah - Free.  It had gotten a bit cold and the walk to the Ellipse seemed further than I remember it.  I can't believe this is the first time that I had been by the White House.
• 3:31 p.m. National Christmas Tree - Free.  The trees of the various states made this more than worthwhile.  Though running out of room on my phone turned out to be problematic as something big went down by the Chamber of Commerce.
• 7:07 p.m. China Garden - $9.00.  It wouldn't have been a Christmas without going to a Chinese restaurant with my brother.  I thought about seeing a movie, but I was too exhausted from the city.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 26 (Free)

So that's $110.36.  I'm happy to say that I have spent far less than that this week.  Though there are three days left to screw that stat up.  I just found out that my New Year's plans got cancelled.  But that's okay.  I try to spend New Year's in the way that I usually spend it.  So that's probably going to be sitting on my computer until almost the stroke of midnight sending in resumes before I play on Twitter until all hours of the morning.  What a thrilling life I lead until I can find a job.  My total money spent since I've been unemployed is  $10546.52.