Yes, this is how I feel today. Thanks for asking.

A relevant flashback.

Day 337: Inside/Outside

Despite the bright sun
Today tastes like heartburn and
Feels like broken glass

To complete the sensory picture, today also sounds like nails on a chalkboard and smells like fresh subway vomit.

Day 296: Growing pains, part II

This city treats you
Like a standoffish lover
You can't bear to leave

Anybody else ever feel that way about this place?

Day 295: Growing Pains

New York breaks your heart
Then patches it together
With one kind gesture

Day 251: Blast from the past

I found this written on a piece of notebook paper dated 8/29/08:

Life with phobias
Like sharing a small chair with
A large porcupine

It's a deviation from my usual haiku themes, but I like it. Plus, anyone with a debilitating, life-governing phobia will understand exactly what I mean.

Day 240: Uninspired but Well-Rested

I am still alive
But I have nothing to say
And I'm really bored

I have been under house arrest for the past week in an attempt to clear my lungs. I am no longer sleeping 20 hours a day and coughing the other four, which is a nice improvement. Instead, I am very, very, very bored. The doctor warned me this would happen. I think her exact words were "In two weeks you'll feel a lot better, but DO NOT DO ANYTHING AT ALL or the pneumonia will come back. You're going to be really bored." I still get winded if I try to do something strenuous, like sweep the floor (!), but I was allowed to take a supervised 5-block walk yesterday. Since the walk culminated in Thai takeout, it was easily the highlight of my recent life.

Day 239: Wheezing in the New Year

My constricted lungs
Rob me of my words and leave
Me gasping for air

I still have pneumonia. There is nothing very poetic about a lung ailment that involves wheezing, phlegmy coughs, and exhaustion. On the bright side, I could probably clear half a subway car and get a seat to myself with said wheezy, phlegmy cough. That is, is I were allowed to leave the house.

Also, and I really can't emphasize this enough, don't even contemplate getting pneumonia if you don't have health insurance. If I had known how pricey these chest x-rays, IV antibiotics, and designer cough syrups would be I would have chosen a cheaper illness.

I also have two more weeks of modified bed rest to look forward to. I can't imagine I will find very much inspiration in my apartment, but I will do my best to post some haiku.

Day 226: In Appreciation

A musical laugh
So light and ethereal
Like a butterfly

My (Other) Secret Identity

As you've no doubt noticed from the cheerful little widget at the bottom of my blog, I'm not just a renegade haiku-er, I'm also a rampant crocheter. Now that I am unemployed I have even more time to crochet and think about the ways in which I would like to change the world.

I'm thinking of pioneering a Slow Gift movement (much like the famed Slow Food movement with its adorable snail logo) this holiday season. Here is a rough draft of my Slow Giving manifesto:

1) Think before you buy. Ask yourself, where will this gift be in a year? In five?

2) Take the time to become informed about where your money is really going. Make an effort to support small businesses, especially local shops and artisans (because, you know, maybe they just graduated from law school and are unemployed, but still have to pay rent and buy food and make loan payments...)

3) Giving should be a source of joy, not a tiresome obligation. Don't buy just to have something to give.

What do you think?

Day 221: Regrets

The good news, as I mentioned previously, is that I passed the New York bar exam. The bad news is that nothing about my life has changed. I am still jobless, still having dreams that we get evicted and have to wander the world with our belongings packed in my granny cart, and still seemingly incapable of writing a single haiku. I fear I've lost my touch. The syllables used to just pop into my head as I walked down the street or sat on the train. Maybe it's just that I haven't been getting out enough lately, but I'm starting to feel like the stresses of everyday life have taken a steaming dump on my creativity.

I know that it was foolish to think that passing the bar would change my life for the better, but I really thought that it would. I thought that suddenly people would want to give me jobs and that I would be able to earn even a little money and stop feeling the way I've been feeling for the past few months: which is, for lack of a better word, useless.

I hope I'll have more haiku for you soon. I've dealt with writer's block before. In the meantime, the following haiku is all I've got. I encourage you to pass it along to anyone you know who thinks that going to law school is a good idea.

Have I been hoodwinked
Into a lifetime of debt
And ramen noodles?

Day 218: Love hurts

Sandpaper kisses
From a most beloved tongue
Followed by a bite

Five years ago I met the love of my life. No, not Intrepid Boyfriend (he showed up two years later). I'm talking about Ferocious Tabby. It was serendipity that made me lock myself out of my old apartment, and foolishness that made me think maybe I could climb a drainpipe to get in. When I got to the back of the building I heard a noise like a baby bird. I moved aside some leaves and sticks and uncovered a gray kitten so tiny that at first glance I thought "Ew! A mouse!"

Little did I know that that tiny kitten would grow up to be Ferocious Tabby: 13 lbs. of fury, defender of the homestead, fuzzy alarm clock, professional pigeon stalker, and all-around Brooklyn bad ass. I'm so lucky.

I can't believe I just haiku'd about my cat. I need a job.

Day 205: Burning questions

To stay or to go?
How can we afford to live?
Yet how can we leave?

Intrepid Boyfriend and I are in a bit of a crisis right now. I've lived in Brooklyn for over 5 years; IB for a little more than 3. We love our very small, comparatively affordable apartment. We love our building, which has an elevator, a non-creepy laundry room, and the kind of superintendent that other renters in this city dream about. We love our neighborhood, Kensington, which I think of as Park Slope's secretly hip maiden aunt.

Here are some things I don't love: Our increasingly futile search for even the most humble jobs in the legal field. IB and I thought we had enough in savings to bridge the gap between graduating from law school and finding jobs. Guess what? That gap is more of a chasm, really. I don't love the fact that the only job I have been able to find is a part-time position that is not in my field, and for which I receive an embarrassingly low hourly wage. But the thing I love least of all is being told that said hourly wage, while laughable when measured against rent and student loan payments (forget about groceries, utilities, and transportation) is enough to take us out of the running for any kind of publicly funded health care program. Strike that. The thing I love least of all is this feeling that I am completely powerless to change any of these things.

So, we are faced with a question: How much longer can we live like this? Meaning, how much longer can we afford to live in New York City? It's not a question of refusing to apply for certain jobs as a matter of pride. Neither of us has much pride left, and we get a lot of "we can't hire you because you have too much experience" or "you'll just quit when a law job comes along" when we apply for non-law jobs. We can't even find temp agencies to take us on.

It's starting to look like our only option is to move in with my parents, who live in another part of New York state (about as far as you can get from New York City without leaving the state), and to live there until we can find jobs in another (cheaper) city.

We've made a home here. It's not perfect, but I'm not sure I'm ready to uproot -- especially when the job market doesn't seem much better anywhere else. Is it worth it to pay more than we can afford to live where there are more jobs, but also more recent law grads vying for them? Or is it better to move someplace significantly cheaper where there are fewer jobs, but less competition?

Day 203: Avoiding Another Year of the Swine

My aching left arm
Remembers the needle's glint
Recalls its blunt bite

Last fall I managed to contract not only the swine flu, but also a case of bronchitis so severe I was put on bed rest for a week. So today I nipped flu season in the bud and got a flu shot. It was a tough decision. Not because I have a problem with needles, or because I think the flu vaccine is a conspiracy, but because I don't have health insurance or a full-time job. I know $24.99 doesn't sound like a lot, but right now it feels like a lot. Still, it's cheaper than the $100+ I'll have to pay to see a doctor if I get sick.

I have the gall to be an uninsured low-wage worker. Let's hope I don't have the gall to get sick. I can't afford it.

Meditations on Writer's Block

Mope. Whine. Mope.

You may have noticed that I've been delinquent with my haiku lately. I'm not big on posting stuff about myself or my life (well, other than 175 or so haiku that I've posted so far). This is partly because I don't want the internet to know too much about me, and partly because I feel like my life is not particularly blog-worthy. I'm not a one-woman news outlet. I'm not spearheading a world-changing project. I'm not particularly funny. I don't think I even have any readers who aren't close friends or blood relatives.

I write three-line, 17-syllable poems about mundane things. Lately I've been concerned that these little poems aren't very interesting to anyone but me. I've even been having trouble writing them, which never used to happen. Maybe my desperate search for a job, ANY job, is sucking the creativity right out of me. Maybe the internet is just too big a place for my 17 syllables. I feel like my words are getting lost in the void (sort of like all those resumes I've been sending out).

Does anyone have suggestions to cure writer's block? If I mope any harder I just might fall in love with a teenage vampire. Although, despite her admirable moping abilities, I'm pretty sure Bella couldn't spell "ennui" with a dictionary.

Day 175: Ranting at the ranters

This is hallowed ground?
Blocks of tchotchke vendors and
A few titty bars?

I've been following the (grossly misnamed) "Ground Zero Mosque" debacle as closely as anyone, and I must say I'm finding the entire thing mildly ridiculous. Having worked a few blocks from the World Trade Center site for several years, I can confidently say that while the site itself is indeed important both to individuals and to the entire city, the surrounding area is nothing more than a fairly gritty lower Manhattan neighborhood. I'm tired of people from places like Wasilla acting like they know what it's like to live in New York -- or know anything about life in a diverse society, for that matter.

Curious as to what the area around Ground Zero is really like? Check out this link.

Day 130: Me, me, me, me, me

For three long years I
Gestated a law degree
While my friends had kids

(Until very recently, most of my haiku were about pigeons, public urination, the subway, or a combination of those magical elements. Lately, most of them are about me. I'm going through some pretty major life changes these days [no, not menopause] and I'm having trouble thinking about anything else. Please forgive me for posting a few haiku about myself. It's a phase. I'll get back to the real mission of this blog soon, I promise.

Hmm... If I could find a way to combine pigeons, public urination, the subway, AND my ovaries in 17 syllables, I might produce a haiku so great I break the internet.)

Day 129

Over the past year
Six friends had babies and I
Got another cat

Day 126: identity crisis

Borough of churches?
No, borough of babies and
Some designer dogs

(Brooklyn boasts some of the most beautiful houses of worship in New York City, many of which are quickly becoming relics of a bygone age. I'm not religious, but something about an historic Gothic church with a "for sale" sign out front touches even my stony heart. However, I'm also a big fan of adaptive reuse, so there's something cool about a church like this one being turned into offices and apartments [rendered less cool by the fact that I will never be able to afford to live there]. Oh, and as for the designer dog thing, I'm convinced that some women get dogs just because they want to be able to carry bags like this [note the price]).

Day 123: Taking my life in my hands twice a day

Yes, you drive a car
That makes you better than me
Please run me over

(Various [financial] circumstances have led to my becoming a bicycle commuter. If you believe the NYC Bike Month posters that you see on the subway, you may think that I sail off to work in a pristine white sundress that is magically immune to both bicycle grease and perspiration. Other common misconceptions: that bike lanes are safe, that Brooklyn is flat, that motorists are not secretly trying to kill me, and that my commute is "refreshing."

Now, I know that many cyclists in this town are real ass-holes who refuse to obey traffic laws. I am not one of them. And even if I were, is that any excuse to yell at me after you've doored me in the bike lane? Or to drop your cigarette ashes onto my arm at a stop light?)

(Oh, crap. I just remembered that my mom reads this. Hi Mom. I'm fine. Really.)

Day 116: And that's the news from Brooklyn...

The adults are cute
The babies are numerous
And the dogs are fat

(I wonder if Garrison Keillor has ever made it out to BK?)