Diary of a Man of Leisure: Day 1

First day of unemployment got off to rocky start.

5:30 a.m. Dog pukes. I clean. No more real bones, no matter how happy they make him.

7:30 a.m. Dog whines to get out of crate. I walk him. Make coffee.

7:45 a.m. I watch the sugar episode of Good Eats. The bananas brulee look pretty good. But being a Griner, I generally shy away from melting sugar at a temperature that rivals the sun.

8:20 a.m. I wake up Karen. She has to be at work in 40 minutes.

8:45 a.m. Getting my life of leisure started right, I play a half hour of the Sims 2. Watching my one unemployed sim sit around while the others go out and make money is mildly depressing. I switch to hockey on the PlayStation. I lose three games, but the player I made in my own image is able to shrug off a broken nose and get back on the ice in two days. I feel empowered.

10:15 a.m. I exercise the dog with the laser light. For him, it's already almost qualifying as the best day ever. Except for the puking.

10:30 a.m. I shower. Take my time, use up all the hot water. This is how I stick it to the man. Wait, that sounds kind of gross. Never mind.

11:15 a.m. Time to get productive. I pay some bills, set up an oil change, find a body shop for my dented car, confirm my job interview Friday (woohoo!), and drop my cell phone plan from a goliath (and unused) 800 minutes to 400. Just saved myself $50 a month. Being jobless might be the most profitable thing I've done in a while.

12 p.m. Lunch with Karen, who seems impressed with what I accomplished this morning. We eat leftovers, which we're going to have in spades now that I'm cooking dinner every night.

1 p.m. Walked downtown to deposit our fat stacks from Saturday's garage sale. Realize too late it's Columbus Day. This seriously detracts from my feeling of uniqueness. Somewhere, thousands of bankers are being shiftless layabouts, too. Yeah, but who will be laughing tomorrow?

1:33 p.m. Finished writing blog entry about my day. Getting excited about the fact it's only halfway done. Feel I should promise not to write blog in this format every day. Oh well, it's not like people are paying to read this.