How to be Unemployed

Going from having a steady paycheck to not having a steady paycheck is, generally, a pretty big blow to one’s self worth. Living comfortably in New York City is no easy feat as it is--this coming from the girl who left a small bedroom with two feet of space around her bed for a smaller bedroom with one foot of space and a window facing a brick wall--and living at all when you don’t have an income is just plain shitty.

I have been in this position exactly twice in my life: first, when I moved to the city and thought I could live off of the $4,000 I saved for as long as it would take me to find my dream job. Moving costs and apartment furnishing and realizing that the price of toothpaste is three times higher here than literally anywhere else led to that $4k lasting me about a month and half.

The second time was this past summer, basically right up until a couple weeks ago.

While I volunteered for being unemployed four years ago when I quit my job and moved to NYC to “live my dream” like some character out of a fucking broadway musical, I hadn’t planned for it this time around. Getting laid off wasn’t a shocker, necessarily, but I wasn’t, shall we say, “psyched.”

I’m happy to report that I’m a hot commodity and recently accepted an offer with a company that I could not be more excited about, but getting to this point was an interesting journey. I definitely don’t wish for anyone to lose their job, but should you find yourself in that position, I have 5 tips on how to be unemployed.

1. Add an F

You’ll be adding a lot of “F”’s to your lexicon (e.g. “Fuck paying rent,” “Fuck that girl and her trip to Portofino,” “Fuck health insurance”). The most important one, however, is Funemployment.

The stressful factors associated with not having a job notwithstanding, I’ve gotta give my old boss a high five for laying me off during the summer. Everything awesome happens in the summertime: Beach trips, weddings, bachelorette parties, tanning in Tompkins Square Park with homeless people, rooftop bar happy hours--it’s ideal. The gym is empty at noon because everyone else is at work and I can book cheaper flights for off-peak days because I have nowhere to be on Monday morning. Make Funemployment your bitch.

2. Appease the people

When people find out you don’t have a job, they expect two things:

1. You should be working feverishly to find one at all times of day or else you’re just a lazy asshole without professional drive
2. You should be getting tan constantly

So I have. I’ve gotten so fucking tan. You know when it’s hard to get tan? When you’re inside an office all day. It’s much easier when you’re a waste of space with no schedule who can “take a break” and go lay outside for two hours.

People really want you to get a new job, but they want you to take advantage of being worthless even more. Give the people what they want. Get tan.

3. Wear haus couture

I will not advise you to “invest” in a house dress/outfit, because you really shouldn’t be spending money right now. However, when you’re not out at coffee shops fixing your resume and applying to 69+ jobs a day between LinkedIn and AngelList, you should be home, not wearing real clothes.

My house outfits rotated between 16-year-old Soffe shorts and a ratty t-shirt, a black bathing suit cover up sans bathing suit underneath, and a plaid sleeveless dress for the days I was feeling fancy. Bras were entirely out of the question, as was makeup (I did shower every day, because I’m not a heathen). Ultimately, the name of the game should be comfort, wearing something non-binding that feels nothing like dress pants...or pants, in general.

4. Eat it all

Lunch in an office is just another way to measure your excellence against your peers’. I’ve had several co-workers over the years who enjoyed commenting on my homemade lunches, I guess thinking that my grilled chicken and roasted sweet potatoes somehow paled in comparison to their Baconator. Who knew that being healthy and actively avoiding a fupa was a sign of inferiority?

Meal prep completely goes out the window when you’re eating at home alone. You can also eat whatever the fuck you want without criticism.

Scrambled eggs and meatballs? Sounds delicious.  

An entire brick of cheddar with an entire sleeve of Ritz crackers? Legendary.

Raw cookie dough? Why not?

There are several negative aspects of being unemployed. Eating as healthy (or unhealthy) as your heart desires without Max in Accounting remarking, “That’s an interesting choice,” is not one of them.

5. Ruin yourself

I thrive off of routine. I am Skylar of the House Korby, the First of Her Name, Queen of the Anxious, Khaleesi of the Great Skin Regimen, Protector of the Highlights, Lady Stringent of the Seven Mini Meals a Day, Breaker of Fasts and Mother of Absolutely No One Thank God.

Since I was no longer waking up at 6:45-7, getting ready to be out the door by 8:00, answering emails and writing blog posts until lunch at 12:30, taking a 30-minute after-lunch walk, eating a snack at 3:30, eating another snack at 4:30, drinking pre-workout green tea at 5:30, leaving at 6:30, working out until 8:00, coming home to watch America’s Next Top Model until 10:30, popping a Zzzquil, and falling asleep by 11:30, I had to figure out how to live my life without a built-in regimen.

It takes 21 days to form a habit. It takes two straight days of sleeping in past 7 am to realize that a 9-5 schedule is horseshit.

Let your schedule go to to hell. Eat breakfast at 9 or 11 or not at all. Go to the gym at 2. Sit around feeling sorry for yourself for 45 minutes. Watch 23 videos in a row of French bulldog puppies. Feel guilty about not enjoying the nice weather, but don’t actually act on the guilt. Do literally whatever the fuck you want, because for the last five years you’ve begun every Monday morning saying, “I really just needed a couple of extra days after the weekend” and now you have them in abundance.

The routine will inevitably return, but the opportunity to attend a sample sale in the middle of the afternoon without conflict (but just to browse--again, you really shouldn’t be spending money right now) shouldn’t be passed up.

It's UterUS, Not UterYOU, Except When It's UterME

If you’re a woman who is actively trying to prevent a pregnancy, you probably heard about the “President”'s rollback of the Obama-era policy requiring your boss to include birth control coverage in company health insurance plans.

Businesses and corporations would control your family planning decisions rather than, like, you. We’ve already got states that promote the Coach Carr approach to sex ed, aka the Just Don’t Do It, Promise? way, which, given that places like Texas annually see about 35,000 teens and young women get pregnant before their 20th birthday, straight up doesn’t work.

Women need unchallenged access to birth control.

The current administration just doesn’t think so.

This is hilarious to me, because clearly these sewer lizards don’t completely understand these five benefits that birth control brings about that men should actually be all for.

1. It Prevents Babies

“No Babies!” is the actual name of my actual birth control alarm that actually plays every single day at 8:40 in the morning. It also used to play “Sweet Child of Mine” by Guns & Roses, because I’m quirky and perhaps a bit dark.

These are the best parts of birth control, assuming you’re not trying to conceive, which 43 percent of women in the United States aged 15-44 are not:

• You take it correctly, you don’t have a baby. This has a domino effect, as then you don’t have to ask your side piece to get an abortion all while hypocritically preaching your Pro-Life bullshit. Right, Tim Murphy?
• You take it correctly, you don’t have to bring a kid into this world who, in all honesty, you don’t want right now. Right, Tim Murphy?
• You take it correctly, you can work on your career or spend all of your free time writing that novel or eat brownie batter for dinner because it is your life and they are your decisions and you want to keep it that way and not share or have another living thing be dependent on you.   

2. It Keeps Things From Exploding

During a woman’s period, an egg grows in a sac called a follicle which is located inside the ovary. Usually, this follicle breaks open and an egg emerges, sort of like Lady Gaga at the 2011 Grammy’s. But sometimes, the follicle doesn’t break open, the fluid inside the sac can form a cyst on the ovary.

While ovarian cysts are relatively common, in some cases, they can result in complications that are painful at best (pelvic inflammation, puking) and deadly at worst (internal bleeding, infection, CYSTS. RUPTURING.). #justgirlythings

Wanna guess what can keep cysts from forming?

Yeah. Birth control stops ovulation and prevents the development of new cysts.

The douchebags that want to regulate BC are probably definitely not abreast to these kind of complications. They will never know the excruciating pain associated with ovarian cysts exploding. It’s kinda like the emotional pain you feel when your wife won’t fuck you anymore because you’re disgusting, decrepit, and have the moral conscience of pond scum. But worse. Definitely worse.

3. It Keeps Skin Clear

Acne treatment is an important birth control benefit to mention, as members of the administration believe that a top notch method of birth control is to “just keep your legs closed,” so a method like the pill is unnecessary.

Acne has nothing to do with penises and vaginas.   

However, a group of hormones called androgens, which lead to excess oil production, can lead to more severe cases of acne. BC pills that contain estrogen and progesterone lower the levels of androgens in your body, thus, lowering the amount of oil being produced, thus, clearing up a woman’s skin.

That’s it. That’s the sole reason 14 percent of women take birth control.  

4. It Helps Iron Deficiencies

If you have a heavy flow and a wide set vagina, it’s okay. We all know that you’re not lying about being a virgin, and we don’t care that you use super-jumbo tampons.

What we do (or should) care about is the fact that you might have iron deficiency anemia. Without enough iron, your body makes fewer and smaller red blood cells. This deters your body from getting enough oxygen. When you're anemic, the heart works overtime to pump more blood, which can lead to an enlarged heart or heart failure.

Women with heavy periods and anemia have trouble keeping their iron levels under control -- sort of like a congressman and his addiction to child porn -- so their doctor might prescribe birth control to lighten the amount of blood flow each month.

This is crucial to living a healthy life. The ability to do so should be non-negotiable.    

5. It Keeps Us Feeling Sane

Birth control, in any form, regulates hormones. Hormonal imbalances can truly mess with your body, giving you insomnia, migraines, stomach issues, and making you feel constantly fatigued, among other fun symptoms.

The problem is, different types of birth control affect different women different ways.

Prime example: My friend and I both switched birth control medications around the same time. Her new one, she said, made her absolutely crazy. Crying at random times, becoming an anxious nut case, experiencing extreme insomnia, while also hating absolutely everyone. She immediately requested that her doctor switch her back, because -- say it with me -- fuck that.

I, on the other hand, was fortunate enough to be experiencing all of those things already. My prescription switched, and so did my outlook on life. One week I’m crying in the fetal position on my bed on a sunny Sunday afternoon for literally (literally!) no reason, the next week I’m level-headed, rational, and downright chill, breh.

For a group of people who refused to elect a woman for president because they feared she would be too emotional to make sensible decisions for the country, I find it ironic that they want to take away one of the most effective methods for keeping the majority of their country’s citizens acting sane.

You know what’s scarier than one emotional woman? MILLIONS OF EMOTIONAL WOMEN. Wearing pink pussyhats, no less.

So maybe we can give these idiots the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe they didn’t realize that birth control allows women to conduct their everyday lives with efficiency.

Maybe they didn’t understand that without insurance, birth control can cost $50-1,000, and we just don’t have it in the budget to spend that and pay for our dumbfuck leader’s golf excursions.

Maybe they didn’t hear that they’d save themselves a boatload of hassle by encouraging and maintaining women’s rights and accepting that we’re strong enough to bear the children (when we decide to), then get back to business, so instead could they please worry about the chaos in Puerto Rico, discussing gun control, recognizing police brutality, addressing global warming, supporting Dreamers, preventing chemical warfare, and maybe not making the United States the laughing stock of the entire planet thankyousomuch.   

   

Spared

I’m not entirely sure what spurred my recent purge of 103 people from my Facebook friends list, but for the most part, it was easy to decide who didn’t make the cut.

Met once at a party in college and never spoke again? Delete.

You finally had the oopsie baby we all had to pretend wasn’t an oopsie baby even though you purposely wore an empire waist wedding gown to hide the bump? Baby’s cute. Excitement’s over. You’re out.

You friended me because I was quasi-dating your friend? We all knew that wasn’t going anywhere even while it was happening. I appreciate you extending the olive branch. Bye.

For some reason, though, there were some people that fell into the above categories and I still couldn’t bring myself to bring the guillotine down. So, I decided to analyze it.

I really hope the following survivors read these reasonings and message me with their blessing/agreement to go our separate ways. Help me help myself.

How ‘bout you, Eyebrows?

We’ve known each other for several years and I’ve never really had strong feelings either way about you as a person. However, I have very strong feelings about your eyebrows. You either need to dye them or learn to fill them in. They disappear in photos. It’s disconcerting.

I’m hoping to forego all of my fucks one day and just comment these feelings on a photo so you might evolve into something besides a walking five head and I can finally be at peace. Or, you’ll get so offended that you’ll defriend me, instead. Either way works!

The Switcheroo

You got married when we were, like, 20 years old. It was confusing. You definitely changed your name at that time. I still cared about maintaining relationships then, no matter how stilted they were, so I didn’t delete you even when you posted pics of you and your (much older?) hubby’s new condo. This was the heyday of Four Loko, and I was busy destroying my organs. Couldn’t care less about your adult decisions.

However, in my quest to declutter my friend list, I noticed that you had your original last name again. I haven’t kept tabs on you because, like I said, couldn’t care less, but now I’m intrigued. You’ve survived until I can dedicate the appropriate amount of time to ascertain what the fuck went wrong. I’m excited!

Family/Friend Ties

I vehemently dislike you. I’ve never liked you. This is decades-long disdain.

Unfortunately, you’re friends with and/or related to people I’m friends with. We’re going to run into each other and be obligated to participate in group pictures together which you’re going to force us all to retake because you think your tooth looks weird. Face it: Your teeth are weird. The situation won’t be rectified in a matter of minutes.

You’re hateful, hypocritical, vain, and your values are completely out of whack. I legitimately hope you get the new strain of incurable gonorrhea going around. In fact, I’m banking on it.

Christopher Columbus

You’re moving across the country soon. I’m really just waiting until you post the obnoxious status update confirming that you and your girlfriend are on the plane and then it’s over.

Silent Supporter

When did we meet? I know it was in college, but when and how? I’ve had to consider this for several people and most of them got the axe, but not you. Why? Because you’re freakishly supportive of things I post and, apparently, find me hilarious. We haven’t spoken to or seen each other in at least five years and probably never will again, and yet, without fail, there you are.

This is literally all it takes to weasel your way into my good graces. A like or a “haha” reaction? Be still my heart.  

Keep doing your thing and I’ll keep doing mine, you preciously encouraging figment of my life successes.

The Disney Princess Bride

I think you’re getting married in Disney World soon. I very much want to see the photos from this wedding because I think they’ll be magically ridiculous. If you could somehow pull off repelling down the aisle a la Tinkerbell during the nightly fireworks show instead of the traditional walk, that’d be great. Happy for you.

Rage Inspiration

You do Crossfit. Ask me how I know.

Anyway, you’ve gotten in great shape and I’m very impressed by you, so I keep you around as inspiration.

You’re also annoying as fuck.

I do not care about your workouts or your diet or your supplements or your PR’s or your delts. I definitely don’t care that you’re trying to get your Pro Card at whatever bikini/figure/spray tan competition is happening in nine weeks. Regardless, you have my respect. I’ll throw you a like every now and then while muttering, “Oh, fuck off.”

Everyone else I generally know and genuinely like, or at least find interesting, or am obligated by relationship or family to be “friends” with.

So….congratulations?

The 6 Things Every Woman Should Actually Have in Her Closet

Every woman’s magazine has published a list of all of the necessary items a lady needs in her closet to make it “complete.”

These lists typically include some kind of ballet flat, a trench coat, a little black dress, and well-fitting jeans. All of these classic pieces are supposed to give you a well-rounded selection that makes getting dressed “a breeze” and will keep your wardrobe “timeless.”

I’m all for it, but at the same time, these lists missed a few key pieces that real women need in their real closets for when real life goes down.

1. Black pants that look professional but feel/fit like sweats - You wake up on a Wednesday at 8:15 am hungover as shit because last night’s catch-up drinks with your friend Alexa got way out of hand, per usual. You have to leave for work in 15 minutes. After emerging from a cloud of dry shampoo, you will technically need pants (I don’t make the rules, girl). You’ve been trying to make leggings-as-business-casual happen, but it’s not going to happen, so you need another option.

Enter: the black jogger. Preferably high-waisted and a polyester-spandex blend, you can pair these with a button-down or any decent top and generally pull off looking like someone who’s not getting a little old to be fucked up on a Tuesday night.

2. Throwaway flats - Different from their timeless, structured variety, these life savers are the difference between strutting through the club crowd to the bathroom like a vixen, or bambi walking it out of the building at 12:30 because you literally can’t stand any longer. As a rule, you cannot have spent more than $9 on them at a Payless BOGO sale.

The key is to wear these until the last possible second before arriving at your destination, switch into your heels, and then immediately put them back on when you’re out of sight of anyone you’d like to bang. So, you’d walk to the train in the Throwaways, stash them in your clutch (yep, they’re typically pretty flexible) when you change into your sexy shoes, and whip them back out at the end of the night.

Sound lame? You’re not going to look any cooler hobbling along in the 4-inch heels you never learned how to properly walk in anyway. Take the advice.

  

3. An oversized, thick, long c...ardigan sweater - If you’re always cold but don’t have enough clout in the office to control the thermostat, an article of clothing that’s essentially a blanket is crucial. Sure, you’ve got the boho-hipster-chic thing working for you, but you could also curl up under your desk and take a nap at any moment. AT ANY MOMENT. That’s the kind of freedom we’re marching for next, ladies.

4. Red Pants - I’m not going to sit here and say, “Everyone looks great in a high waisted trouser cut!” because if you don’t feel good in that cut then what’s the fucking point. Go with whatever style makes you feel the most fabulous, I’m not Stacy London/God. The most important thing is that they’re bright red. Two reasons:

1. If you’re having a bad day, these pants will help you fake it better. Bright colors have power. Red is a powerful color. You’re really just doubling up on your strength here. Like Dragon Ball Z.
2. Everyone needs a pair of last-day-of-period pants after wearing black all week. You triumphed over your uterus yet again, you deserve to celebrate while still being aware that all bets are not off quite yet.

5. A Boob Shirt - Save it, feminists. Boobs are magical and make things happen. It’s science and history all wrapped into one (er, two).

Going on a third date and have already convinced the other person that you’re an intellectual with multi-faceted interests and ample artillery in the witticisms department? Well done. Unleash the money makers!

Seeing an ex after several months of not speaking to see if you guys can work things out? Remind them what they’ve been missing. Even if you don’t end up getting back together, you three made a very significant final impression.  

Boob shirts need be three things: extremely low cut, not a crop top (pace yourself), and able to tearfully bring a grown man or woman to their knees. Try Express.

6. Emergency “No It’s Part of My Outfit” Jacket - Your boyfriend invites you to dinner. Perfect! He forgot to mention that his parents whom you’ve only met once would be joining you. Not the right time to wear the sexiest LBD you own!

Luckily, you grabbed the “Just In Case” jacket on your way out. This can be conveniently left on and still look like an intentional element of your get-up. Leather jacket, army jacket, bomber, drape coat, all will work. I once misjudged the length of a skirt and worked in an office almost exclusively of middle-aged men. Didn’t plan on wearing my lightweight trench coat all day, but didn’t want to give Chet in Accounting another reason to corner me in the kitchen, either, so that was my outfit that day.

This jacket will also come in handy for beating your boyfriend with once you’ve “so nice to see you again!”’d the parentals away. Really? Not even a warning?

Hold on to your crisp white shirts and plain black turtlenecks, but add these items into the mix. A boob shirt with red pants? Are you a member of an early 2000s girl band? Try again.