It’s now been three months since I was laid off from my job. In these last 90 days I’ve dealt with city and state bureaucracy, shame at the grocery store and extensive amounts of utter boredom. I’ve taken walks halfway across town, sometimes to accomplish errands but sometimes because there was nothing better to do. I’ve seen the sun come up on Wednesday mornings, and not because I’m getting up while it’s still dark, as I did when I was employed. I’ve often stared out of my front door during wet, cold weather, watching traffic and the occasional D6 fly by. I’ve walked to the Metro and back during evening rush hours just to get a sense of what everybody else’s world is still like. I’ve gone to the corner store, without showering for a day or two, at 11:00 in the morning, wondering if they’re wondering why I’m there at that hour.

I know what this experience is like now, becoming accustomed to an unwanted routine. I wonder what the next 90 days are going to hold for me, as I see unemployment benefits terminating, and what happens next? At what point do I start putting furniture and other material goods up for sale on craigslist? At what point do I stand out front during the morning car commute avenue and hold a cardboard sign saying “will blog for food” or “websites while you wait for the red light, $14.95″? At what point do I give everything up and stay with each friend for a night or two and how long can that be sustained? At what point do I (shudder the thought) move in with my Dad? At what point do I abandon everything, seeing how far I can work my way across the country, doing menial jobs without being tracked by a credit card?

Currently, I still have not received this month’s food stamp ration, and while I’m not starving, I’m still hesitant to spend any cash on groceries, hoping everything will be rectified and my deposit that was supposed to he made eleven days ago will go through. I think if it does, I’m going to have a meal that forgoes my usual “buy only what’s on sale and make a meal out of it” mantra and buy some scallops or a porterhouse steak.

Because of some vacation days I had previously scheduled, the last day I was actually employed and in the studio was my birthday. That day we had planned to visit a homeless shelter and cook food for the residents there. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was in charge of frying up the grilled cheese sandwiches; we had decided a hot meal was in order, so we supplied tomato soup and a vegetable soup too. It was a total group effort from the six or seven of us that participated that day. It felt so great serving the residents and they seemed genuinely appreciative.

Now, I wonder if I’m closer to the receiving end of this process than I am to the giving end. Working in a creative field in a non-creative town, it’s hard to see any kind of upswing anytime soon. People I know who work in other fields are still going like gangbusters—DC is weird that way, often recessions/housing markets don’t hit us quite so hard because the government is still going to employ people, and those people need places to live. So those markets never dry up. Providing smart, unique messaging systems for them and the businesses that rely on them, however, is something that is frequently (and often, stupidly) cut from budgets.

So where does this halfway point leave me? Maybe thinking it’s time to stop looking for a comparable job to my experience and take a position that earns half the salary I’m used to making? Doing someone’s crappy temp work on Powerpoint? Waiting tables? Being one of those rubber-gloved guys cleaning out Metro trash cans during rush hour? Coffeeshop barista? Or maybe it’s *really* time to become the joke job of my 2nd year architecture professor: court reporter. Certainly I’ve seen enough late-night commercials where I can earn that degree in 6-8 weeks.