Here's the thing...

After a question from my mother about whether I was still 'gainfully' unemployed I got to thinking about the fine line between 'gainful unemployment' and 'painful unemployment'. It's a fine line, you know. When I moan about my new state in life I find that I'm plied with helpful advice from friends like, 'stop whining, I can see you've been too molly-coddled,' or, (and my personal favorite) 'why don't you get a job?' A job? Now there's an idea! Why didn't I think of that one! So, I turn to the blog which is the only thing that makes me feel as though I am a successful human being these days. Ok, while not exactly successful then at least participating in the great human drama we fondly refer to as, life. Unemployment definitely has it's upsides…namely that you can sleep in as long as you like and spend an inordinate amount of time watching bad movies and reading bad fiction and generally loafing about in the manner th...

Alexander Solzhenitysn said that we should own only what we can carry with us. We should know language, know countries, know people and let memory be our travel bag. Living as an exile from Russia he knew what it was to continually leave things behind and as I pack up my apartment in expectation of leaving I wish that could say that I too own only what I can carry with me. But life, I've found, is the continual accumulation of stuff and clutter. Having lived as a nomad for the past ten years it's amazing the sheer volume of things that I have slowly acquired. Things that I don't need but like to have around. The sieve from Zambia, my grandmother's table cloth, the marble carving of a Chinese junk, the matrooshka stacking dolls. It's also amazing how quickly it can be packed away into boxes and shipped off to storage. (I may not be good at many things but packing I can do.) Looking at the corner where all the packed boxes are stacked I try to think if there were a fi...