Jen Lancaster

P.S. I just finished reading Jen Lancaster's book "Bitter is the New Black." Noodle thought it read a lot like me (oh, the shallow, money-spending lifestyle followed by endless unemployment, coupled with witty, biting sarcasm - please, that's so not me). I thought it read a lot like my friend S.O. who went to the unemployment office with a Coach bag. Of course, Coach and Prada are about $500 difference, but there's that much difference between this location and Jen's Chicago-land. If I recall, S.O. showed up with a Coach bag and a fresh Starbucks. I think she even called me as she wheeled into the parking lot in her big SUV and said, "Should I carry my purse in?" Honey, in that neighborhood, there's no safe place for a purse. It's easier to just pour your contents on the hood of the car and let them pick. *

It's good reading for anyone who has ever spent 5 bucks on COFFEE! or $12 on ONE DRINK. Or been unemployed for longer than a month.

I don't know if people who have not experienced unemployment, on the heels of a good paying job that allowed them to spend frivolously, could appreciate the truth of it. They may appreciate the humor and wit, but not the truth. ~ ~ Jen and her husband lived on a level that exceeded mine. But in concept, we were similar. Oh how I adored Sunday afternoons on the patio of the Glass Onion with multiple drinks, oh how I enjoyed shopping in Target and Old Navy and buying cute pull over shirts that looked so cute on me (and looked the same as the other pull over shirts I had bought) and how I just loved loved loved calling my friends and saying "Oh, what a day! I just have to have a drink" and knowing they would know where to meet me. I loved buying an SUV that I so did not need (It had a six cd in-dash changer!). And somehow, it all went away one day.

At 4p.m. (pause) On a Friday (pause) 2 weeks before Christmas. But you were there, (maybe) and it's over. Six months later as I used up the last of my savings and begged the landlord for one week's grace on rent until I got my first paycheck, it ended.

But I say all this just to say that I could completely relate to Jen's book. Completely. To a point that it almost scared me. Or as my friend from high school, John, likes to write it, "Skert me."

Anyway, If you've ever been in line at the unemployment office with a fresh Starbucks in hand, read the book. It's a good one.



* I should be fair and say the last time I went, one of the guys in line voluntarily told me where to go and get food stamps. That was very polite of him. If they government still gave out those big blocks of cheese, I would have gone. I always loved that stuff.