Oh Jesus. I am battling the croak-n-groan gnarly lung spit
lately, chewing shit that I spit up. I had my unemployment meeting this
morning which is good since I don’t know if and when I will ever be
working again. Such is the life of a bartender, sometimes things work
out, sometimes they don’t. I woke up at 8:50, got there at 9 something.
My literal appointment was at 8:30 but the people they have working in
their offices are just almost too hysterical to observe and comment on
publicly. Let me just say this: over 60, peering at the paper through
one lazy eye and crooked coke bottle glasses at about 2 inches away.
There were so many old ladies in this office, some with hunch
backs, most blinded or handicapped in one way or another. I did my
duties through, late and all, came home, called my number to
claim. And was told in a nice telephone drone voice, your claim has not
been accepted but your weeks have been credited. Say what?

Now, being that this is all phone crap, I have called number upon
number. The first original line I called to set my appointment and
apply in the first place told me that I couldn’t call them until
Thursday based on my social security number. The second one is
perpetually busy, indicating some “longer than normal wait time” with a
message about calling back if you can’t wait. Funny thing is, they make
the decision for you and hang up promptly on your ass when you are done.

I  need this god-dammed money. I am sick of looking at my ungreedy
landlord and having to tell him this that or the other thing. This was
the truth, unemployment on Wednesday, but the original claim rep was
trying to sidle the system by not including that I got fired in NYC
after all of my relevant work weeks were debted out of Jersey. So they
probably called the gym, and the gym probably said, hell no we didn’t
fire her ass. And now I have to deal with this all over again.
Tomorrow’s Thursday, so I should be able to call. But the unemployment
limbo that I am in is not making the idea of my bank account dried and
wrinkling any better at all.

So here I am, period got two weeks early, bleeding up a storm, spitting
out chunks of green shit, and not collecting my unemployment
because the incompetency in the division of unemployment in New Jersey
is wide-spread and apparently far reaching beyond the borders of a
bunch of old ladies scurrying around the room blind as bats.

And this I am convinced of in a similar manner–is that every single person
I have known and come into contact with has held a place in my learning
pattern and life and held their own importance, so is the tending of
the branches, the pruning and clipping.

At only this point will I be able to grow.