TMZ, Not Quite Me

One night, I attempted to become a paparazzo. And, no, I wasn't intoxicated.

I was meeting a friend in downtown LA so I ripped myself away from watching season 2 of Mad Men on DVD and jumped into my car. I looked for parking. Circled. Circled. Circled some more. I finally found a lot and seriously had to email myself where I parked and mapquest how to get to the bar because I was so turned around. Before I even had a drink.

As I walked up to the bar, I saw none other than Betty Draper. Talking to the bouncer. I thought for sure that I had made myself so dizzy that I was hallucinating Mad Men characters. When I saw that she was wearing jeans, I realized it was January Jones!

It wasn't long before my shaken and stirred brain came up with a plan: take a picture and sell it to US Weekly. iPhone doesn't have a flash so I won't get caught. I just needed to get close enough. Click, click, click.

I slid away to check the pix. Goddamn it! While not having a flash is a plus for furtive missions, it is a negative for photo clarity and precision. The pictures looked grainy, blurry and faraway.

While this mission was more like Kevin Federline's PopoZão, I will live to paparazzo again...this time with a real camera!

Overachievers, Undersleepers

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Nope, I didn't fall asleep and have my finger stuck on the z key. I'm talking about sleep. As Americans, we're overworked, underslept.

We're supposed to get 8 hours of sleep a night. However, between working, social life, exercising, spneding time with your loved ones and managing a household, there aren't 8 hours left over for sleep. I'd average about 6 hours a night and would wake up at least once in a panic after realizing I forgot to do something. I was exhausted.

So, one of my first initiatives in funemployment was to get caught up on sleep. That meant if I wanted to nap, I'd nap. If I needed to sleep 10 hours a night, I did. And by God I feel amazing. I'm more alert. My body feels better. I don't get every cold that comes my way. I don't need (as much) concealer because the dark circles have faded.

So funemployed, get your rest. And the rest just may fall into place.

Funemployment: The Genesis

So how exactly did I become funemployed? I was laid off after my ad agency's Los Angeles office was shut down. Our main client was a bank that was seized and auctioned off by the FDIC. Bet you can't say that.

Unlike a lot of my fellow unemployed legions, I was not blindsided. I knew that the bank was in trouble about 6 months before they were seized and that without a client, there wasn't much hope of our office staying open. So, I watched it all unravel slowly. And it was torture.

The upside of it all is that I had a lot of time to process. So on my last day, I felt like I was released from hell. I was nervous --afraid of financial ruin-- but so happy to be free of the gloom and doom. Instead of being expelled from the Garden of Eden, I feel like I've been let in!