What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been

Total Black: -$199.61
Total Red: $269,947.74

This is the end.  My only friends.  The end.  Of my elaborate plans.  The end.  Can’t you picture what could’ve been?  So limitless and free.  Desperately in need . . . of some . . . stranger’s hand.  In my desperate land.  It hurts to set you free.  But you’ll never follow me.  This is, after all, the end.   

Lifestyle Changes

Total Black: $106.99
Total Red: $252,067.04

News alert: the International Monetary Fund wants Americans to change our lifestyles.  In an article in the Wall Street Journal, “IMF Urges U.S. to Consider Higher Taxes, Social Security Cuts,” journalist Tom Barkley reported that the IMF encouraged the U.S. to take strong steps to cure our budget deficits.  “Spending cuts aren’t sufficient, the IMF said, and it suggested a number of politically difficult ways of reducing debt, including eliminating the popular deduction for interest on mortgages, raising energy taxes, reducing Social Security benefits or imposing a national consumption tax.”  C-SPAN reported on its Open Phones program this morning that the IMF’s annual review was a call for lifestyle changes within the US.  So . . . spin or straight-talk? 

Limits and Liens and Loans

Total Black: $906.89
Total Red: $241,059.05

Oh my!  Oh my!  Oh my!  I went looking for a jeep today.  Not sure how this will work out.

A Room With a View

Total Black: $212.89
Total Red: $235,011.93

I’ve been reaching out to a few contacts over the past few days.  People from law school and the like, who work currently in the new location I’m headed to.  And I’ve been scanning Craigslist for apartments.  I had almost settled on one.  But then I started looking around a bit more and saw a few properties with much better amenities.  Got me thinking about finding a room with a view, so to speak.  A place worth spending a year in, rather than just grabbing the first place I spot—as I’ve always done.

Four of Six

Total Black: $129.67
Total Red: $234,846.52

Out of curiosity I ran a google search earlier today for this blog to see what comes up.  One reference I spotted I hadn’t seen before.  Back in February, in response to a post on Bitter Lawyer, a commenter referenced my blog.  The post gave short caricatures of laid-off and unemployed lawyers.  I suppose I fell under number four: Me Can Blog Too. 

Will and a Way

Total Black: $208.35
Total Red: $227,348.99

Today at the theatre I was talking with a fellow Hawker.  Normally he acts like a sixty-five year-old bitter queen whom life has left drenched in its urinary excretion.  Well, at least at work.  And he rarely talks to me.  But today he chatted me up.  He wanted his hawking shift back.  I was scheduled for two hawking shifts next week whereas I typically only worked one shift in the early morning.  He had asked for more time off than he needed and now wanted me to willingly turn that shift back over to him.  For nothing in return.  Just shrug off that income and hand it over.  Luckily, as discussed in Stepping Up and Down, I decided to scale back my theatre shifts for the next few weeks.

In Medias Res . . . Again

Total Black: $585.61
Total Red: $228,964.81

I’ve reached the middle of the road.  Six months into this journey.  And along the way I became an art seller, a contract attorney, and an usher off-Broadway.  I’ve participated in a medical experiment, worked at bit as a solo practitioner, and sold many of my belongings and reduced quite a few expenses.  But it’s not been enough.

Craigslist Addict

Total Black: $751.20
Total Red: $230,772.32

It’s a Friday night and I’ve got nowhere to go.  And in Manhattan either you’re making money or you’re spending money.  And if neither, you’re nobody.

The contract attorney position I’m currently working wants us to work between ten to twelve hours a day.  The earliest we can start is 8am.  The latest 9am.  That is, once the project takes off; we were again at the firm today because the temp agency didn’t have the IT aspect ready yet.  But I digress.   That means, working the least number of hours and starting at the earliest possible, I’d be free by 6:30pm each night (allotting 30 minutes for lunch).  Or I can earn another seventy dollars and get out at 8:30pm.  But either way I gotta find a later night gig.  But first I may need to break my addiction to Craigslist.

One Hundredth Post

Total Black: $173.95
Total Red: $231,084.38

In addition to bringing this, the second installment of my Ordinal Posts, Fiftieth Post being the first, today also brings my first reference by another blog.  Bitter Lawyer sent some sinners over to the confessional here.  The site’s post discussed the efforts of attorneys to gain employment through Craigslist and had me in stitches a few times because I’ve trolled the depths of Craigslist myself, as I noted in I Need a New Gig for example, and I’ve definitely come across the types of posts Bitter Lawyer referenced. Although most of my digital wanderings were through the gigs section, I do browse the Legal/Paralegal page from time to time and also run some targeted searches for “lawyer” or “attorney” through the “All Jobs” or “All Gigs” databases.  In fact, I’m not sure I ever mentioned it—I didn’t in the initial post, If You Find Yourself in a Hole—that I found my way to the Recession Art Sale through searching for “lawyer” on Craigslist.  But no, I haven’t found any legal work that way, well . . . other than legal temp work, that is.

I Need a New Gig

Total Black: $1,247.29
Total Red: $230,131.21

The temporary contract attorney position is nearing its end.  There’s a chance it could be extended.  A slimmer chance that I’d be one of those selected to stay on.  The Recession Art Sale has already ended.  So, it’s time for a new gig.  But what?

Hang a Shingle

Total Black: $28.61
Total Red: $227,952.40 

No windfall just yet, but getting there.  In my efforts to think outside the box and come up with different sources of income, I offered to help a colleague with the consulting work he does on the side.  Soon after getting laid-off in October 2008, I started working pro bono for one of the local prosecutor’s offices.  Another attorney started soon after me also as a pro bono attorney.  I bowed out in June so I could study for the Pennsylvania bar exam.  Getting licensed in Pennsylvania, assuming I passed, would be a safety-net in the hopefully unlikely event I had to move back in with my mother; can’t practice law without being licensed.  Anyway, this colleague and I kinda got to know each other since we had a few things in common: both working for free, both lived in Europe for a few years, both a bit older than most of the other attorneys we worked with.  And we’ve kept in sporadic contact since I left.  Earlier this week he called to ask a question; we got to talking and he mentioned how overwhelmed he’s been lately with full-time pro bono work and all the consulting work he does on the side.  I’ve got job hunting to do, but I offered to help out, figuring he’d just want a proofreader, a fresh set of eyes.  He said if he did, he’d let me know.  Yesterday he called: he needs much more than a proofreader and will pay me $1,500 for the work.  That’s almost one month’s rent.  Pretty cool.  As we discussed the work he needed help with, we touched on his growing anxiety and frustration about not knowing what he’s doing, or whether he’s doing it correctly, or what will happen once these one-off tasks are completed.  (Two of his “clients” aren’t even paying him because they’re his friends’ companies.)  More on all this in a bit.