I miss hitting the snooze when I wake up in the morning. Jobless equals alarmless. These days, nothing wakes me up. I just do. 9 am sharp. I wake up and lie there in bed as if death had failed me again. While going back to sleep would be too unproductive and a clear sign of depression, I get up and switch my Mac on and start by having my morning pee, washing my face, and brushing my teeth I had just brushed the night before. This is about how long it takes for my Mac to start up. Once up and running, I go in and fix my Special K with soy milk (though I am no where near being a vegan or a vegetarian nor am I lactose intolerant, I simply love Special K with soy milk...Vanilla Vitasoy to be specific). With the cereal bowl in one hand and a mouse in the other, I spend about ten minutes making the rounds with friends online giving them a heads up, I'm still alive, how are you's and a few kisses and wishes towards a good day to you lucky folks in an office. Please do not waste your energy on negative thoughts about work now plus I really don't want to hear it. And I promise not to ask you to edit my cover letter or hear my latest statistic on the ratio of how many resumes sent to how many responses received. Instead I might share what I dreamt the night before, how I was trying for the millionth time in my dream, to run so hard I start to fly. How I felt myself get off the ground for a few yards before I skidded out on the ground like a dodo bird. Or I might ask if you listened to NPR this morning. Did you hear This Morning Edition? About the female spies? Did you know Julia Childs used to be a spy? All before her funny voiced cooking career, can you imagine? Ok so my ten minutes of chatting turned into half an hour and now I must post my Busy status message and get going. I hit the job postings after putting the empty cereal bowl in the sink with water. I rewrite my cover letter for the nth time and slap myself because I have just noticed that I had left the wrong job description in the last letter sent. Shite. Oh well, I knew nothing about J2EE, OO analysis, or SQL anyway. I shrug it off and start a new letter describing what a fantastic little trained Web monkey I am. By the time noon has come around, I take my 7th inning stretch and make a sandwich. Turkey, swiss, mayo, mustard, and maybe some lettuce on wheat. While eating my sandwich I contemplate on two things. 1. What should I say to my deadbeat employer of my last freelancing gig this time. 2. Where and how should I spend the rest of my beautiful summer day, freely. That's FREELY financially free. After I finish chewing on my last bite, I pick up the phone and call my last employer and chew on him for a while about his debt to me. Small claims seems to be in my future. I pound my fists, I grit my teeth, and smack myself a good one. I should stop with all this monkey business and start writing again, a story, a novel, a paragraph. Anything. I spend the rest of the afternoon going to the gym, day dreaming for miles. After a meal fit for a small army I scooter around San Francisco, making visits to neighborhoods I rarely occasion. I make like a tourist in my own town. North Beach. Fisherman's Wharf. Marina. Presidio, and when I see the Golden Gate Bridge my heart jumps out like a loss of breath and I remember why I'm choosing to tough out my life in this gold rush boom town. I think of Brautigan and the Giants and 600 homeruns made in my little lifetime and drag queens and sourdough and dim sum and intimate live shows and parades and block parties and foggy summer nights and bay windows to see from all sides. Just a few of my favorite things. I fall hopelessly romantic with my loneliness. This is how it starts.

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