Tools for the Hesitant Zombie

being unemployed during a recession sucks. not only is the traditional job hunt (seek, send, wait, give up; repeat ad infinitum) a deflating experience, but you're isolated, broke and depressed.

if it's any comfort, isolated broke and depressed are prime qualifications for zombiedom.

besides, once you've lived the "effort > reward" equation, sliding into the zombie zone is quite easy. but if you find yourself haunted by pesky pockets of positivism, then you may need a game plan to reach that blissful zombatic state of "meh":

8 Indispensable Zombie Tools

1. Abandon the idea of food. Zombies don't eat. Besides, when you seriously consider the condition of your food - chemical and hormonal additives, recalls and FDA bans, bacterial growth and pests, questionable categorization as "food" (looking at you, Cheetos) - your brain will explode, and you can eat that.
2. Drink coffee. Two benefits: One, it kills your useless appetite (see Tool #1); Two, it enables you to get out of the house and surf mindlessly for hours in your local WiFi cafe nursing frozen, congealed house brew and sucking up space.
3. Go Emo. Grow long greasy bangs, slouch, wear black and purple, snarl at people who commute on their bikes. This way you can break slowly into zombiedom while presenting a trendy facade based on shitty music and cultural irrelevance.
4. Declare devotion to "Grey's Anatomy" without any irony whatsoever.
5. Frequent boutique clothing stores that boast a wide collection of hand-screened T-shirts by local artisans priced at around $115. Buy nothing. Complain loudly about the destruction of individualism when the store closes after 6 months.
6. Say that Windows 7 was "your idea" (again without irony). Should anyone mention that Windows 7 is basically Mac OS X from last century, flip your long greasy bangs and call the person an elitist. (For obvious reasons, never confess that you're actually Snow-Leoparded out the ass. You're a zombie, not a moron.)
   
7. Worry about Conan O'Brien's future.
8. Tweet and tag with #thoughtsonthetoilet. Over-abbreviate and misspell lest someone imagines that you still have a brain cell left.

still functional? well, there is always the solid fallback of cheap alcohol. it is, after all, "the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems." (homer simpson)