To the unknown person in Atlanta, GA, who dropped by at 2:58:12 yesterday...
...and to the other 29,999 people who've stumbled in before them, and the 23 who've come through since...
Thank you. All of you.
It's really weird to think of how long this blog has been running; in the grand scheme of bloghood, it's about middle-aged, I would guess. I wasn't on the cutting-edge--I consider those to be the people who had a blog before there was a word for them, when it was called "a website" or "an online journal" and was seen as a daring, faintly-dangerous thing to do--but three years, three months, and twelve days is still a long time to stick with anything, particularly a lot of rambling, disconnected thoughts and whining. I would say that this blog probably represents most of what people who hate blogs hate them for; it's entirely personal; full of Too Much Info-type details; alternately whiny, over-confessional, and self-congratulatory. It's not political, it doesn't involve celebs, and it will never be quoted on any cable-news program. And I'll never be up at the tip-top of the Technorati hierarchy, which is fine with me, I guess.
Online relationships are very strange things. I was on Prodigy back in 1992, as part of a message board called "Words Together", and in early 1993 I flew out to Berkeley for a meet-up. Most of my friends, family, and acquaintances were sure that I'd be hacked into my component parts and mailed to a bus locker in North Dakota; instead, I met some very nice people and went to a Grateful Dead concert. In 1993, just before I got married, I started talking to a guy on AOL; I didn't meet him til years later, but we stayed in touch for a long while. When I was seeing JP, before I left Dave, I spent time IMing a couple of guys, just as friends; then, after JP died, when I was in North Carolina, I used to hang out in a chatroom on AOL. This was in 1996, when the Internet was just gathering steam; at that time, you could actually chat in a chatroom, and if you were very lucky, you could find intelligent conversation mixed in with the constant requests for "age/sex/location" and "ne1 wanna cyber?" The chatroom I was part of had many incarnations--"Sensual Intelligence" and "Men With Minds" were two of the names I recall--and a cast of regulars, with all the drama and intrigue of a junior-high cheerleading squad. I met quite a few people from that room, actually--there were various meet-ups, and one guy who came to North Carolina against my better judgement, because he really liked me and thought we were meant for each other; that weekend ended with a kiss on the forehead and a statement that still rings true: "You live too much in the past," he said, and he was right. A few months later he was engaged to another one of the "regulars".
Then there have been my many correspondents; people from newsgroups, from message-boards, from methadone forums and grief-support websites and Layne Staley memorial pages; a couple of guys who answered my personal ad but decided I had more potential as a pen-pal than as a love interest. Most of my correspondences have been lost, though I was more-scrupulous than most in saving them--I have disks filled with IM conversations from the early and mid-1990's. Yahoo purged my main e-mail account once, without my knowledge, and claimed they couldn't restore what was lost; I lost about five years of messages that way. Most of them probably weren't worth the bytes they were written on, I guess, but together they formed a picture of that part of my life. I think about that a lot--not just for my life, but on a grand scale. I wonder how many geniuses there are out there, people who will one day be famous, but there will be nothing left of their correspondences and daily minutiae for future generations to pore over because it was all stored on hard-drives and keychain disks and floppies. I wonder what will go in the Smithsonian a hundred years from now.
Mostly I wonder what happened to those people I used to talk to--to Laz and Cally and Zrst and Kiwi and Melly and RNA, to JNabis and AuroraDwn and Abbbycatt and Dross and Scorp and MGFP04C and "Kim" who was really Josh, who was only 16 and hadn't come out to his parents yet. I wonder what happened to all these people I knew by nicknames--8 letters or less and no special characters--and by the personas they created for themselves, out here where "no one can tell you're a dog". Some of them were pretty much just as they represented, and some of them recreated themselves completely--wedged their mousy lives and uninspired days into red corsets and high heels, and became the persons they always imagined themselves to be. I tried to be more my real self than any witty, dangerous fantasy-woman, and if I wasn't the most sparkling, in-demand conversationalist in the chat-rooms, I was at least recognized for being real. I think about all those people sometimes; I wonder if they ever think of me, if they ever think "Hmmm...I wonder whatever happened to __________."
As I wrote in a letter to Lou, in jail in Ohio, "the Internet is a hell of a thing." There are a lot of people in my life I'd like to find, people who live below the radar and who are thus impervious to Google, who can't be found through People Search; generally these are the ones I miss the most. (Then again, if I find them, I wouldn't have to miss them, I guess--so that makes sense.) Between the constantly-shifting identities and the vagaries of persistence on the Internet, I've begun to wonder if it's not a better tool for losing people than for finding them, sometimes.
I guess what I'm saying, in a roundabout, verbose way, is this: Thank you for being a part of my life, even if it's "just" through words on a screen...because even if it is, it really isn't "just" anything. There's no such thing as "just" a part of someone's life.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Generalized Awesomeness
I have the most awesome roomie ever. (And no, Firefly, that doesn't diminish your awesome-roomie-ness in the slightest, but after you read what Tim did for me as a Christmas present, you will understand my superlatives.)
I spent Christmas Eve at Mom's, as usual. That's been the family tradition; Christmas Eve dinner with Mom, the traditional Gospel reading *, and luminaria** placed out in front of the house. Mom went off to Midnight Mass, I took my heathen self to bed, and next morning we opened presents. Around lunchtime, I drove back here to pick up Tim, who was coming to dinner because Mom couldn't stand the thought of anyone being alone on Christmas. Of course, Tim, who is used to being alone on Christmas, found this outrageously awkward and intimidating, for which I can't say I blame him--back when he was "CR's friend", he was not so much looked upon with kindness by the family circle. Guilt by association, I guess; but now that he's "Gladys's roommate", that's a whole new situation, and requires a different approach. And Mom, who feels awkward just by nature, spent the intervening few days questioning me about what would and would not be appropriate for discussion. So the few days leading up to Christmas were spent calming everyone's nerves, and wondering how, exactly, I'd gotten into this.
Christmas dinner went fine, despite everyone's angst, and despite the meat thermometer, which apparently has issues with the concept of "medium" vs. "medium-well" as regards steaks. Since I was in charge of the steaks, the shame of overdone meat fell upon my shoulders, even though everyone claimed it was fine. Of course, if everyone would just eat their meat rare like me, we would have had no problems at all. But it wasn't nearly as awkward as all of us feared it would be.
We came home after dinner, Tim and I, and he went into his room and told me my gift was "upstairs". I wasn't sure if he was entirely serious--we spend a great deal of time abusing each other's credulity--so I figured if there was anything to find, I'd find it. I peered into my room--nothing unusual there. I went into the bathroom and discovered that the air-conditioner, previously in my bedroom window, had been removed for the season and placed on a sheet of cardboard to drain. I was thrilled--I had been meaning to do that for the longest time, but it's an irritating job and anyway I have nowhere to put it, as my closet is still in unusable condition. So I paged Tim on the cordless phone*** and said "Thank you!"
"For what?" he said.
"For taking out my air-conditioner," I told him. "That was really great!"
"Thanks," he said. A few minutes later, he paged me back. "That totally wasn't your Christmas present."
"Was it the fresh box of Christmas Q-Tips in the bathroom?" I asked.
"Well yeah, that too, but...Keep looking," he said.
By now I was totally perplexed, trying to figure out what, exactly, he was talking about..."Upstairs," he says, and I'm upstairs, and it's not anything obvious in my room except the air conditioner being moved, which he says isn't it, and there's nothing in the bathroom, and....no, the closet didn't miraculously get fixed, so it's not that, and there's nothing out of place in the hall closet, and the only other thing up here is....
Light bulb.
I opened the door of LJ's room.
It was no longer LJ's room. The floor had been vacuumed into a state of immaculateness--or at least, as immaculate as a carpet can be after two years of gratuitous abuse. The bed had been moved and, as much as possible, made; there was a comforter and pillows covering it, anyway. The little TV from the basement had been placed on the little stereo stand which we had moved from the living room when LJ removed his stereo from it; the dresser was beside the bed, with a lamp on it, and an alarm clock. It looked, in short, like a guest bedroom, instead of something you might access through a dark alleyway after being beckoned by a middle-aged bottle-blonde in a too-tight skirt and too much bright-red lipstick.****
In case he hadn't heard my yell of "Awesome!" I paged Tim and yelled it into the phone. He came upstairs and told me the story of the process (including a confirmation of my dark prediction of what would become of anyone who would attempt to vacuum that room*****.) "I wasn't sure, though," he said, "that it was such a good idea....I mean, I didn't know how you'd feel about me doing this. I didn't know if maybe you had been putting it off for a reason...like, an emotional reason..."
"No," I assured him, "I was putting it off because I knew it was going to be disgusting in here and I didn't feel up to the challenge."
"Well, I mean...I didn't have any money to get you anything, so I figured...Anyway, Merry Christmas," he said. I gave him a hug.
And then--the ultimate.
"Oh yeah," he said, as he descended the stairs. "I fixed the faucet in the downstairs bathroom, too."
The day I moved into this house, nearly three and a half years ago, I noticed that there were a lot of problems with it which hadn't been evident on inspection. One of the subtlest was in the first-floor bath; when I turned the hot-water knob, I got cold water, and vice versa. I had mentioned it to the seller's agent, and his response set the tone for the entire experience: "It's an old house--you can't expect it to be perfect." If someone had said this BEFORE the closing, I would not be living here today; unfortunately, by the time of that conversation, all the papers were signed and there was nothing to be done.
Throughout the time I've been here, that faucet has been symbolic of all the small aggravations here. I didn't want to mess with it myself, lest I cause something even WORSE to go wrong ******; during the tenures of all my various repair-people, there were always more-pressing things to do, and so the faucets stayed reversed...until Christmas, when Tim fixed them.
I went into the bathroom and turned the knobs. Sure enough--the hot-water knob produced hot water, the cold-water knob produced cold.
I'm not sure, but these two incidents of home repair may rank among the most awesome Christmas presents I've ever received.
However, the most awesome thing of all is this: the holiday season is, mercifully, almost over, and if all goes as I expect, people will start hiring again soon. I had an interview for a job this past Tuesday, which I almost certainly didn't get, and I have another one scheduled for this coming Thursday. The Thursday job is downtown, and has an added advantage: I applied for one job they'd posted, and after looking at my experience, they decided they'd rather interview me for a different, higher-level position. I'm really, REALLY hopeful on this one, but I'm not holding my breath just yet.
But something needs to happen soon; the financial situation is becoming fairly dire, and according to the folks at Unemployment, it will take about a month before they can hear my appeal. I filed it last week, but they have to schedule a hearing--which may, if I'm lucky, leave me in the entertaining position of having to take some time away from a NEW job so that I can get compensation for being fired from the OLD one. Life is just a ceaseless round of hilarity, you know? (An ideal outcome would be this: my back-dated unemployment would arrive at the same time as my income-tax refund, which I always get in February after e-filing. That would solve many, many problems all at once.)
Even with the money problems, I'd have to say things are going very well indeed...but I won't miss the money problems when they're gone!!
_______________________________________________________________
*Performed by yours truly, no less; apparently this has been a family Christmas rite for, as Mom calculated this year, probably approaching 200 years now. Her parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents did it; after that she can't trace, but she's already threatened to haunt me if I break the chain after she dies. As I told her this Christmas when she repeated this threat, there's a pretty decent chance at this point that what she's condemning me to is a couple dozen Christmas Eves spent reading the Gospel to cats, but I don't think that unsettled her nearly as much as it should have.
**"Luminaria"--paper bags filled with a bed of sand and with tea-light candles placed inside. We did this when I was a kid, when my dad was alive, and we have quite a few stories about what happens when you put out candles in paper bags on a windy night, or in a blizzard, or any number of other conditions.
***Another contribution of Tim's; nestled among his belongings was a two-unit cordless-phone system. We discovered the paging system by accident, and spent a couple of childlike hours paging each other with every random thought, question, and belch that came into being. It's wonderful to be able to communicate without hollering down the stairs.
****I still want to borrow some sage incense from Debbi, so I can burn off all the evil in that room. Seriously--the number of men who cheated on their girlfriends in that room, and the number of evil plots that were hatched there, and the sheer weight of all the slimy thoughts, leaves a sense of palpable ugliness that no conventional cleaning products could remove.
*****I learned about this a few days after the last time LJ vacuumed that room, when I was thwarted in the attempt to clean a patch of crumbs off the living-room carpet. I went over the crumbs four or five times, and still they were there. I emptied the dust cup--still no suction. I pulled off the hose--nothing. I pulled off the hose at the other end, where it joined the vacuum itself, and spent a jolly hour--no exaggeration!--with a needle-nosed pliers, pulling out clots of impacted fluff, dust, cat-hair, and god-knows-what from the vacuum cleaner's innards. In the end, there were at least THREE dust-cups full of debris piled in the trash can by the time I could get the machine to work properly. LJ, of course, denied all wrongdoing.
******For example: as a result of a simple request to Morris the Handyman to move the upstairs bathroom sink, I ended up (two years later!) having spent over six thousand dollars --repairs to the joists below the bathroom, a new kitchen ceiling, and three grand worth of money lost to Bob the Plumber. I stopped making small requests after that.
I spent Christmas Eve at Mom's, as usual. That's been the family tradition; Christmas Eve dinner with Mom, the traditional Gospel reading *, and luminaria** placed out in front of the house. Mom went off to Midnight Mass, I took my heathen self to bed, and next morning we opened presents. Around lunchtime, I drove back here to pick up Tim, who was coming to dinner because Mom couldn't stand the thought of anyone being alone on Christmas. Of course, Tim, who is used to being alone on Christmas, found this outrageously awkward and intimidating, for which I can't say I blame him--back when he was "CR's friend", he was not so much looked upon with kindness by the family circle. Guilt by association, I guess; but now that he's "Gladys's roommate", that's a whole new situation, and requires a different approach. And Mom, who feels awkward just by nature, spent the intervening few days questioning me about what would and would not be appropriate for discussion. So the few days leading up to Christmas were spent calming everyone's nerves, and wondering how, exactly, I'd gotten into this.
Christmas dinner went fine, despite everyone's angst, and despite the meat thermometer, which apparently has issues with the concept of "medium" vs. "medium-well" as regards steaks. Since I was in charge of the steaks, the shame of overdone meat fell upon my shoulders, even though everyone claimed it was fine. Of course, if everyone would just eat their meat rare like me, we would have had no problems at all. But it wasn't nearly as awkward as all of us feared it would be.
We came home after dinner, Tim and I, and he went into his room and told me my gift was "upstairs". I wasn't sure if he was entirely serious--we spend a great deal of time abusing each other's credulity--so I figured if there was anything to find, I'd find it. I peered into my room--nothing unusual there. I went into the bathroom and discovered that the air-conditioner, previously in my bedroom window, had been removed for the season and placed on a sheet of cardboard to drain. I was thrilled--I had been meaning to do that for the longest time, but it's an irritating job and anyway I have nowhere to put it, as my closet is still in unusable condition. So I paged Tim on the cordless phone*** and said "Thank you!"
"For what?" he said.
"For taking out my air-conditioner," I told him. "That was really great!"
"Thanks," he said. A few minutes later, he paged me back. "That totally wasn't your Christmas present."
"Was it the fresh box of Christmas Q-Tips in the bathroom?" I asked.
"Well yeah, that too, but...Keep looking," he said.
By now I was totally perplexed, trying to figure out what, exactly, he was talking about..."Upstairs," he says, and I'm upstairs, and it's not anything obvious in my room except the air conditioner being moved, which he says isn't it, and there's nothing in the bathroom, and....no, the closet didn't miraculously get fixed, so it's not that, and there's nothing out of place in the hall closet, and the only other thing up here is....
Light bulb.
I opened the door of LJ's room.
It was no longer LJ's room. The floor had been vacuumed into a state of immaculateness--or at least, as immaculate as a carpet can be after two years of gratuitous abuse. The bed had been moved and, as much as possible, made; there was a comforter and pillows covering it, anyway. The little TV from the basement had been placed on the little stereo stand which we had moved from the living room when LJ removed his stereo from it; the dresser was beside the bed, with a lamp on it, and an alarm clock. It looked, in short, like a guest bedroom, instead of something you might access through a dark alleyway after being beckoned by a middle-aged bottle-blonde in a too-tight skirt and too much bright-red lipstick.****
In case he hadn't heard my yell of "Awesome!" I paged Tim and yelled it into the phone. He came upstairs and told me the story of the process (including a confirmation of my dark prediction of what would become of anyone who would attempt to vacuum that room*****.) "I wasn't sure, though," he said, "that it was such a good idea....I mean, I didn't know how you'd feel about me doing this. I didn't know if maybe you had been putting it off for a reason...like, an emotional reason..."
"No," I assured him, "I was putting it off because I knew it was going to be disgusting in here and I didn't feel up to the challenge."
"Well, I mean...I didn't have any money to get you anything, so I figured...Anyway, Merry Christmas," he said. I gave him a hug.
And then--the ultimate.
"Oh yeah," he said, as he descended the stairs. "I fixed the faucet in the downstairs bathroom, too."
The day I moved into this house, nearly three and a half years ago, I noticed that there were a lot of problems with it which hadn't been evident on inspection. One of the subtlest was in the first-floor bath; when I turned the hot-water knob, I got cold water, and vice versa. I had mentioned it to the seller's agent, and his response set the tone for the entire experience: "It's an old house--you can't expect it to be perfect." If someone had said this BEFORE the closing, I would not be living here today; unfortunately, by the time of that conversation, all the papers were signed and there was nothing to be done.
Throughout the time I've been here, that faucet has been symbolic of all the small aggravations here. I didn't want to mess with it myself, lest I cause something even WORSE to go wrong ******; during the tenures of all my various repair-people, there were always more-pressing things to do, and so the faucets stayed reversed...until Christmas, when Tim fixed them.
I went into the bathroom and turned the knobs. Sure enough--the hot-water knob produced hot water, the cold-water knob produced cold.
I'm not sure, but these two incidents of home repair may rank among the most awesome Christmas presents I've ever received.
However, the most awesome thing of all is this: the holiday season is, mercifully, almost over, and if all goes as I expect, people will start hiring again soon. I had an interview for a job this past Tuesday, which I almost certainly didn't get, and I have another one scheduled for this coming Thursday. The Thursday job is downtown, and has an added advantage: I applied for one job they'd posted, and after looking at my experience, they decided they'd rather interview me for a different, higher-level position. I'm really, REALLY hopeful on this one, but I'm not holding my breath just yet.
But something needs to happen soon; the financial situation is becoming fairly dire, and according to the folks at Unemployment, it will take about a month before they can hear my appeal. I filed it last week, but they have to schedule a hearing--which may, if I'm lucky, leave me in the entertaining position of having to take some time away from a NEW job so that I can get compensation for being fired from the OLD one. Life is just a ceaseless round of hilarity, you know? (An ideal outcome would be this: my back-dated unemployment would arrive at the same time as my income-tax refund, which I always get in February after e-filing. That would solve many, many problems all at once.)
Even with the money problems, I'd have to say things are going very well indeed...but I won't miss the money problems when they're gone!!
_______________________________________________________________
*Performed by yours truly, no less; apparently this has been a family Christmas rite for, as Mom calculated this year, probably approaching 200 years now. Her parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents did it; after that she can't trace, but she's already threatened to haunt me if I break the chain after she dies. As I told her this Christmas when she repeated this threat, there's a pretty decent chance at this point that what she's condemning me to is a couple dozen Christmas Eves spent reading the Gospel to cats, but I don't think that unsettled her nearly as much as it should have.
**"Luminaria"--paper bags filled with a bed of sand and with tea-light candles placed inside. We did this when I was a kid, when my dad was alive, and we have quite a few stories about what happens when you put out candles in paper bags on a windy night, or in a blizzard, or any number of other conditions.
***Another contribution of Tim's; nestled among his belongings was a two-unit cordless-phone system. We discovered the paging system by accident, and spent a couple of childlike hours paging each other with every random thought, question, and belch that came into being. It's wonderful to be able to communicate without hollering down the stairs.
****I still want to borrow some sage incense from Debbi, so I can burn off all the evil in that room. Seriously--the number of men who cheated on their girlfriends in that room, and the number of evil plots that were hatched there, and the sheer weight of all the slimy thoughts, leaves a sense of palpable ugliness that no conventional cleaning products could remove.
*****I learned about this a few days after the last time LJ vacuumed that room, when I was thwarted in the attempt to clean a patch of crumbs off the living-room carpet. I went over the crumbs four or five times, and still they were there. I emptied the dust cup--still no suction. I pulled off the hose--nothing. I pulled off the hose at the other end, where it joined the vacuum itself, and spent a jolly hour--no exaggeration!--with a needle-nosed pliers, pulling out clots of impacted fluff, dust, cat-hair, and god-knows-what from the vacuum cleaner's innards. In the end, there were at least THREE dust-cups full of debris piled in the trash can by the time I could get the machine to work properly. LJ, of course, denied all wrongdoing.
******For example: as a result of a simple request to Morris the Handyman to move the upstairs bathroom sink, I ended up (two years later!) having spent over six thousand dollars --repairs to the joists below the bathroom, a new kitchen ceiling, and three grand worth of money lost to Bob the Plumber. I stopped making small requests after that.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Well, I'm Off...
...to Mom's for a couple of days.
I hope everybody has the best possible holiday full of people they love. (And cats, if you've got 'em.)
See you Monday night!
I hope everybody has the best possible holiday full of people they love. (And cats, if you've got 'em.)
See you Monday night!
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Just Because I Didn't Say It Doesn't Mean It Didn't Happen
Note: In an effort to curb my abuse of parentheses and the consequent, almost-continual derailing of my trains of thought, I'm now moving to an end-note system for my posts. Wherever you see asterisks (*) after a sentence, if you scroll to the end of the post, you'll find a semi-related tangent. Hopefully now I'll be able to complete a thought once in a while, before bounding off to some other, equally-fertile ground.
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Hey, you notice that so far we haven't had an "LJ is gone again, hallelujah*" post??
There's a good reason for that.
No, he's not still here. But it's only this morning that I'm willing to accept his absence as a fact.
Confused? Yeah, so was I. He was here Friday morning; he was here Friday night; he was here Saturday morning and afternoon. Saturday evening, I went to see the Christmas lights at the zoo with Debbi.** When I returned, he wasn't here; Tim said he'd come back for a few minutes with a friend of his, and then he'd left again. Since that's pretty much an hourly occurrence when LJ is in town, I figured he'd come back around 4 AM or so, probably drunk, and either sleep the day away or puke the day away, depending on the hangover.
But Sunday morning came: no LJ.
Sunday afternoon came: no LJ.
Sunday evening, and Monday morning, and Monday evening, and Tuesday came: no LJ. Not a sign of him, nor a phone call to tell me "hey, you were out when I left, but I just wanted to let you know I made it back safe" or anything like that.*** Apparently I am now so insignificant as not to merit such courtesies; after all, you don't have to call a hotelier and tell him that you're leaving. (Of course, even at a hotel, you DO have to check out...which is more than I got.)
Curiously, this is the last straw. This is the offense that allows me to say, when he calls, "Hey, listen, if there's anything you want that's left at the house, let me know so I can drop it off at your mom's--anything else is going in the trash or going to Goodwill, because you now officially live elsewhere. " I mean, seriously. What a jerk.
So: LJ is gone, finally, again. And this time, I think it's for good. (Well, I mean, it was always for GOOD, but this time I think the for-good-ness is permanent.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes:
* (I had to look this up. Didn't there used to be an "i" in there somewhere??)
**(Debbi's doing well, though in a few months she'll weigh less than me, for the first time in our adult lives, and I don't know how I feel about that. Or rather, I DO know how I feel about that, but would prefer not to acknowledge it because a) it seems petty, and b) acknowledging that it bothers me would open the door to the possibility of having to DO something about it, and frankly I'm just not ready for the whole diet-and-exercise hoo-raw right now.)
***(Also no acknowledgement of the $110 he was supposed to collect for the cell-phone bill from the sister of the friend who's on my cell-phone plan but now locked up, so his sister is keeping the phone and she'll pay the bill on time, she PROMISES. Well, the bill is due again, and I've sent her a text message asking her to call me, and I've tried to call the number but she doesn't answer, and I'm sure she doesn't have the voicemail password, so if it gets to be next Friday when the bill is due again and I don't have $220--$110 for the bill I already paid and $110 for the current month--I'm reporting the phone as "lost", changing the number, and going to the cheapest possible plan. I've been more patient than most people would be--originally one friend was on the plan, and he was going to pay, he PROMISED--but then he didn't, and LJ took the phone away and gave it to this other friend. The other friend was good about paying--except he paid LJ, expecting him to give it to me, which rarely happened (about twice in the 2 years he's been on the plan.) Now HE's locked up, and his sister wants the phone but apparently doesn't want to pay...well, the charity bureau is now closed, as I've gone out of the "giving" line and moved into the "getting" line.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey, you notice that so far we haven't had an "LJ is gone again, hallelujah*" post??
There's a good reason for that.
No, he's not still here. But it's only this morning that I'm willing to accept his absence as a fact.
Confused? Yeah, so was I. He was here Friday morning; he was here Friday night; he was here Saturday morning and afternoon. Saturday evening, I went to see the Christmas lights at the zoo with Debbi.** When I returned, he wasn't here; Tim said he'd come back for a few minutes with a friend of his, and then he'd left again. Since that's pretty much an hourly occurrence when LJ is in town, I figured he'd come back around 4 AM or so, probably drunk, and either sleep the day away or puke the day away, depending on the hangover.
But Sunday morning came: no LJ.
Sunday afternoon came: no LJ.
Sunday evening, and Monday morning, and Monday evening, and Tuesday came: no LJ. Not a sign of him, nor a phone call to tell me "hey, you were out when I left, but I just wanted to let you know I made it back safe" or anything like that.*** Apparently I am now so insignificant as not to merit such courtesies; after all, you don't have to call a hotelier and tell him that you're leaving. (Of course, even at a hotel, you DO have to check out...which is more than I got.)
Curiously, this is the last straw. This is the offense that allows me to say, when he calls, "Hey, listen, if there's anything you want that's left at the house, let me know so I can drop it off at your mom's--anything else is going in the trash or going to Goodwill, because you now officially live elsewhere. " I mean, seriously. What a jerk.
So: LJ is gone, finally, again. And this time, I think it's for good. (Well, I mean, it was always for GOOD, but this time I think the for-good-ness is permanent.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes:
* (I had to look this up. Didn't there used to be an "i" in there somewhere??)
**(Debbi's doing well, though in a few months she'll weigh less than me, for the first time in our adult lives, and I don't know how I feel about that. Or rather, I DO know how I feel about that, but would prefer not to acknowledge it because a) it seems petty, and b) acknowledging that it bothers me would open the door to the possibility of having to DO something about it, and frankly I'm just not ready for the whole diet-and-exercise hoo-raw right now.)
***(Also no acknowledgement of the $110 he was supposed to collect for the cell-phone bill from the sister of the friend who's on my cell-phone plan but now locked up, so his sister is keeping the phone and she'll pay the bill on time, she PROMISES. Well, the bill is due again, and I've sent her a text message asking her to call me, and I've tried to call the number but she doesn't answer, and I'm sure she doesn't have the voicemail password, so if it gets to be next Friday when the bill is due again and I don't have $220--$110 for the bill I already paid and $110 for the current month--I'm reporting the phone as "lost", changing the number, and going to the cheapest possible plan. I've been more patient than most people would be--originally one friend was on the plan, and he was going to pay, he PROMISED--but then he didn't, and LJ took the phone away and gave it to this other friend. The other friend was good about paying--except he paid LJ, expecting him to give it to me, which rarely happened (about twice in the 2 years he's been on the plan.) Now HE's locked up, and his sister wants the phone but apparently doesn't want to pay...well, the charity bureau is now closed, as I've gone out of the "giving" line and moved into the "getting" line.)
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Hindsight, 20-20 Vision, and Other Irritants
Sitting here at my neatly-organized computer desk in my nice clean living room, it occurs to me:
If I'd spent the 54 days of my unemployment writing my book instead of sleeping late, eating Little Debbie Swiss Rolls, watching cartoons, playing computer games, and cleaning house, I could conceivably have finished my project--thereby accomplishing something that would guarantee I could spend the rest of my life doing all of the above, instead of working another nine-to-five with limited room for advancement.
This is why I don't like it when things occur to me. They're always things I SHOULD have done. This has never happened: "Hey, it occurs to me that sleeping til noon every day was the PERFECT plan!" That never happens. (The perfect-plan part never happens. The sleeping-til-noon part?? Oh yeah. My circadian rhythms are all to crap from this unemployment thing, and I've got all sorts of bad habits to break when I DO get hired somewhere. But I'm a night-owl by nature, and it's been fun to indulge that side of myself.)
It's pretty much a given, now, that I won't be working til after the first of the year. I know for a fact that I've never been out of work this long before; I'm fairly sure, as well, that I've never been on so many fruitless interviews before. I'm wondering if maybe that's got something to do with my diminished self-esteem--if maybe I'm not as able to sell myself as I used to be. It wouldn't surprise me at all. (Debbi did a Tarot reading for me over the phone a few days ago, and she agreed too; she also said that within "four days to four weeks" I should receive an offer. I love Debbi to pieces, and I'd never dismiss the possibility that there are forces at work in the universe of which I know nothing--but that seems like an awfully wide span of time to count as an actual "prediction". But this is Debbi, my oldest friend, and I'd never say such a thing to her! Besides, I'd rather have her be right in this case.) I need to re-learn the fine art of corporate schmoozing; I used to be very good at giving potential employers and other authority figures the "right" answer--the one they wanted to hear. But lately I'm more inclined to be honest; when they ask me if I know how to do such-and-such, I'm much more likely to say "I haven't had any experience with ____ yet" than "I haven't done _____ exactly, but here are some things I've done that are similar..." I -know- how to interview, but lately I've been less-willing to do the necessary dance-steps. I'm hoping to find an employer who recognizes and respects that brand of straightforwardness, but I'm not holding my breath!
Even though I was hoping to have everything settled by Christmas, I have to admit: since it's not settled, I'm glad to have a few days off from the effort. Job-hunting takes a lot out of me. So til the first of the year, I'm just going to pull up my computer chair, my remote control, and my bowl of oatmeal, and relax for a while. I don't know how, exactly, but everything will be fine.
If I'd spent the 54 days of my unemployment writing my book instead of sleeping late, eating Little Debbie Swiss Rolls, watching cartoons, playing computer games, and cleaning house, I could conceivably have finished my project--thereby accomplishing something that would guarantee I could spend the rest of my life doing all of the above, instead of working another nine-to-five with limited room for advancement.
This is why I don't like it when things occur to me. They're always things I SHOULD have done. This has never happened: "Hey, it occurs to me that sleeping til noon every day was the PERFECT plan!" That never happens. (The perfect-plan part never happens. The sleeping-til-noon part?? Oh yeah. My circadian rhythms are all to crap from this unemployment thing, and I've got all sorts of bad habits to break when I DO get hired somewhere. But I'm a night-owl by nature, and it's been fun to indulge that side of myself.)
It's pretty much a given, now, that I won't be working til after the first of the year. I know for a fact that I've never been out of work this long before; I'm fairly sure, as well, that I've never been on so many fruitless interviews before. I'm wondering if maybe that's got something to do with my diminished self-esteem--if maybe I'm not as able to sell myself as I used to be. It wouldn't surprise me at all. (Debbi did a Tarot reading for me over the phone a few days ago, and she agreed too; she also said that within "four days to four weeks" I should receive an offer. I love Debbi to pieces, and I'd never dismiss the possibility that there are forces at work in the universe of which I know nothing--but that seems like an awfully wide span of time to count as an actual "prediction". But this is Debbi, my oldest friend, and I'd never say such a thing to her! Besides, I'd rather have her be right in this case.) I need to re-learn the fine art of corporate schmoozing; I used to be very good at giving potential employers and other authority figures the "right" answer--the one they wanted to hear. But lately I'm more inclined to be honest; when they ask me if I know how to do such-and-such, I'm much more likely to say "I haven't had any experience with ____ yet" than "I haven't done _____ exactly, but here are some things I've done that are similar..." I -know- how to interview, but lately I've been less-willing to do the necessary dance-steps. I'm hoping to find an employer who recognizes and respects that brand of straightforwardness, but I'm not holding my breath!
Even though I was hoping to have everything settled by Christmas, I have to admit: since it's not settled, I'm glad to have a few days off from the effort. Job-hunting takes a lot out of me. So til the first of the year, I'm just going to pull up my computer chair, my remote control, and my bowl of oatmeal, and relax for a while. I don't know how, exactly, but everything will be fine.
Monday, December 18, 2006
They're Doing It Again
I got in the car today to run approximately seven thousand errands, and when I turned on the radio I discovered they were doing it again: Q101 is trying to kill me.
Just like last year, they're ending the year with "14 Years in 14 Days"--a retrospective of all their yearly countdowns since they became an alternative station back in 1993. Today was 1993.
Most of the time lately I've been able to deal with missing JP, mostly by not thinking at all about how much I miss him. I know it's not the healthiest way to handle it, but it's the best I can do for the moment; I've just got other things to deal with right now. On some level I think I've managed to believe that if I really try hard enough, I can come up with enough "other things to deal with" to fill up the rest of my life. Or I can keep dwelling in my imaginary little world, where just thinking about doing something or being something is as good as the actuality. If I dream of being a writer, or plan out how to be a writer, in my imaginary world I am excused from the work of actually writing. If I remember a better life, where I was happy and loved, I can live in that memory and avoid the work of accepting that it's different now, that it's never going to be like that again for me. And if I don't think about those things, or any of the other things that can hurt me, I can stay quiet inside and make it through another day.
But then sometimes there's a day like today--a day when I hear a song that reminds me--or a dozen songs that each remind me. And suddenly it's not so easy not to think about it anymore, humming along with songs that were playing on the radio when ...fill in the blank. Songs I remember from the apartment in the suburbs where I lived when Dave and I were married; songs I remember from the apartment in Humboldt Park, on JP's battered-but-loud stereo. Songs from the little storefront apartment with the amazing sunlight, or from the room at his mother's house, or from the little red Dodge we drove around. We attached worlds of meaning to those songs, and hearing them again just makes me want to sink to the ground and cry. I still miss JP so damn much sometimes...
I think I'll be staying out of the car for a few days. I don't think I could take hearing much of 1994 or '95...too close to my heart. Meanwhile, I think I'll sit on my sofa and watch Christmas shows..."The Year Without A Santa Claus" must be on, somewhere.
Just like last year, they're ending the year with "14 Years in 14 Days"--a retrospective of all their yearly countdowns since they became an alternative station back in 1993. Today was 1993.
Most of the time lately I've been able to deal with missing JP, mostly by not thinking at all about how much I miss him. I know it's not the healthiest way to handle it, but it's the best I can do for the moment; I've just got other things to deal with right now. On some level I think I've managed to believe that if I really try hard enough, I can come up with enough "other things to deal with" to fill up the rest of my life. Or I can keep dwelling in my imaginary little world, where just thinking about doing something or being something is as good as the actuality. If I dream of being a writer, or plan out how to be a writer, in my imaginary world I am excused from the work of actually writing. If I remember a better life, where I was happy and loved, I can live in that memory and avoid the work of accepting that it's different now, that it's never going to be like that again for me. And if I don't think about those things, or any of the other things that can hurt me, I can stay quiet inside and make it through another day.
But then sometimes there's a day like today--a day when I hear a song that reminds me--or a dozen songs that each remind me. And suddenly it's not so easy not to think about it anymore, humming along with songs that were playing on the radio when ...fill in the blank. Songs I remember from the apartment in the suburbs where I lived when Dave and I were married; songs I remember from the apartment in Humboldt Park, on JP's battered-but-loud stereo. Songs from the little storefront apartment with the amazing sunlight, or from the room at his mother's house, or from the little red Dodge we drove around. We attached worlds of meaning to those songs, and hearing them again just makes me want to sink to the ground and cry. I still miss JP so damn much sometimes...
I think I'll be staying out of the car for a few days. I don't think I could take hearing much of 1994 or '95...too close to my heart. Meanwhile, I think I'll sit on my sofa and watch Christmas shows..."The Year Without A Santa Claus" must be on, somewhere.
Friday, December 15, 2006
The Comcast Gods Have Silenced Me
Note: I have now been trying to post the post below for TWO FULL DAYS. Every time I try to post it, my Comcast cable broadband connection goes kerflooey and stays so for hours at a time. Comcast then attempts to tell me that it's something wrong with my computer, even though the connection was working minutes earlier and no change was made to the settings. I'm getting a wee teeny bit tired of Comcast, to say the very least.
I'll try this again:
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I've done what I can to enlarge that so it's readable, but Blogger has its own ideas of how large a picture can be, apparently. What you see above is a letter from the Illinois Department of Employment Security, otherwise known as the unemployment office. The letter is explaining why my application for benefits has been denied.
Here's the reason, in its entirety.
"The claimant was discharged from: BUTTWEASEL INC because: OF SLEEPING ON THE JOB. Since the reason for which the claimant was discharged constituted a violation of a known and reasonable company rule, the claimant was discharged for misconduct connected with the work."
I opened this letter, and within seconds both Tim and the cats had fled to various safe corners of the house. I was furious. "Furious" is actually a grave understatement. "Sleeping on the job"?? That information came from one of two places: either it came directly from Buttweasel Inc, or it came from my "caseworker" at the unemployment office. (She gets irony-quotes because when I called her, she loftily informed me that she was just about to go to lunch when I called, and when I offered to call back, she was gracious enough to actually take my call--with several breaks in the conversation so that she could negotiate with co-workers as to who was going for sandwiches, how much they would cost, and how much change she expected. Then, weeks later when I'd still heard nothing back from her, I left a message every day for five days sequentially and she never returned my call ONCE.)
Regardless of where this reinterpretation of my medical condition as "sleeping on the job" came from, it is wholly inaccurate and a gross distortion of the facts. We're talking about lapses in consciousness lasting 15-60 seconds at a time--they make it sound like I fluffed up a pillow, stuck a thumb in my mouth, and pulled up my blankie for a nice long nap. Needless to say, I WILL be appealing, and I WILL be requesting a different caseworker. I've called my doctor and asked for copies of my diagnosis, and proof that I'd made the appointment before I was fired. Once I have those, I'm going straight to the office and pleading my case. But regardless of whether or not they reverse their decision, I've decided: I do NOT like bureaucracies.
I have had ONE offer of employment, however. It was for a one-year contract position, no guarantee of work beyond that point--and it was 40 miles from home. One way. On two of the four most ghastly expressways in the Chicago metropolitan area: the Eisenhower (290) and the Elgin-O'Hare (90). I went to my interview at 1:30 on a Friday, and the traffic heading out there wasn't bad--but the reverse trip, at about 3:00, took me the better part of two hours. I am not sacrificing four hours a day to go to a job which could easily dump me at the end of the contract and leave me back in the same situation I'm in now. They wouldn't even be giving me benefits; I'd have to get them through the recruiting firm's insurance plan, which isn't that great. And worst of all, they weren't even willing to pay me what I was asking--I had raised my requirements when I realized how much gas I'd be burning, and how much wear and tear I'd be putting on the truck. The recruiter said the client was very interested in me, which...yeah, nice, but....I told him I'd have to pass.
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This is as far as I've managed to get in my effort to compose this post without Comcast kerfloo-age taking place. In the two days that have elapsed as I've attempted to post this:
1. The nonprofit job turned out to be offering not-nearly-enough money to make it worth my while;
2. Still no word on the other job--the manager's still sick;
3. With about five hours' notice yesterday, LJ showed up.
(No, I was not pleased either. He'll only be here for a day or so--he didn't bring any clothes with him, and plus he has his friend Damien's car, so he CAN'T be staying long...I devoutly hope. He came in about 2 AM, to tell me he'd just been robbed as he waited for one of his friends to get off work as a bouncer at a nearby club--the robber pulled a pistol and got $6 and a non-working cell phone for his trouble. Stupid.)
There have been other developments, as well, financial-and-I-don't-mean-that-in-a-good-way in nature, but I'm going to keep those gory details to myself for a bit. So far, nothing irrevocable has happened, and I'm working to make sure it stays that way...but the holidays are coming at a mighty-inconvenient time, this year.
I don't think I've ever looked forward to January so much before.
I'll try this again:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've done what I can to enlarge that so it's readable, but Blogger has its own ideas of how large a picture can be, apparently. What you see above is a letter from the Illinois Department of Employment Security, otherwise known as the unemployment office. The letter is explaining why my application for benefits has been denied.
Here's the reason, in its entirety.
"The claimant was discharged from: BUTTWEASEL INC because: OF SLEEPING ON THE JOB. Since the reason for which the claimant was discharged constituted a violation of a known and reasonable company rule, the claimant was discharged for misconduct connected with the work."
I opened this letter, and within seconds both Tim and the cats had fled to various safe corners of the house. I was furious. "Furious" is actually a grave understatement. "Sleeping on the job"?? That information came from one of two places: either it came directly from Buttweasel Inc, or it came from my "caseworker" at the unemployment office. (She gets irony-quotes because when I called her, she loftily informed me that she was just about to go to lunch when I called, and when I offered to call back, she was gracious enough to actually take my call--with several breaks in the conversation so that she could negotiate with co-workers as to who was going for sandwiches, how much they would cost, and how much change she expected. Then, weeks later when I'd still heard nothing back from her, I left a message every day for five days sequentially and she never returned my call ONCE.)
Regardless of where this reinterpretation of my medical condition as "sleeping on the job" came from, it is wholly inaccurate and a gross distortion of the facts. We're talking about lapses in consciousness lasting 15-60 seconds at a time--they make it sound like I fluffed up a pillow, stuck a thumb in my mouth, and pulled up my blankie for a nice long nap. Needless to say, I WILL be appealing, and I WILL be requesting a different caseworker. I've called my doctor and asked for copies of my diagnosis, and proof that I'd made the appointment before I was fired. Once I have those, I'm going straight to the office and pleading my case. But regardless of whether or not they reverse their decision, I've decided: I do NOT like bureaucracies.
I have had ONE offer of employment, however. It was for a one-year contract position, no guarantee of work beyond that point--and it was 40 miles from home. One way. On two of the four most ghastly expressways in the Chicago metropolitan area: the Eisenhower (290) and the Elgin-O'Hare (90). I went to my interview at 1:30 on a Friday, and the traffic heading out there wasn't bad--but the reverse trip, at about 3:00, took me the better part of two hours. I am not sacrificing four hours a day to go to a job which could easily dump me at the end of the contract and leave me back in the same situation I'm in now. They wouldn't even be giving me benefits; I'd have to get them through the recruiting firm's insurance plan, which isn't that great. And worst of all, they weren't even willing to pay me what I was asking--I had raised my requirements when I realized how much gas I'd be burning, and how much wear and tear I'd be putting on the truck. The recruiter said the client was very interested in me, which...yeah, nice, but....I told him I'd have to pass.
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This is as far as I've managed to get in my effort to compose this post without Comcast kerfloo-age taking place. In the two days that have elapsed as I've attempted to post this:
1. The nonprofit job turned out to be offering not-nearly-enough money to make it worth my while;
2. Still no word on the other job--the manager's still sick;
3. With about five hours' notice yesterday, LJ showed up.
(No, I was not pleased either. He'll only be here for a day or so--he didn't bring any clothes with him, and plus he has his friend Damien's car, so he CAN'T be staying long...I devoutly hope. He came in about 2 AM, to tell me he'd just been robbed as he waited for one of his friends to get off work as a bouncer at a nearby club--the robber pulled a pistol and got $6 and a non-working cell phone for his trouble. Stupid.)
There have been other developments, as well, financial-and-I-don't-mean-that-in-a-good-way in nature, but I'm going to keep those gory details to myself for a bit. So far, nothing irrevocable has happened, and I'm working to make sure it stays that way...but the holidays are coming at a mighty-inconvenient time, this year.
I don't think I've ever looked forward to January so much before.
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Here We Are...
Since Blogger has finally straightened itself out, here's my Snick pic...
Note: No cats were harmed in the creation of this photograph, although we did consider adding this one to a light cream sauce and a sprig of parsley.
We explained to Snickers, after we took this picture, that after a long day of tormenting BadCat and Cassidy, knocking papers off the table, and generally causing chaos, it MIGHT not be the best time to plant this particular idea in our heads. I mean, it might as well say "serving suggestion" underneath the picture.
Note: No cats were harmed in the creation of this photograph, although we did consider adding this one to a light cream sauce and a sprig of parsley.
We explained to Snickers, after we took this picture, that after a long day of tormenting BadCat and Cassidy, knocking papers off the table, and generally causing chaos, it MIGHT not be the best time to plant this particular idea in our heads. I mean, it might as well say "serving suggestion" underneath the picture.
I'm Losing Track Of My Numbers
I'm on the verge of a very unpleasant conclusion: I'm thinking maybe I might not have a job til after the first of the year.
I can't tell you how scary I find that. But all the interviews I've had have yielded nothing, and all the applications I've submitted have only yielded a very few interviews which have yielded, as mentioned, nothing. If it comes to that, I'm probably going to end up taking a pizza-delivery job or something, if there's nothing happening by Christmas. Just something to bring a little money in, you know?
Fortunately I am once again in a position in which I could do that, if necessity required, because I once again have custody of the truck. LJ called this morning around 7 AM to tell me that his friend was leaving to come back to Chicago, and that he'd be there around 2:00. At about 2:45 he showed up--but no one had told me I was going to need to drive him home after he dropped off the truck. On the long ride out to Maywood during rush hour, I solidified yet another of my growing list of Fundamental Characteristics I Can't Live Without In A Partner. Number one was "a job of some description"--not for the monetary aspect of it, but because if he has a job it serves as a fairly-good indicator that he's not going to be a complete and total leech. Number two, the one I came up with today: "the ability to plan more than five minutes into the immediate future." The next guy will realize, for example, BEFORE he takes the truck, that a) there is a deadline by which he needs to return it, and b) it might be a good idea to have enough money for BOTH legs of the journey before you depart. (He did leave me about six gallons of gas, though, so I won't have to injure anyone. That's a relief.)
The roommate situation continues to hum along; even the cats have learned to cohabit, and Snickers has been found asleep on Tim's bed more than once, much to my jealous maternal dismay. (I've accepted it, but the minute I find that kitten sucking his tail on Tim's bed, I'm taking him up to my room and locking him in there. The cat, not Tim. Tippy-Tail is for cat-mom's room ONLY.) I looked around the house this morning--clean kitchen, everything put away, reasonably-well-stocked fridge and shelves, vacuumed living room, sleeping cats, rearranged furniture--and I said "You know, things have just been so much...better since you've been here." It's true. The house is absolutely cleaner--a team effort--and it looks lived-in in a GOOD way, not in the clutter-explosion/high-end crackhouse way it looked when LJ's friends were tromping in and out at all hours of the day and night. It looks like a home, sort of, even if it's a starving-artist Bohemian aesthetic--which pretty well fits the personalities of the creatures who live here.
And speaking of the creatures who live here, I promised you a naughty-Snick picture; well, here it is.
Oh, wait--no it isn't. Because Blogger is being a butthead again. How refreshing and unusual--Blogger being a butthead and not letting me do something. What ARE the chances?
So I'll put it this way instead: as soon as Blogger pulls its brain out of mothballs and remembers what happens after we upload a picture, you'll get to see my Snick-pic. Stoopid Blogger.
I can't tell you how scary I find that. But all the interviews I've had have yielded nothing, and all the applications I've submitted have only yielded a very few interviews which have yielded, as mentioned, nothing. If it comes to that, I'm probably going to end up taking a pizza-delivery job or something, if there's nothing happening by Christmas. Just something to bring a little money in, you know?
Fortunately I am once again in a position in which I could do that, if necessity required, because I once again have custody of the truck. LJ called this morning around 7 AM to tell me that his friend was leaving to come back to Chicago, and that he'd be there around 2:00. At about 2:45 he showed up--but no one had told me I was going to need to drive him home after he dropped off the truck. On the long ride out to Maywood during rush hour, I solidified yet another of my growing list of Fundamental Characteristics I Can't Live Without In A Partner. Number one was "a job of some description"--not for the monetary aspect of it, but because if he has a job it serves as a fairly-good indicator that he's not going to be a complete and total leech. Number two, the one I came up with today: "the ability to plan more than five minutes into the immediate future." The next guy will realize, for example, BEFORE he takes the truck, that a) there is a deadline by which he needs to return it, and b) it might be a good idea to have enough money for BOTH legs of the journey before you depart. (He did leave me about six gallons of gas, though, so I won't have to injure anyone. That's a relief.)
The roommate situation continues to hum along; even the cats have learned to cohabit, and Snickers has been found asleep on Tim's bed more than once, much to my jealous maternal dismay. (I've accepted it, but the minute I find that kitten sucking his tail on Tim's bed, I'm taking him up to my room and locking him in there. The cat, not Tim. Tippy-Tail is for cat-mom's room ONLY.) I looked around the house this morning--clean kitchen, everything put away, reasonably-well-stocked fridge and shelves, vacuumed living room, sleeping cats, rearranged furniture--and I said "You know, things have just been so much...better since you've been here." It's true. The house is absolutely cleaner--a team effort--and it looks lived-in in a GOOD way, not in the clutter-explosion/high-end crackhouse way it looked when LJ's friends were tromping in and out at all hours of the day and night. It looks like a home, sort of, even if it's a starving-artist Bohemian aesthetic--which pretty well fits the personalities of the creatures who live here.
And speaking of the creatures who live here, I promised you a naughty-Snick picture; well, here it is.
Oh, wait--no it isn't. Because Blogger is being a butthead again. How refreshing and unusual--Blogger being a butthead and not letting me do something. What ARE the chances?
So I'll put it this way instead: as soon as Blogger pulls its brain out of mothballs and remembers what happens after we upload a picture, you'll get to see my Snick-pic. Stoopid Blogger.
Monday, December 4, 2006
Freedom, Day 5
Because one of you asked and I'd bet more than one of you are wondering:
Of COURSE the truck's not back yet. Did you think I was dealing with a mature adult who was capable of following through on a commitment? Bwahahaha...it is to laugh.
The best part? Even though it wasn't true, I told him specifically, three days ago, that I had an interview today, so I would need the truck back by this morning at the latest. (I am not normally big into lying, but I knew I had to give him SOME sort of concrete deadline backed up with something more than "I'd like to have it back", or I wouldn't see that truck for WEEKS.) He agreed, and promised that if anything came up, I'd know by Saturday night. Late last night--SUNDAY night, at 9 or 10 PM--he calls and tells me that his friend is bringing the truck back either "Monday night or maybe Tuesday." As far as he knows, I had an interview Monday afternoon. According to him, nobody had enough money for gas to get the truck back to Chicago til today. Yeaaah....rrriiiiiiiiiiight. Whatever, sure, yeah, don't care, buh-bye now. Jerk.
Even though I didn't have an interview, I DID have to get up this morning for my weekly trip to the methadone clinic. And since I had no truck, I had to take the bus. It's not far, mind you, but...Have any of you seen the Chicago weather reports over the last couple of days? We didn't get the foot of snow they predicted, but we got a good four to six inches, with a nice hard underlayment of pure sheet ice. And after the snow? It got cold. I mean, COLD cold. The kind of cold where you put on the big warm fleece hat even though you're fully aware that it makes you look like a total idiot, because the aftereffects of NOT wearing the big warm fleece hat would involve microwaving your head for six minutes on 40% power in an effort to defrost your ears. The kind of cold where, in order to keep the collar of your jacket zipped up over as much of your face as possible as you wait for your bus, you hunch up your shoulders as high as possible and end up with a tension headache afterwards. (Actually it wouldn't have been so bad, without the wind--and I'll freely admit that the city as a whole was totally spoiled throughout November, so this probably wasn't even that bad of a cold snap--it just SEEMED bad in contrast to our 67-degree Thanksgiving.) It was the kind of cold, in short, that makes people wish they didn't have to wait for the bus, that makes them stand at the bus stop thinking "Maybe I ought to get myself a car, you know?" Except in my case, I was standing at the bus stop thinking, "Oh, wait--I ALREADY have a car...(unprintable) triflin' (curseword) of a (swear) (profanity) (expletive)...and it's (unprintable) COLD!!!!!!"
UPDATE: As I wrote the last sentence, the phone rang.
Guess which newly-single blogstress now isn't getting her truck back til "Wednesday night, at the latest" because guess-who-else lost his cash card and some other person didn't have any money and a DIFFERENT party couldn't convince his wife to hand over $100? (Smart wife. Wish I'd been as smart.)
Did I mention "jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk, JERK!!!!!"? I didn't?? Please consider it mentioned, then.
I am SO glad he's GONE!!!!
(Incidentally, some comments from my last post's comments section: Ka, we missed you! Firefly--no breakup convo yet, but it's coming! Spins, thanks for being one of my best commentors, and you too, Misery...and to Teresa, welcome!!! (Teresa's from The Daily Kitten, which is a website totally devoted to pictures of adorable kittycats. Tim refers to it as "kitty porn" and that's not entirely a bad summary--everytime I visit the site, I want more kitties!!) In a day or two, I'm gonna post a new pic of Snickers....he's outgrown the "kitten" designation but oh, man, we just got a PRICELESS shot of him--caught in the act of being really, really bad.)
Of COURSE the truck's not back yet. Did you think I was dealing with a mature adult who was capable of following through on a commitment? Bwahahaha...it is to laugh.
The best part? Even though it wasn't true, I told him specifically, three days ago, that I had an interview today, so I would need the truck back by this morning at the latest. (I am not normally big into lying, but I knew I had to give him SOME sort of concrete deadline backed up with something more than "I'd like to have it back", or I wouldn't see that truck for WEEKS.) He agreed, and promised that if anything came up, I'd know by Saturday night. Late last night--SUNDAY night, at 9 or 10 PM--he calls and tells me that his friend is bringing the truck back either "Monday night or maybe Tuesday." As far as he knows, I had an interview Monday afternoon. According to him, nobody had enough money for gas to get the truck back to Chicago til today. Yeaaah....rrriiiiiiiiiiight. Whatever, sure, yeah, don't care, buh-bye now. Jerk.
Even though I didn't have an interview, I DID have to get up this morning for my weekly trip to the methadone clinic. And since I had no truck, I had to take the bus. It's not far, mind you, but...Have any of you seen the Chicago weather reports over the last couple of days? We didn't get the foot of snow they predicted, but we got a good four to six inches, with a nice hard underlayment of pure sheet ice. And after the snow? It got cold. I mean, COLD cold. The kind of cold where you put on the big warm fleece hat even though you're fully aware that it makes you look like a total idiot, because the aftereffects of NOT wearing the big warm fleece hat would involve microwaving your head for six minutes on 40% power in an effort to defrost your ears. The kind of cold where, in order to keep the collar of your jacket zipped up over as much of your face as possible as you wait for your bus, you hunch up your shoulders as high as possible and end up with a tension headache afterwards. (Actually it wouldn't have been so bad, without the wind--and I'll freely admit that the city as a whole was totally spoiled throughout November, so this probably wasn't even that bad of a cold snap--it just SEEMED bad in contrast to our 67-degree Thanksgiving.) It was the kind of cold, in short, that makes people wish they didn't have to wait for the bus, that makes them stand at the bus stop thinking "Maybe I ought to get myself a car, you know?" Except in my case, I was standing at the bus stop thinking, "Oh, wait--I ALREADY have a car...(unprintable) triflin' (curseword) of a (swear) (profanity) (expletive)...and it's (unprintable) COLD!!!!!!"
UPDATE: As I wrote the last sentence, the phone rang.
Guess which newly-single blogstress now isn't getting her truck back til "Wednesday night, at the latest" because guess-who-else lost his cash card and some other person didn't have any money and a DIFFERENT party couldn't convince his wife to hand over $100? (Smart wife. Wish I'd been as smart.)
Did I mention "jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk, JERK!!!!!"? I didn't?? Please consider it mentioned, then.
I am SO glad he's GONE!!!!
(Incidentally, some comments from my last post's comments section: Ka, we missed you! Firefly--no breakup convo yet, but it's coming! Spins, thanks for being one of my best commentors, and you too, Misery...and to Teresa, welcome!!! (Teresa's from The Daily Kitten, which is a website totally devoted to pictures of adorable kittycats. Tim refers to it as "kitty porn" and that's not entirely a bad summary--everytime I visit the site, I want more kitties!!) In a day or two, I'm gonna post a new pic of Snickers....he's outgrown the "kitten" designation but oh, man, we just got a PRICELESS shot of him--caught in the act of being really, really bad.)
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Drum Roll, Please!!
DING DONG
THE LEECH IS GONE!!!
THE LEECH IS GONE!!!
He took his stuff--nearly all of it, all the important stuff--and he SAYS he'll be back, but...eh.
The rest of his stuff--clearly stuff that doesn't mean shit to him, beat-up shoes and empty hangers and torn socks--is going in a bag in the basement.
I'm taking his room back. I've already put his cable box in Tim's room.
I am relieved. I will be more relieved Sunday night when the truck comes home. But in the meantime--he's gone. Finally, at last; he's gone.
Unemployment Month 2, Day 3
It's been a great deal of more-of-the-same here in Gladystopia; lots of resumes, a few interviews, and so far no job. I had an interview for a tech-writing position which I knew instantly I'd flubbed; the interviewer was asking me to explain how I would estimate how long a project would take, and I have no skills in that area whatsoever. I don't even know how to go about GETTING skills in that area; to my way of thinking, it goes something like this: someone gives me a task, tells me when they need it, and I get it done. Estimating a schedule...huh? I don't know if part of that is leftovers from Job-Before-Last, where every time I'd estimate something, my boss would change it and give me less time, then fuss when I wasn't done on her schedule; really, I think I just never learned to schedule like that. I'd also sent in a resume for a job I thought was absolutely MADE for me--a Mac tech lead, downtown Chicago, requesting all the skills I had--but when the agent sent my resume to the client, they said I wasn't senior enough. I disagree, but I'm not the one hiring.
There's light at the end of the tunnel, still; I have an interview tomorrow and one sometime next week. The next-week one is for a management position, which I don't really relish; and it's in the far northwest 'burbs, as well--no way do I want to make that commute!!! But according to the recruiter, they're really enthused about my resume. "Do they know I have ZERO management experience?" I asked him; he said apparently they're looking more for a tech who can manage than a manager who can do tech. Still--far northwest suburbs. If they really want me, they're going to have to come up off a LOAD of extra cash.
We're rapidly approaching the "beggars-can't-be-choosers" hour, however; my last severance check comes tomorrow, and then I have to start paying $300/month to COBRA my health insurance. (My test results came back, incidentally; I do have sleep apnea, and they want to start me on the CPAP machine. It's far from the worst thing they could have found, and I'm okay with it, as much as I can be okay with the thought of sleeping with a mask on my face.) I need a job, is the long and short of it; I'll be picky later, but right now I need a paycheck. I just wish someone would offer one!
Oh, and LJ is back. He called Saturday night and told me he'd be back Sunday night, so I picked him up at the train with his friend. He's been out pretty much ever since, but last night his friend stayed over, so instead of LJ sleeping in his own room, he slept in mine, which only just confirmed how much I like my own space. I will not miss this man a bit, when he goes. I think he sees this as The End as well; he's taking all his stuff, his PlayStation and his TV and his stereo, all his CDs and the rims for his Chevy. All the important stuff, in short. I heard him on the phone his first night home (his room shares a wall with the upstairs bath) and from the context, I'm fairly sure he was talking to some female. I was almost surprised by how utterly disinterested I was. This will be one of the more amicable breakups I've had. The only scary spot is that he's taking the truck back to Minnesota, to cart all his belongings; I don't think he'd do anything shady like not bring it back, but everyone around me seems not so sure. Mom, Tim, Dr. J, and Debbi have all said the same thing: "You're letting him use the truck???" Especially since nothing official has been said about breaking up, I don't think he's going to feel like he needs revenge, and the truck isn't worth much now anyway--it's got 160,000 miles and needs repairs. Of course, if he DOES try to keep the truck, I've informed everyone that I will accept any and all declarations of "I told you so," during pre-arranged hours. I just want him gone; this will make it easier for him to go.
Tim and I are still doing fine, though we had an actual argument last night. He was in a bad mood, and he started saying stuff just to get a rise out of me, and I decided I wasn't going to sit around and listen to it. So I went upstairs, and this morning when I came downstairs we both acted like nothing had happened; later on he told me "After I pissed you off last night, I sent myself to my room as punishment. I wanted to watch the game in the living room, but I sent myself to bed instead." I thought that was fairly cool--the fact that he acknowledged that he was being a butthead. (Which he so totally was.) He's depressed, I think, because he hasn't landed a job yet either. I empathize with THAT entirely, though I don't think I'm depressed about it. Nervous, yes; terrified, yeah, kinda. Depressed? Not really. All things considered, I'm fairly lucky. I'd like a job, sure, but things could be a lot, lot worse.
There's light at the end of the tunnel, still; I have an interview tomorrow and one sometime next week. The next-week one is for a management position, which I don't really relish; and it's in the far northwest 'burbs, as well--no way do I want to make that commute!!! But according to the recruiter, they're really enthused about my resume. "Do they know I have ZERO management experience?" I asked him; he said apparently they're looking more for a tech who can manage than a manager who can do tech. Still--far northwest suburbs. If they really want me, they're going to have to come up off a LOAD of extra cash.
We're rapidly approaching the "beggars-can't-be-choosers" hour, however; my last severance check comes tomorrow, and then I have to start paying $300/month to COBRA my health insurance. (My test results came back, incidentally; I do have sleep apnea, and they want to start me on the CPAP machine. It's far from the worst thing they could have found, and I'm okay with it, as much as I can be okay with the thought of sleeping with a mask on my face.) I need a job, is the long and short of it; I'll be picky later, but right now I need a paycheck. I just wish someone would offer one!
Oh, and LJ is back. He called Saturday night and told me he'd be back Sunday night, so I picked him up at the train with his friend. He's been out pretty much ever since, but last night his friend stayed over, so instead of LJ sleeping in his own room, he slept in mine, which only just confirmed how much I like my own space. I will not miss this man a bit, when he goes. I think he sees this as The End as well; he's taking all his stuff, his PlayStation and his TV and his stereo, all his CDs and the rims for his Chevy. All the important stuff, in short. I heard him on the phone his first night home (his room shares a wall with the upstairs bath) and from the context, I'm fairly sure he was talking to some female. I was almost surprised by how utterly disinterested I was. This will be one of the more amicable breakups I've had. The only scary spot is that he's taking the truck back to Minnesota, to cart all his belongings; I don't think he'd do anything shady like not bring it back, but everyone around me seems not so sure. Mom, Tim, Dr. J, and Debbi have all said the same thing: "You're letting him use the truck???" Especially since nothing official has been said about breaking up, I don't think he's going to feel like he needs revenge, and the truck isn't worth much now anyway--it's got 160,000 miles and needs repairs. Of course, if he DOES try to keep the truck, I've informed everyone that I will accept any and all declarations of "I told you so," during pre-arranged hours. I just want him gone; this will make it easier for him to go.
Tim and I are still doing fine, though we had an actual argument last night. He was in a bad mood, and he started saying stuff just to get a rise out of me, and I decided I wasn't going to sit around and listen to it. So I went upstairs, and this morning when I came downstairs we both acted like nothing had happened; later on he told me "After I pissed you off last night, I sent myself to my room as punishment. I wanted to watch the game in the living room, but I sent myself to bed instead." I thought that was fairly cool--the fact that he acknowledged that he was being a butthead. (Which he so totally was.) He's depressed, I think, because he hasn't landed a job yet either. I empathize with THAT entirely, though I don't think I'm depressed about it. Nervous, yes; terrified, yeah, kinda. Depressed? Not really. All things considered, I'm fairly lucky. I'd like a job, sure, but things could be a lot, lot worse.
Friday, November 24, 2006
Unemployment Day Whatever: Blame It On the Tryptophan
I've been so busy enjoying all the things I'm thankful for, that I haven't taken the time to blog about them. If it wasn't for the sheer financial terror I'm verging on at the moment, I'd be probably the happiest I've been in years. I hate how much I love this unemployment thing, honestly--it just suits me TOO well. One more incentive to become a famous writer, I guess...
I have an interview Tuesday, for (of all things) a technical writing position. I'm hopeful, but not terribly hopeful; first, I have minimal experience; and second, it's in the financial sector, about which I know so little as to be almost laughable. But I -do- know how to write, so I'm hoping I can squeak my way through the door on that basis.
Other than that, it's been remarkably quiet on the job-search front, and though I'm sure at least SOME of that has to do with the holiday, it's still scary. My last severance check comes next week; then I have to COBRA my health insurance, for $300+ a month. That's scary, and I suddenly find myself understanding the whole health-care crisis a little better than I'd ever wanted to. I'd forego it if I dared, but I absolutely don't dare, especially with the probable need of a second sleep study in the next few weeks. This whole business of being human is a strain, I'll tell you. A body is a hard machine to have to maintain!
Nobody right now knows that more than Debbi, my friend who had the gastric-bypass; after a fairly-uneventful first three weeks of recovery, she went back into the hospital yesterday morning (yes, Thanksgiving morning!) because she couldn't keep any food or water down. Turns out she had some sort of blockage, probably related to the gastric bypass, and the last I heard she was going into surgery early this afternoon; I'm waiting for an update from Cowgirl on her condition. I saw her Wednesday, when I did her grocery shopping for her; aside from feeling nauseated, she seemed okay. Listening to her story, though, of everything leading up to and after the original surgery, I've decided that I will never allow myself to get to the point where I see that as my only option. My health right now is good, especially considering my weight, and I'd like to keep it that way.
In other news, the situation with Tim is going just fine. This is a lot like when we originally shared an apartment, back in 1999, when we had the studio together. We got along great, really, back then; it was only when CR came into the picture that things got screwed up. CR would tell Tim one thing, tell me something else, and carry tales back and forth, all the while making it nearly impossible for Tim and I to get together and compare what each of us was hearing from CR about the other. CR moved into the studio with us for the last six weeks we were there, and then the three of us got a 3-bedroom apartment together; that was when things really went downhill, and by the time that lease was up, Tim and I really weren't speaking. It was sad; since CR's been gone, Tim and I have talked at length about that time, and figured out how much instigating was being done, how many lies were being told to each of us. It was ridiculous--yet another reason to despise CR, which both Tim and I now do. I'd forgotten about the time in the studio, and how much fun we had there; it's good to be back in that kind of situation again.
Mom and I spent Thanksgiving with my dad's side of the family again, which was really nice as always. They're such fun, relaxed, inclusive, non-judgemental people, and even the ones I don't like that much are WORLDS better than the cousins on my mom's side. I didn't realize, though, til it was time to leave for dinner, that Tim had no plans for the holiday; after a short conference, Mom and I have tweaked our Christmas plans to include Tim. I'm impressed that she'd do that; she's impressed at what I'm doing. Even Mom and I have been getting along lately, which is a hell of a lot better than it used to be!
LJ called a few days ago, telling me he was coming home around the first of the month. THAT's going to be an interesting conversation; I still haven't told him that Tim's moved in, and LJ seems to think he's going to be staying here for a few days before he goes back. He may be in town for a few days, but I very much doubt he's going to be staying in THIS house! I'll be glad when that's over, once and for all, though it's opening another door I don't want opened; one of my neighbors, perceptive soul that he is, has noticed that LJ hasn't been around for a couple of months, and has started testing the waters to see if I'd be interested in something with him. Which...um, no. Really, no. In fact? HELL no. No more perpetually jobless men--that's my promise to myself.
I still miss JP. Thanksgiving is one of the hardest times of the year for thinking about him; even before we were officially together, we had Thanksgiving memories, from the year my old roomie and I had a full turkey-and-stuffing Thanksgiving dinner for our friends, in the apartment we shared when I met JP. He was there, I remember. And then our first Thanksgiving together, a few days after I'd left my mom's house, we sat in his mother's kitchen away from everyone else in the world, and we made chicken tacos together while our families gathered elsewhere, without us. We were all the family we needed, that year. I didn't know that our first Thanksgiving together would also be our last; a year later, I spent Thanksgiving in North Carolina with Firefly, because JP had died three weeks before and I couldn't bear to be in Chicago for another minute. My memories of those days--the days with JP, and even the first raw days of disbelief without him--are still sharp. Driving home last night, I heard a song on the radio which I remembered from that time, and I smiled a little; maybe it's a good sign that I can smile at all, when thinking about him. While I can't say I miss him less, I'm handling it a little better. I think about last Thanksgiving--I'd gone back onto the clinic the Wednesday of Thanksgiving week, after waking up dopesick and realizing how much trouble I was in, again...I'm most thankful that my life is different now. I'm thankful for the people who have stood by me through it all, and for the people who have made me smile in the meantime. I'm thankful for my cats, even though Snick is trying to make me insanely jealous by sleeping on Tim's bed instead of mine a couple of nights this week. I'm thankful for Tim, and Debbi, and Cowgirl, and Firefly, and all the people who are still a part of my life--often despite my best efforts. I'm realizing that I'm not always a very good friend; I lose touch with people, withdraw into my shell, miss enormous chunks of other peoples' lives. I've lost a lot of really great friends that way.
I'm thankful for the simple pleasures in life--purring cats, fleece blankets, a bowl of oatmeal. I'm thankful for cable TV, even when Comcast charges me an arm, a leg, and a fairly large number of toes for it. I'm thankful for my house--I could just write that a hundred times and it wouldn't even convey how grateful I am for this tumble-down slope-floored, peeling-walls place. I'll love it til the roof caves in on me (which could be sooner than later, but who knows?) I'm thankful for whatever made me the way I am, so that I can watch the hours of ads for things I supposedly can't live without and not be swayed into believing it. I'm thankful for whatever made me thankful, actually, because even THAT feels good. I'm thankful for antidepressants, methadone, friends, psychologists, blogs, and kittens, because all of them have had some hand in keeping me sane this year, and in getting me better. I'm thankful for, if slightly bewildered by, the fact that people seem to find my ramblings interesting; I don't get it, myself, but I certainly won't complain.
Mostly I'm thankful for my basic optimism and my belief that everything will eventually work out all right, because if I didn't have that, I'd feel a little bit more terrified right now than I actually am. And if I don't hear something in a few days, I'm going to go ahead and be terrified anyway. Cross your fingers, everyone...and have a turkey sammich for me, too. Did I mention that I'm thankful for you guys, too? Because I am, very much. I hope you all had a good holiday.
I have an interview Tuesday, for (of all things) a technical writing position. I'm hopeful, but not terribly hopeful; first, I have minimal experience; and second, it's in the financial sector, about which I know so little as to be almost laughable. But I -do- know how to write, so I'm hoping I can squeak my way through the door on that basis.
Other than that, it's been remarkably quiet on the job-search front, and though I'm sure at least SOME of that has to do with the holiday, it's still scary. My last severance check comes next week; then I have to COBRA my health insurance, for $300+ a month. That's scary, and I suddenly find myself understanding the whole health-care crisis a little better than I'd ever wanted to. I'd forego it if I dared, but I absolutely don't dare, especially with the probable need of a second sleep study in the next few weeks. This whole business of being human is a strain, I'll tell you. A body is a hard machine to have to maintain!
Nobody right now knows that more than Debbi, my friend who had the gastric-bypass; after a fairly-uneventful first three weeks of recovery, she went back into the hospital yesterday morning (yes, Thanksgiving morning!) because she couldn't keep any food or water down. Turns out she had some sort of blockage, probably related to the gastric bypass, and the last I heard she was going into surgery early this afternoon; I'm waiting for an update from Cowgirl on her condition. I saw her Wednesday, when I did her grocery shopping for her; aside from feeling nauseated, she seemed okay. Listening to her story, though, of everything leading up to and after the original surgery, I've decided that I will never allow myself to get to the point where I see that as my only option. My health right now is good, especially considering my weight, and I'd like to keep it that way.
In other news, the situation with Tim is going just fine. This is a lot like when we originally shared an apartment, back in 1999, when we had the studio together. We got along great, really, back then; it was only when CR came into the picture that things got screwed up. CR would tell Tim one thing, tell me something else, and carry tales back and forth, all the while making it nearly impossible for Tim and I to get together and compare what each of us was hearing from CR about the other. CR moved into the studio with us for the last six weeks we were there, and then the three of us got a 3-bedroom apartment together; that was when things really went downhill, and by the time that lease was up, Tim and I really weren't speaking. It was sad; since CR's been gone, Tim and I have talked at length about that time, and figured out how much instigating was being done, how many lies were being told to each of us. It was ridiculous--yet another reason to despise CR, which both Tim and I now do. I'd forgotten about the time in the studio, and how much fun we had there; it's good to be back in that kind of situation again.
Mom and I spent Thanksgiving with my dad's side of the family again, which was really nice as always. They're such fun, relaxed, inclusive, non-judgemental people, and even the ones I don't like that much are WORLDS better than the cousins on my mom's side. I didn't realize, though, til it was time to leave for dinner, that Tim had no plans for the holiday; after a short conference, Mom and I have tweaked our Christmas plans to include Tim. I'm impressed that she'd do that; she's impressed at what I'm doing. Even Mom and I have been getting along lately, which is a hell of a lot better than it used to be!
LJ called a few days ago, telling me he was coming home around the first of the month. THAT's going to be an interesting conversation; I still haven't told him that Tim's moved in, and LJ seems to think he's going to be staying here for a few days before he goes back. He may be in town for a few days, but I very much doubt he's going to be staying in THIS house! I'll be glad when that's over, once and for all, though it's opening another door I don't want opened; one of my neighbors, perceptive soul that he is, has noticed that LJ hasn't been around for a couple of months, and has started testing the waters to see if I'd be interested in something with him. Which...um, no. Really, no. In fact? HELL no. No more perpetually jobless men--that's my promise to myself.
I still miss JP. Thanksgiving is one of the hardest times of the year for thinking about him; even before we were officially together, we had Thanksgiving memories, from the year my old roomie and I had a full turkey-and-stuffing Thanksgiving dinner for our friends, in the apartment we shared when I met JP. He was there, I remember. And then our first Thanksgiving together, a few days after I'd left my mom's house, we sat in his mother's kitchen away from everyone else in the world, and we made chicken tacos together while our families gathered elsewhere, without us. We were all the family we needed, that year. I didn't know that our first Thanksgiving together would also be our last; a year later, I spent Thanksgiving in North Carolina with Firefly, because JP had died three weeks before and I couldn't bear to be in Chicago for another minute. My memories of those days--the days with JP, and even the first raw days of disbelief without him--are still sharp. Driving home last night, I heard a song on the radio which I remembered from that time, and I smiled a little; maybe it's a good sign that I can smile at all, when thinking about him. While I can't say I miss him less, I'm handling it a little better. I think about last Thanksgiving--I'd gone back onto the clinic the Wednesday of Thanksgiving week, after waking up dopesick and realizing how much trouble I was in, again...I'm most thankful that my life is different now. I'm thankful for the people who have stood by me through it all, and for the people who have made me smile in the meantime. I'm thankful for my cats, even though Snick is trying to make me insanely jealous by sleeping on Tim's bed instead of mine a couple of nights this week. I'm thankful for Tim, and Debbi, and Cowgirl, and Firefly, and all the people who are still a part of my life--often despite my best efforts. I'm realizing that I'm not always a very good friend; I lose touch with people, withdraw into my shell, miss enormous chunks of other peoples' lives. I've lost a lot of really great friends that way.
I'm thankful for the simple pleasures in life--purring cats, fleece blankets, a bowl of oatmeal. I'm thankful for cable TV, even when Comcast charges me an arm, a leg, and a fairly large number of toes for it. I'm thankful for my house--I could just write that a hundred times and it wouldn't even convey how grateful I am for this tumble-down slope-floored, peeling-walls place. I'll love it til the roof caves in on me (which could be sooner than later, but who knows?) I'm thankful for whatever made me the way I am, so that I can watch the hours of ads for things I supposedly can't live without and not be swayed into believing it. I'm thankful for whatever made me thankful, actually, because even THAT feels good. I'm thankful for antidepressants, methadone, friends, psychologists, blogs, and kittens, because all of them have had some hand in keeping me sane this year, and in getting me better. I'm thankful for, if slightly bewildered by, the fact that people seem to find my ramblings interesting; I don't get it, myself, but I certainly won't complain.
Mostly I'm thankful for my basic optimism and my belief that everything will eventually work out all right, because if I didn't have that, I'd feel a little bit more terrified right now than I actually am. And if I don't hear something in a few days, I'm going to go ahead and be terrified anyway. Cross your fingers, everyone...and have a turkey sammich for me, too. Did I mention that I'm thankful for you guys, too? Because I am, very much. I hope you all had a good holiday.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Should I Even Bother?
Is it even worth my time and energy to rant about TomKat? Does it even merit the expenditure of muscular motion to type out how ridiculous I find all the media attention? Or how utterly pathetic a woman must be, to allow herself to be diminished to the point where she finds the following "vows" an acceptable expression of lifetime committment:
Am I misinterpreting that, or is it basically saying, "Honey, your man is probably gonna screw around, and you should just tell him off and then deal with it"?
Does anyone else want to bash their heads against the table repeatedly at the very thought of this??
Despite my own cynicism and unbelief, I am--and a lot of people will tell you this--respectful of other people's religions to the utmost. However, I have studied enough about Scientology to know that it was never conceived as a religion--at best, it was conceived as a theory of human communications--and that L. Ron Hubbard was known to have said that the best way to make a fortune was to found a religion. I know enough about Scientology to know that (at least to the higher-ups) it's a money-making scheme, and they actively recruit celebrities to give it the appearance of legitimacy. They have a "Celebrity Center", for Pete's sake. The celebrities have nothing negative to say about Scientology because they have only experienced the positives; they're given special treatment and privileges, and they're not sucked dry of all their money in the hope of learning the "secrets" of Scientology--and what "secrets" they are! That's a whole 'nother blog post--Xenu and e-meters and body thetans and Teegeeack and the rest--or you could just go to Operation Clambake and read that, because it's very interesting stuff.
They're like a train-wreck. I can't stand them, and yet it's so freakish and stupid and wrong that I can't turn my head, and I actually feel a sort of cultural guilt over this. I rationalize: I would never pay money to see a Tom Cruise movie, nor for...well, whatever Katie Holmes has ever done...nor would I ever buy a magazine or newspaper because they were on the cover--but I'll read the free stuff, the stuff that's on the front page, that I don't actually have to look for. The same is true of all celebrity crap, really--I won't pay for it, nor will I actively support it, but if it's there I'll look at it.
Does that seem as hypocritical as it feels?
Scientology's "traditional ceremony" includes such advice to the groom as:
"Now -----, girls need clothes and food and tender happiness and frills, a pan, a comb, perhaps a cat. All caprice if you will, but still they need them."
The bride is told: "Hear well, sweet -----, for promise binds. Young men are free and may forget. Remind him that you may have necessities and follies, too."
Am I misinterpreting that, or is it basically saying, "Honey, your man is probably gonna screw around, and you should just tell him off and then deal with it"?
Does anyone else want to bash their heads against the table repeatedly at the very thought of this??
Despite my own cynicism and unbelief, I am--and a lot of people will tell you this--respectful of other people's religions to the utmost. However, I have studied enough about Scientology to know that it was never conceived as a religion--at best, it was conceived as a theory of human communications--and that L. Ron Hubbard was known to have said that the best way to make a fortune was to found a religion. I know enough about Scientology to know that (at least to the higher-ups) it's a money-making scheme, and they actively recruit celebrities to give it the appearance of legitimacy. They have a "Celebrity Center", for Pete's sake. The celebrities have nothing negative to say about Scientology because they have only experienced the positives; they're given special treatment and privileges, and they're not sucked dry of all their money in the hope of learning the "secrets" of Scientology--and what "secrets" they are! That's a whole 'nother blog post--Xenu and e-meters and body thetans and Teegeeack and the rest--or you could just go to Operation Clambake and read that, because it's very interesting stuff.
They're like a train-wreck. I can't stand them, and yet it's so freakish and stupid and wrong that I can't turn my head, and I actually feel a sort of cultural guilt over this. I rationalize: I would never pay money to see a Tom Cruise movie, nor for...well, whatever Katie Holmes has ever done...nor would I ever buy a magazine or newspaper because they were on the cover--but I'll read the free stuff, the stuff that's on the front page, that I don't actually have to look for. The same is true of all celebrity crap, really--I won't pay for it, nor will I actively support it, but if it's there I'll look at it.
Does that seem as hypocritical as it feels?
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Unemployment Day 21: Getting A Little Scared, Now...
I've been out of a job for three weeks today.
That's not a normal state of affairs for me. I've always found SOMETHING, except when I was an active addict--and often, even then! Usually when I've left one job, it's because I've had another one lined up. I've only got one more paycheck worth of severance left, and Thanksgiving is next week. I've only had three nibbles: the agency, the job I didn't get, and one yesterday which sounds like it's WAY over my head. This isn't looking good, and I'm getting kinda scared.
But honestly, that's about the ONLY thing wrong right now. I think this situation with Tim is going to work out just fine. This is the first chance I've had to be alone and use the computer since he moved in; either he's on the computer, or we're working on something together. (He doesn't know about the blog, I don't think, and I'd like to keep it that way.) We've spent the last couple of days moving furniture from the apartment he was occupying with a friend of his; the friend skipped town and left a bunch of stuff behind (along with an $1900 bill for unpaid back rent and a five-day notice to vacate, which came BEFORE Tim went to jail!) Tim finally got a hold of him, and he told Tim to take what he wanted from the apartment, so we made a few trips and took a couple of bookcases, some coffee tables, a chair, assorted books, and--the hard part--a full-sized mattress and box-spring set and bedframe. This, of course, necessitated a trip to the hardware store to get rope to tie the mattress to the roof of the truck; and any trip to the hardware store necessitates at least an hour of looking around, at least for me. Tim tried to drag me out, but to no avail.
The best part about it was, Tim did all the work. I mean, he flatly refused all my offers of help; he did all the lifting, pulling, dragging, and shoving, at both ends of the project. Then together we cleaned out the back bedroom of all the random items which had accumulated there, moved some things upstairs and some things around the rest of the house, and he set up his bedroom exactly as he wanted it. Then he cleaned the rest of the house and ran a cable to the table we'd moved the computer to. He's a neat-freak, as well; the floors are swept daily, the catboxes scooped, the garbage taken out, the dishes washed. He doesn't do all of it--we take turns--but having someone else around has sort of shamed me into neat-freakitude myself, which I like. It's great. It's not perfect--I worry about his drinking and the fact that he smokes, though not often--and he's a bit of a chatterbox sometimes. But these are very, very small irritations. I'm glad he's around, really, and he's glad to be here.
In other news, my blood tests came back. Everything is apparently normal, with the slight exception of two: One is my glucose; apparently less than 100 is normal, and mine was 106; and the other is my cholesterol, which was 216. Neither of these is the end of the world, and both are controllable, but unfortunately neither of them explains why I can't keep my damn eyes open some days. My sleep study is Saturday night; from what Debbi's told me, they're quite an adventure. I'm just hoping they'll give me some idea of what's happening.
Even with the job still up in the air, I feel like things are coming together. I do wish the thing with LJ was completely finished, though; I'm not looking forward to that conversation, but it's got to be had. I wish it was behind me instead of ahead of me. Having that hanging over my head is distracting me from how much my life has improved, and frankly, I don't want to be distracted from that. Thanksgiving is next week, and I've got quite a lot to be thankful for.
That's not a normal state of affairs for me. I've always found SOMETHING, except when I was an active addict--and often, even then! Usually when I've left one job, it's because I've had another one lined up. I've only got one more paycheck worth of severance left, and Thanksgiving is next week. I've only had three nibbles: the agency, the job I didn't get, and one yesterday which sounds like it's WAY over my head. This isn't looking good, and I'm getting kinda scared.
But honestly, that's about the ONLY thing wrong right now. I think this situation with Tim is going to work out just fine. This is the first chance I've had to be alone and use the computer since he moved in; either he's on the computer, or we're working on something together. (He doesn't know about the blog, I don't think, and I'd like to keep it that way.) We've spent the last couple of days moving furniture from the apartment he was occupying with a friend of his; the friend skipped town and left a bunch of stuff behind (along with an $1900 bill for unpaid back rent and a five-day notice to vacate, which came BEFORE Tim went to jail!) Tim finally got a hold of him, and he told Tim to take what he wanted from the apartment, so we made a few trips and took a couple of bookcases, some coffee tables, a chair, assorted books, and--the hard part--a full-sized mattress and box-spring set and bedframe. This, of course, necessitated a trip to the hardware store to get rope to tie the mattress to the roof of the truck; and any trip to the hardware store necessitates at least an hour of looking around, at least for me. Tim tried to drag me out, but to no avail.
The best part about it was, Tim did all the work. I mean, he flatly refused all my offers of help; he did all the lifting, pulling, dragging, and shoving, at both ends of the project. Then together we cleaned out the back bedroom of all the random items which had accumulated there, moved some things upstairs and some things around the rest of the house, and he set up his bedroom exactly as he wanted it. Then he cleaned the rest of the house and ran a cable to the table we'd moved the computer to. He's a neat-freak, as well; the floors are swept daily, the catboxes scooped, the garbage taken out, the dishes washed. He doesn't do all of it--we take turns--but having someone else around has sort of shamed me into neat-freakitude myself, which I like. It's great. It's not perfect--I worry about his drinking and the fact that he smokes, though not often--and he's a bit of a chatterbox sometimes. But these are very, very small irritations. I'm glad he's around, really, and he's glad to be here.
In other news, my blood tests came back. Everything is apparently normal, with the slight exception of two: One is my glucose; apparently less than 100 is normal, and mine was 106; and the other is my cholesterol, which was 216. Neither of these is the end of the world, and both are controllable, but unfortunately neither of them explains why I can't keep my damn eyes open some days. My sleep study is Saturday night; from what Debbi's told me, they're quite an adventure. I'm just hoping they'll give me some idea of what's happening.
Even with the job still up in the air, I feel like things are coming together. I do wish the thing with LJ was completely finished, though; I'm not looking forward to that conversation, but it's got to be had. I wish it was behind me instead of ahead of me. Having that hanging over my head is distracting me from how much my life has improved, and frankly, I don't want to be distracted from that. Thanksgiving is next week, and I've got quite a lot to be thankful for.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Unemployment Day 17: Yeah, This Will Work...
Tim got out of jail Thursday night. Friday morning I went to his friend's house to pick him up, and so he's spent the last couple of nights sleeping on his sofa and helping me clear out what's going to be his new room. And so far, this is working out just fine.
See, THIS is what living with someone should be like, even platonically: we TALK. We act goofy together. I can ask him to do something and get a verbal answer AND have the task accomplished--not just an eye-roll and a question of whether or not it will actually get done. We actually ate dinner together tonight, sitting at a table--something LJ and I have never actually done. (We've eaten at the same time, LJ and I, but always at the coffee table in front of the TV.) It was very cool. And when I get tired of talking, I can go upstairs and do what I want. There's no pressure of feeling like I have to be at someone's beck and call. He can keep himself entertained, and I can keep myself entertained.
Of course, tonight would be the night that LJ would call and tell me he's thinking about coming back to Chicago and staying a while. Not being one to break up over the phone, I didn't tell him that he'll be staying somewhere else--apparently he didn't pick up on the subtext of our last discussion. Oh well--I'm over it. This life I have right now (with the large and frightening exception of the job situation) is so much more the life that I want than the not-even-a-life I had when LJ was around...
Yeah, I think this is gonna work out just fine.
See, THIS is what living with someone should be like, even platonically: we TALK. We act goofy together. I can ask him to do something and get a verbal answer AND have the task accomplished--not just an eye-roll and a question of whether or not it will actually get done. We actually ate dinner together tonight, sitting at a table--something LJ and I have never actually done. (We've eaten at the same time, LJ and I, but always at the coffee table in front of the TV.) It was very cool. And when I get tired of talking, I can go upstairs and do what I want. There's no pressure of feeling like I have to be at someone's beck and call. He can keep himself entertained, and I can keep myself entertained.
Of course, tonight would be the night that LJ would call and tell me he's thinking about coming back to Chicago and staying a while. Not being one to break up over the phone, I didn't tell him that he'll be staying somewhere else--apparently he didn't pick up on the subtext of our last discussion. Oh well--I'm over it. This life I have right now (with the large and frightening exception of the job situation) is so much more the life that I want than the not-even-a-life I had when LJ was around...
Yeah, I think this is gonna work out just fine.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Unemployment Day 15: Asshats and Bad News
I suppose I should grant the folks at Interview #2 (the job I really wanted) at least this: they were prompt and polite. I interviewed Wednesday and I got the rejection letter today, so I'm thinking they mailed it out immediately after the interview.
...which I thought went so WELL!
Where getting fired rattled me not at all, not getting this job has managed to shake my confidence rather thoroughly. The main reason it worries me is, I had EXACTLY the skill-set they were looking for, to a T...so whatever motivated them not to hire me was most likely a personality issue. THAT scares the hell out of me. It's very easy for me to get employers to like me...or at least, it WAS. I'm worried now.
I signed the waiver from the last job today, as well...I went to the office to drop it off--per the instructions given to me on the last day: "Just drop it off up front and have the receptionist let someone from H.R. know that you're here"--and as advertised, the receptionist called H.R. She had to call several times before she found anyone, but finally one of the H.R. assistants came out and said "Dick will be with you in a minute."
Well, apparently "a minute" is malleable in HR time--because Dick didn't show up for nearly twenty minutes. During that time one of my old co-workers, with whom I'd been fairly close, walked past me and barely acknowledged me. Thinking she hadn't seen me, I said "Hey, Sue!" She glanced at me. "Oh, hey Gladys," she said, and kept going. It was very odd. Later, a couple of the users whose computers I'd worked on passed by, and they stopped and talked and were very surprised to hear that I'm no longer working there. They wished me luck and everything, which made Sue's reaction seem even odder.
Dick showed up a few minutes later and signed his space on the waiver, and handed it over to me. That was that, and yet somehow he still managed to be an asshelmet about it. Subtle asshelmetry is the worst kind, if you ask me.
Then I got home and that delicious little rejection letter was waiting for me. So all in all, it has been a very not-so-fucking-nice day in Gladystopia, and...Well, actually there is no "and". It just...sucks, is all.
...which I thought went so WELL!
Where getting fired rattled me not at all, not getting this job has managed to shake my confidence rather thoroughly. The main reason it worries me is, I had EXACTLY the skill-set they were looking for, to a T...so whatever motivated them not to hire me was most likely a personality issue. THAT scares the hell out of me. It's very easy for me to get employers to like me...or at least, it WAS. I'm worried now.
I signed the waiver from the last job today, as well...I went to the office to drop it off--per the instructions given to me on the last day: "Just drop it off up front and have the receptionist let someone from H.R. know that you're here"--and as advertised, the receptionist called H.R. She had to call several times before she found anyone, but finally one of the H.R. assistants came out and said "Dick will be with you in a minute."
Well, apparently "a minute" is malleable in HR time--because Dick didn't show up for nearly twenty minutes. During that time one of my old co-workers, with whom I'd been fairly close, walked past me and barely acknowledged me. Thinking she hadn't seen me, I said "Hey, Sue!" She glanced at me. "Oh, hey Gladys," she said, and kept going. It was very odd. Later, a couple of the users whose computers I'd worked on passed by, and they stopped and talked and were very surprised to hear that I'm no longer working there. They wished me luck and everything, which made Sue's reaction seem even odder.
Dick showed up a few minutes later and signed his space on the waiver, and handed it over to me. That was that, and yet somehow he still managed to be an asshelmet about it. Subtle asshelmetry is the worst kind, if you ask me.
Then I got home and that delicious little rejection letter was waiting for me. So all in all, it has been a very not-so-fucking-nice day in Gladystopia, and...Well, actually there is no "and". It just...sucks, is all.
Thursday, November 9, 2006
Unemployment, Day....er, Night...um...Day 14? I Think...
I am a wee bit foggy today.
One of two things has happened, or a piece of each: either I was WAY more tense about those interviews than I thought, or my allergies/a cold have laid me low...but I woke up at 4 this afternoon. I'm snerking and honking and occasionally sneezing out major organ systems, and I have a rabid howler-monkey of a headache. I think it's just allergies, but...yuck anyway. I keep telling myself I need to buy a humidifier for my room, and then it never seems to get bought. I think that may change shortly, because this is no fun.
No news on the job front, which is to be expected...I did send thank-you notes to everyone I interviewed with yesterday, so I am serene in the knowledge that I've done everything possible.
Having said that...I'm enjoying this "vacation". When I went from Place Where I Used To Work Before This Last One to Place That Fired Me, I didn't give myself any time off at all--I put in my last day on a Friday and started the new job the following Monday. It's nice to sleep in and spend my time doing what I want. I think I'd get bored and neurotic if it continued--to say nothing of "broke"!--but for a couple of weeks, it's nice.
On a totally unrelated note: Does anyone else remember when EVERYTHING that was good on television was on Thursday night? I can't even resort to Discovery Health or CourtTV tonight--they've got their pregnancy block and their Movie of the Week, respectively. Blecccch. This has been the pattern EVERY Thursday lately--nothing at all to watch. Ah, well. Guess I'll crochet or something....(she said, knowing full well that the furthest she would get from the computer chair for the next couple of hours would be the bathroom or the fridge...)
One of two things has happened, or a piece of each: either I was WAY more tense about those interviews than I thought, or my allergies/a cold have laid me low...but I woke up at 4 this afternoon. I'm snerking and honking and occasionally sneezing out major organ systems, and I have a rabid howler-monkey of a headache. I think it's just allergies, but...yuck anyway. I keep telling myself I need to buy a humidifier for my room, and then it never seems to get bought. I think that may change shortly, because this is no fun.
No news on the job front, which is to be expected...I did send thank-you notes to everyone I interviewed with yesterday, so I am serene in the knowledge that I've done everything possible.
Having said that...I'm enjoying this "vacation". When I went from Place Where I Used To Work Before This Last One to Place That Fired Me, I didn't give myself any time off at all--I put in my last day on a Friday and started the new job the following Monday. It's nice to sleep in and spend my time doing what I want. I think I'd get bored and neurotic if it continued--to say nothing of "broke"!--but for a couple of weeks, it's nice.
On a totally unrelated note: Does anyone else remember when EVERYTHING that was good on television was on Thursday night? I can't even resort to Discovery Health or CourtTV tonight--they've got their pregnancy block and their Movie of the Week, respectively. Blecccch. This has been the pattern EVERY Thursday lately--nothing at all to watch. Ah, well. Guess I'll crochet or something....(she said, knowing full well that the furthest she would get from the computer chair for the next couple of hours would be the bathroom or the fridge...)
Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Unemployment Day 13, Continued: Satan Has Reinforced Toes
Okay, first the important stuff: The interview went well. I'm especially entertained, in a foreboding sort of way, by the fact that this company's next-door neighbor is a sleep specialist. But seriously--all my skills seemed to fit well.
Which cannot be said for my pantyhose.
Guys, you will never understand this, just as we women will never understand a sharp kick to the nuts. But if you've ever walked over a mile in pantyhose that are not only a half-size too small, but also twisted so that they bind exactly at the midpoint of the fleshy part of the thigh...honey, that's some PAIN. To say nothing of the sensibly interview-y shoes I wore, not taking into account the possibility that I would have to walk to the "nearest" (translation--eleven blocks away) branch of my bank, so I could deposit a check so I could get enough cash to liberate my car from the Nightmare Parking Garage of the Damned...Parking should not cost $24. Ever. Anywhere. ESPECIALLY not for 90 minutes. That ain't right.
I'm the third person they've interviewed. I'm fairly hopeful.
I'm also very tired and my feet hurt like hell. So I'm going to take a nap now.
Thank you all for all of your support! Keep up the good thoughts, and hopefully I'll have a job in a few days.
Which cannot be said for my pantyhose.
Guys, you will never understand this, just as we women will never understand a sharp kick to the nuts. But if you've ever walked over a mile in pantyhose that are not only a half-size too small, but also twisted so that they bind exactly at the midpoint of the fleshy part of the thigh...honey, that's some PAIN. To say nothing of the sensibly interview-y shoes I wore, not taking into account the possibility that I would have to walk to the "nearest" (translation--eleven blocks away) branch of my bank, so I could deposit a check so I could get enough cash to liberate my car from the Nightmare Parking Garage of the Damned...Parking should not cost $24. Ever. Anywhere. ESPECIALLY not for 90 minutes. That ain't right.
I'm the third person they've interviewed. I'm fairly hopeful.
I'm also very tired and my feet hurt like hell. So I'm going to take a nap now.
Thank you all for all of your support! Keep up the good thoughts, and hopefully I'll have a job in a few days.
Unemployment Day 13: Step Away From The Donut.
Observations while killing time between interviews:
Clearly it's been a while since I job-hunted. My Interview Dress is decidedly snug. Maybe that's got something to do with the obscene number of Krispy Kremes I've consumed lately, but it's their fault--they keep giving me the game cards, and I keep winning a free dozen. So I absolve myself from all responsibility here. :)
I know I've said it repeatedly, but: DAMN I'm glad it's not last year. I was just reading something that reminded me of that time, and it just made me grateful all over again to be where I am instead of where I was.
Yesterday I went and had my blood tests. I got a really good phlebotomist, and she was actually able to find a vein in my hand--but it was one of the veins they used when they took my gallbladder out, one of the (many!) veins that infiltrated and swelled my hand up like a water-balloon. And do you know, it's seventeen months later, and that vein STILL hurts like hell??? I've got this itsy little puncture, but underneath the skin, it feels like somebody stepped on it.
My first interview went well. It was with an agency, so they have a lot of contract jobs, and they'll probably be able to place me soon. I asked them for a week first--I figured that would give me time to hear about the other job, and to have a few more days off. They gave me two proficiency tests: Windows XP troubleshooting and Mac OSX Admin and Use. Predictably, I did much better on the Mac stuff, although not as well as I'd have liked. I was pretty grim on the XP test, but there was a lot of stuff on that test that I can't imagine ANYONE would know offhand. And the recruiter said the average score was 61%, so obviously it's a difficult test. We won't talk about what I got, except to say that it was substantially below average. They're going to give me access to an online self-study program, which will help me a lot, I think. (But I'd rather work with Macs anyhow.)
Outrage of the day: Parking for one hour and ten minutes: SIXTEEN FREAKING DOLLARS! Needless to say, I'm leaving early for the next interview and looking for a parking meter.
And a final thought:
Pantyhose are eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil.
Two hours til the next interview!
Clearly it's been a while since I job-hunted. My Interview Dress is decidedly snug. Maybe that's got something to do with the obscene number of Krispy Kremes I've consumed lately, but it's their fault--they keep giving me the game cards, and I keep winning a free dozen. So I absolve myself from all responsibility here. :)
I know I've said it repeatedly, but: DAMN I'm glad it's not last year. I was just reading something that reminded me of that time, and it just made me grateful all over again to be where I am instead of where I was.
Yesterday I went and had my blood tests. I got a really good phlebotomist, and she was actually able to find a vein in my hand--but it was one of the veins they used when they took my gallbladder out, one of the (many!) veins that infiltrated and swelled my hand up like a water-balloon. And do you know, it's seventeen months later, and that vein STILL hurts like hell??? I've got this itsy little puncture, but underneath the skin, it feels like somebody stepped on it.
My first interview went well. It was with an agency, so they have a lot of contract jobs, and they'll probably be able to place me soon. I asked them for a week first--I figured that would give me time to hear about the other job, and to have a few more days off. They gave me two proficiency tests: Windows XP troubleshooting and Mac OSX Admin and Use. Predictably, I did much better on the Mac stuff, although not as well as I'd have liked. I was pretty grim on the XP test, but there was a lot of stuff on that test that I can't imagine ANYONE would know offhand. And the recruiter said the average score was 61%, so obviously it's a difficult test. We won't talk about what I got, except to say that it was substantially below average. They're going to give me access to an online self-study program, which will help me a lot, I think. (But I'd rather work with Macs anyhow.)
Outrage of the day: Parking for one hour and ten minutes: SIXTEEN FREAKING DOLLARS! Needless to say, I'm leaving early for the next interview and looking for a parking meter.
And a final thought:
Pantyhose are eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil.
Two hours til the next interview!
Friday, November 3, 2006
Unemployment, Day 8:Don't Tempt Fate
Okay, so maaaaaaaybe I shouldn't gloat about how great everything has been going.
About ten minutes after I posted, I was placidly surfing and playing Scrabble when suddenly the screen went black. I thought I heard a low, electronic chuckle, and then: the screen went blue.
Those of you who are familiar with PCs know that the nickname for that screen--the Blue Screen of Death--came about for a reason. It's not a good thing. If it was a good thing it would be called the Blue Screen of Extreme Niceness, Fluffy Bunnies, and Ice Cream Sundaes. And it's not.
Hopeful, I shut down. I knew I was in for at least a couple of hours of software diagnostics and other fun stuff; when the machine restarted, though, I knew I was in for more than that. When the computer speaks plain English, you know it's bad, and "Unmountable Boot Volume" is about as plain as it gets. The only way it could be clearer would be if the message said "It's dead. Open your wallet now."
It was dead. No way around it. And so today, I had to go do something that it's very much not the ideal time to have to do--buy a new computer. I got a nice middle-of-the-road Compaq, and spent a little more than I planned, but not much. Despite spending money I haven't got, I have to admit I enjoyed it. I would have enjoyed it more if I'd been able to get the really sexy flat-screen monitor, but I'm happy with what I've got, and my old gigantic desktop monolith will do for now.
So I sit here before my new computer, with a very promising interview scheduled for Wednesday morning, and a sleep study scheduled for two weeks from tomorrow. And--tempting fate aside--I'm still very happy.
About ten minutes after I posted, I was placidly surfing and playing Scrabble when suddenly the screen went black. I thought I heard a low, electronic chuckle, and then: the screen went blue.
Those of you who are familiar with PCs know that the nickname for that screen--the Blue Screen of Death--came about for a reason. It's not a good thing. If it was a good thing it would be called the Blue Screen of Extreme Niceness, Fluffy Bunnies, and Ice Cream Sundaes. And it's not.
Hopeful, I shut down. I knew I was in for at least a couple of hours of software diagnostics and other fun stuff; when the machine restarted, though, I knew I was in for more than that. When the computer speaks plain English, you know it's bad, and "Unmountable Boot Volume" is about as plain as it gets. The only way it could be clearer would be if the message said "It's dead. Open your wallet now."
It was dead. No way around it. And so today, I had to go do something that it's very much not the ideal time to have to do--buy a new computer. I got a nice middle-of-the-road Compaq, and spent a little more than I planned, but not much. Despite spending money I haven't got, I have to admit I enjoyed it. I would have enjoyed it more if I'd been able to get the really sexy flat-screen monitor, but I'm happy with what I've got, and my old gigantic desktop monolith will do for now.
So I sit here before my new computer, with a very promising interview scheduled for Wednesday morning, and a sleep study scheduled for two weeks from tomorrow. And--tempting fate aside--I'm still very happy.
Thursday, November 2, 2006
Unemployment Day 6: People Suck, But Not All Of Them
Well, the news on the cat front is uniformly unhappy. The vet called yesterday morning to inform me that my little curb-kitten didn't make it. I wasn't surprised, really--she was in such bad shape. I comfort myself with the fact that at least she died indoors, and not by being run-over or something worse. Poor kitty.
And I went to see my neighbor about her cat situation. She confirmed that she wanted to keep the kitten, but not the mama cat. She also said that she tried to keep the kitten in the house, but people kept leaving the door open (not surprising) and the kitten would run out. I asked her if she would let me take the mama cat to the shelter, and she agreed. A few minutes later her son knocked on the door to tell me that he'd caught mama-cat in the carrier and I could take her. I drove her downtown and told the Animal Cruelty people that I needed to surrender her. Because she's not mine, that brands her a stray, and means she has to go to Animal Care and Control. Because she's an indoor-outdoor cat, she's probably not adoptable. My only hope is that she has her kittens--she is indeed knocked-up--during the waiting period. And then, that a miracle occurs and someone takes her home, instead of down the long hallway. One of the women at the shelter said that there's a new no-kill shelter opening soon; any future rescues will go there, I think. I'm conflicted; I thought I was doing a good thing, but now I'm not so sure. I'm half-tempted to go to Animal Control and "find" her.
When I got home, I hugged the heck out of BadCat and Snick. They didn't appreciate it.
Today was my doctor's appointment. After listening to my litany of symptoms (related and unrelated), she ordered exactly what I thought she would: a sleep study, a litany of blood tests, and a follow-up. She's thinking the same things I'm thinking: either sleep apnea, diabetes, hypothyroid, or (one I didn't think of) possibly anemia. I'm calling tomorrow to schedule the sleep study; the blood tests are walk-in, but I have to fast for 8 hours first. I'm hoping we figure it out.
Then, after my appointment, I had to go back to Place Where I Used To Work, to pick up my belongings. It's fairly clear to me that Immediate Boss isn't too happy about the fact that they fired me; he told me to call him if I needed anything, and to use him as a reference. He was really cool, and after he helped me carry my boxes out to the car, he gave me a hug and wished me good luck. Any animosity I feel towards anyone at that place would have to be directed solely at Human Resources; almost everyone else was okay.
And I talked to the woman who'd called Tuesday about a job; it sounds great. She forwarded my resume to the I.T. manager, so I'm waiting to hear. All in all it's been a fairly encouraging couple of days, if you don't count cats. I'm getting my health issues taken care of; I have a promising job lead; and a reference I hadn't expected. And the house is looking much better, now that LJ's gone--to say nothing of my finances! I'm contented; I'd be happier if I had a job, but in the absence of income, I'm at least content.
And I went to see my neighbor about her cat situation. She confirmed that she wanted to keep the kitten, but not the mama cat. She also said that she tried to keep the kitten in the house, but people kept leaving the door open (not surprising) and the kitten would run out. I asked her if she would let me take the mama cat to the shelter, and she agreed. A few minutes later her son knocked on the door to tell me that he'd caught mama-cat in the carrier and I could take her. I drove her downtown and told the Animal Cruelty people that I needed to surrender her. Because she's not mine, that brands her a stray, and means she has to go to Animal Care and Control. Because she's an indoor-outdoor cat, she's probably not adoptable. My only hope is that she has her kittens--she is indeed knocked-up--during the waiting period. And then, that a miracle occurs and someone takes her home, instead of down the long hallway. One of the women at the shelter said that there's a new no-kill shelter opening soon; any future rescues will go there, I think. I'm conflicted; I thought I was doing a good thing, but now I'm not so sure. I'm half-tempted to go to Animal Control and "find" her.
When I got home, I hugged the heck out of BadCat and Snick. They didn't appreciate it.
Today was my doctor's appointment. After listening to my litany of symptoms (related and unrelated), she ordered exactly what I thought she would: a sleep study, a litany of blood tests, and a follow-up. She's thinking the same things I'm thinking: either sleep apnea, diabetes, hypothyroid, or (one I didn't think of) possibly anemia. I'm calling tomorrow to schedule the sleep study; the blood tests are walk-in, but I have to fast for 8 hours first. I'm hoping we figure it out.
Then, after my appointment, I had to go back to Place Where I Used To Work, to pick up my belongings. It's fairly clear to me that Immediate Boss isn't too happy about the fact that they fired me; he told me to call him if I needed anything, and to use him as a reference. He was really cool, and after he helped me carry my boxes out to the car, he gave me a hug and wished me good luck. Any animosity I feel towards anyone at that place would have to be directed solely at Human Resources; almost everyone else was okay.
And I talked to the woman who'd called Tuesday about a job; it sounds great. She forwarded my resume to the I.T. manager, so I'm waiting to hear. All in all it's been a fairly encouraging couple of days, if you don't count cats. I'm getting my health issues taken care of; I have a promising job lead; and a reference I hadn't expected. And the house is looking much better, now that LJ's gone--to say nothing of my finances! I'm contented; I'd be happier if I had a job, but in the absence of income, I'm at least content.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Unemployment, Day 4: A Bad Cat Day
I woke up about 10 this morning and came downstairs to find that the litterbox was decidedly aromatic and in need of immediate attention. Around 11, I got dressed and went out to the truck, where I had a bag of cat litter from my last shopping trip.
As I walked toward the car I saw a small black-and-white kitten sitting in the gutter. I expected it to run away, but it just looked at me as I approached, and as I got closer I could see it was in bad shape. It was crouched there, paws wet and muddy, drooling weakly and panting.
My first concern was to get it out of the gutter. The junkies who stop on our block pull up to the curb, get their dope, and drive away; the kitten was lying right in the middle of the traffic pattern, and to make it worse, she was nearly invisible among the leaves and trash. I picked her up by the scruff, placed her on the grass, and ran back to the house. I looked up the nearest vet, called to make sure he was open, and grabbed the car keys and the cat-carrier.
When I got outside, the kitten had moved back to the gutter. When I picked her up to push her into the carrier, she spread her feet and fought me, weakly, but I could feel how thin she was, how dehydrated. I drove her to the vet's office.
The vet's office was a storefront, none-too-impressive, certainly not somewhere I'd take my cats. But at this point, I was most interested in getting this kitty to someone who could help; I didn't think she'd make the ride up to Skokie, to my vet. The vet wasn't optimistic; at first he suggested putting her to sleep, but then offered to give her fluids and warm her up a little. He said he gives her about a 50-50 chance of survival. She perked up a teeny bit once she was under a warm lamp; enough to squirm and cry a little. I scratched her behind the ears and told her it was up to her now, that I'd done everything I could do. (Which included parting with $120 I don't have, but I couldn't very well leave the poor thing to get run over in the street.) If she lives, I guess I've got another cat. She looks to be about Snick's age, maybe; as starved as she is, she could be a little older.
When I left the vet, I went to the store, to Target, spent more money I didn't have on everything I was completely out of--but at least I have food. I didn't realize how much cheaper it is to live without LJ! He called the other night, by the way, and was very mildly sympathetic when I told him about losing my job--of course, his first question was "What did you DO?" I'll admit, I played it up, too--I told him I wasn't sure if I was going to keep the house, that it would be best if when he came back to town, he took all his stuff with him when he left. He seemed just fine with that--maybe he's as tired of me as I am of him, who knows?
Anyway, I came home with the truck loaded with stuff--groceries, toilet paper, etc--and rather than make ten trips in and out of the house with Badcat making a run for it each time, I decided to haul everything to the front porch and then go from there. On the third trip, I noticed that I had observers--the next-door cat and kitten. This is the same pair I've asked my neighbors to keep inside--a gorgeous little baby Siamese and a tabby-striped gray and white mama cat. Mama is friendly; Junior is scared of everything. They were standing next to the porch, watching.
On the fourth trip, they were on the porch, sniffing the bags. I went next-door and asked if Phoebe was around. One of the girls said no, she was shopping. I said "Well, I have a couple of your family members sniffing my groceries." The girl told me Phoebe had put the cats out because they kept scratching the furniture, and she didn't want them anymore. I told her if she saw Phoebe, to have her stop by so I could talk to her.
By the time I got back to the porch, Junior was working on getting one of my pork chops out of the plastic wrap, but wouldn't let me pet him. I got the last of the bags out of the truck, ducked into the house, and penned up BadCat and Snick--Bad in the bathroom, Snick in the Cat Room. Neither of them were pleased. I opened the front door to get the groceries, and to my surprise, Junior followed me right in. (He REALLY wanted that pork chop.)
He wandered the house for a few minutes, then started inhaling a can of Fancy Feast I'd put down for him. But he still wouldn't let me touch him. He'd eat, I'd get one step away, my hand would be an inch from his head, and he'd duck away til I left. I finally grabbed his dish and put it on the porch, and as I expected, he followed it right out the door.
I wanted to keep him SO BADLY. This is seriously one of the most beautiful kittens I've ever seen. But he's been outside so much that I don't know what diseases he's got--at the very least, I'd imagine he's got fleas and worms--and I don't want my boys getting sick by association. If I DID keep him, he'd have to go straight to the vet before anything else. And if my poor little curb-kitten lives, that would be FOUR kitties. That's perilously close to Crazy-Cat-Lady Land.
Then there's Mama Cat; not only is she also in exile, apparently, she's also pregnant again. I couldn't believe it when I felt her ribs and realized how chunky she was. I CAN'T keep her, nor can I keep a herd of kittens. So I made a decision: if I see them tomorrow, I'm going to do what I can to trap them, and the two of them will come to the Humane Society with me. I'll make the decision about Junior when I get there; Mama, though, can't stay. She's a pretty little thing; they'll spay her and put her up for adoption, and kittens are generally adopted quickly.
Can you see here that I'm desperately trying to convince myself that I'd be doing the right thing by taking them to the shelter? I'm not sure it's working. It's not fair that people do this to animals; if I ever leave this neighborhood, it will be because I can't handle the cultural attitude towards animals, particularly cats. Cats are disposable around here, and it just breaks my heart. My neighbors laugh at me for trying to save them all--it's the typical bleeding-heart white-girl attitude toward animals--but I can't help it. These cats didn't ask to be born here. Neither, I guess, did the humans--but I'd save them too, if I could. Humans are just infinitely more expensive to save than cats; and unlike humans, the cats you save generally don't betray you. And cats, again unlike humans, can't always save themselves.
So I am unexpectedly bummed, although for a good reason. We'll see what happens. Meanwhile, send some good thoughts toward these kitties, especially my little girl-cat at the vet.
On the up-side, I did get a call about a job today; I need to call the woman back again tomorrow, but it sounds promising. I'm excited. It would be REALLY great if I could get something right away, then have the severance pay to slap into the bank. That would be ideal. Not sure it's going to happen, but it would be nice!
As I walked toward the car I saw a small black-and-white kitten sitting in the gutter. I expected it to run away, but it just looked at me as I approached, and as I got closer I could see it was in bad shape. It was crouched there, paws wet and muddy, drooling weakly and panting.
My first concern was to get it out of the gutter. The junkies who stop on our block pull up to the curb, get their dope, and drive away; the kitten was lying right in the middle of the traffic pattern, and to make it worse, she was nearly invisible among the leaves and trash. I picked her up by the scruff, placed her on the grass, and ran back to the house. I looked up the nearest vet, called to make sure he was open, and grabbed the car keys and the cat-carrier.
When I got outside, the kitten had moved back to the gutter. When I picked her up to push her into the carrier, she spread her feet and fought me, weakly, but I could feel how thin she was, how dehydrated. I drove her to the vet's office.
The vet's office was a storefront, none-too-impressive, certainly not somewhere I'd take my cats. But at this point, I was most interested in getting this kitty to someone who could help; I didn't think she'd make the ride up to Skokie, to my vet. The vet wasn't optimistic; at first he suggested putting her to sleep, but then offered to give her fluids and warm her up a little. He said he gives her about a 50-50 chance of survival. She perked up a teeny bit once she was under a warm lamp; enough to squirm and cry a little. I scratched her behind the ears and told her it was up to her now, that I'd done everything I could do. (Which included parting with $120 I don't have, but I couldn't very well leave the poor thing to get run over in the street.) If she lives, I guess I've got another cat. She looks to be about Snick's age, maybe; as starved as she is, she could be a little older.
When I left the vet, I went to the store, to Target, spent more money I didn't have on everything I was completely out of--but at least I have food. I didn't realize how much cheaper it is to live without LJ! He called the other night, by the way, and was very mildly sympathetic when I told him about losing my job--of course, his first question was "What did you DO?" I'll admit, I played it up, too--I told him I wasn't sure if I was going to keep the house, that it would be best if when he came back to town, he took all his stuff with him when he left. He seemed just fine with that--maybe he's as tired of me as I am of him, who knows?
Anyway, I came home with the truck loaded with stuff--groceries, toilet paper, etc--and rather than make ten trips in and out of the house with Badcat making a run for it each time, I decided to haul everything to the front porch and then go from there. On the third trip, I noticed that I had observers--the next-door cat and kitten. This is the same pair I've asked my neighbors to keep inside--a gorgeous little baby Siamese and a tabby-striped gray and white mama cat. Mama is friendly; Junior is scared of everything. They were standing next to the porch, watching.
On the fourth trip, they were on the porch, sniffing the bags. I went next-door and asked if Phoebe was around. One of the girls said no, she was shopping. I said "Well, I have a couple of your family members sniffing my groceries." The girl told me Phoebe had put the cats out because they kept scratching the furniture, and she didn't want them anymore. I told her if she saw Phoebe, to have her stop by so I could talk to her.
By the time I got back to the porch, Junior was working on getting one of my pork chops out of the plastic wrap, but wouldn't let me pet him. I got the last of the bags out of the truck, ducked into the house, and penned up BadCat and Snick--Bad in the bathroom, Snick in the Cat Room. Neither of them were pleased. I opened the front door to get the groceries, and to my surprise, Junior followed me right in. (He REALLY wanted that pork chop.)
He wandered the house for a few minutes, then started inhaling a can of Fancy Feast I'd put down for him. But he still wouldn't let me touch him. He'd eat, I'd get one step away, my hand would be an inch from his head, and he'd duck away til I left. I finally grabbed his dish and put it on the porch, and as I expected, he followed it right out the door.
I wanted to keep him SO BADLY. This is seriously one of the most beautiful kittens I've ever seen. But he's been outside so much that I don't know what diseases he's got--at the very least, I'd imagine he's got fleas and worms--and I don't want my boys getting sick by association. If I DID keep him, he'd have to go straight to the vet before anything else. And if my poor little curb-kitten lives, that would be FOUR kitties. That's perilously close to Crazy-Cat-Lady Land.
Then there's Mama Cat; not only is she also in exile, apparently, she's also pregnant again. I couldn't believe it when I felt her ribs and realized how chunky she was. I CAN'T keep her, nor can I keep a herd of kittens. So I made a decision: if I see them tomorrow, I'm going to do what I can to trap them, and the two of them will come to the Humane Society with me. I'll make the decision about Junior when I get there; Mama, though, can't stay. She's a pretty little thing; they'll spay her and put her up for adoption, and kittens are generally adopted quickly.
Can you see here that I'm desperately trying to convince myself that I'd be doing the right thing by taking them to the shelter? I'm not sure it's working. It's not fair that people do this to animals; if I ever leave this neighborhood, it will be because I can't handle the cultural attitude towards animals, particularly cats. Cats are disposable around here, and it just breaks my heart. My neighbors laugh at me for trying to save them all--it's the typical bleeding-heart white-girl attitude toward animals--but I can't help it. These cats didn't ask to be born here. Neither, I guess, did the humans--but I'd save them too, if I could. Humans are just infinitely more expensive to save than cats; and unlike humans, the cats you save generally don't betray you. And cats, again unlike humans, can't always save themselves.
So I am unexpectedly bummed, although for a good reason. We'll see what happens. Meanwhile, send some good thoughts toward these kitties, especially my little girl-cat at the vet.
On the up-side, I did get a call about a job today; I need to call the woman back again tomorrow, but it sounds promising. I'm excited. It would be REALLY great if I could get something right away, then have the severance pay to slap into the bank. That would be ideal. Not sure it's going to happen, but it would be nice!
Monday, October 30, 2006
Unemployment, Day 3: There But For The Grace of God
Though obviously the job-search is at the forefront of my mind today, it's sharing space, and if I'm going to be honest, it's shuffling toward the back of the line. (Although logging on to the Illinois Department of Employment site and being asked to list my skills and experience was a bit of a lift, I'll admit--according to their list, I have 182 marketable skills. And those 182 skills? Fit a grand total of SEVEN job openings, four of which pay less than ten bucks an hour. :::sigh:::)
Today it is eleven years since JP died. There are a lot of things about that simple statement that are almost as important as the fact itself. First and foremost, it was a year ago today that I had my relapse.
I can't even adequately describe, or even explain to myself, how far from that moment I am right now. I look back one year and it's like looking into some dark cave--not even a tunnel, because there's no light coming out the other end of it. It just goes back and back and looking back, I can't even see clearly where it ends. And it's not til now, when I'm standing in the light, that I even realize how bad it was.
I don't know what to attribute it to--counseling, Prozac, the passage of time--but I can't imagine what would have happened if I'd lost my job a year ago, whether I would have been able to stand it as calmly as I've stood this. I don't know what would have happened, and I'm glad I'm not there to find out!
I've had several reminders in the past few days of just how lucky I am, even when things are at their worst.
To begin with: A couple of days ago, while idly surfing the net in the middle of the night, I found myself at the Illinois Department of Corrections website. And I put in the names of some of my past and present comrades who might, somehow, have found their way into a bad situation. And lo and behold, I got a hit: for Lou, my old roomie with JP. He's listed as an escapee from Stateville, which I'm not sure I believe, but whatever. I Googled him, looking for a story about this supposed escape, and found nothing--but I DID find a link to an Ohio grand jury press release, named with ten or twelve others as being part of a credit-card fraud scheme. It gave his current address as "incarcerated, XXX County Jail", so I Googled that and there he was. I remember him as this young, classically good-looking guy, with blond hair and wiry muscles...now he looks old, worn-out. He'd never done heroin til he did it with JP and me, and his life was never the same afterward. I don't know why I could clean up and he couldn't; I don't know why I've had better luck and he's had worse. I know I feel a little bit of guilt for being part of his involvement with heroin, just as I know JP felt guilty for involving me, those long dopesick nights.
Then today I went to the clinic for the week's methadone, and I ran into this girl I've seen there in the past. We grew up in the same neighborhood, apparently, though she's a few years younger than I am. You couldn't tell it to look at her, though--she looks much, much older. She goes to the clinic to get methadone so she won't get sick if she can't scrape up the cash for a fix. I used to do the same, many years ago; the methadone kept me together enough to work long enough to get paid, so I could get more heroin. I've given her a ride, occasionally, back up towards where I live, where the drug spots are. Every time I see her she looks worse and worse; today was no exception. She had these big sores all over her face, all over her hands; on the ride back towards my neighborhood, she said the doctor told her she has MERSA, which is a potentially fatal form of staph bacteria. As a junkie I was far beyond lucky; I never had an infection, never had an abcess, despite shooting EVERYTHING into my veins.
On my right forearm, there's a small white scar. When addicts are really broke, too broke to get a real fix, they sometimes do cotton-shots--combining all our little bits of cotton through which we'd filtered the heroin as we drew it into the needle. We'd save them from several weeks of shots, and soak them and press all the heroin residue out of the cotton and then shoot it. I don't know what went wrong exactly, but this shot was full of little threads, and the only reason it didn't kill me or at least make me very, very sick was that I couldn't get a vein and so I did what's known as a skin-pop, where you just shoot the liquid into a little bubble under your skin. For weeks after, I could pull tiny tufts of cotton out of my arm. It probably should have been a lot worse than it was.
That's what I thought of when I looked at this girl. If she doesn't take her antibiotics, there's a fair chance this could kill her; even if she does take them, it could kill her. The "MER" in "MERSA" stands for MEthicillin Resistant--in other words, nothing to screw with. We came from the same background, we did the same things, and then at a crucial point I made one decision and she made another, and the results of that decision can potentially be life or death. It's chilling.
Eleven years. Eleven years is a very long time, but today just this ONE year just passed seems almost as long. Curiously I'm not seeing this joblessness as a step backwards; it's a sort of....pleasant annoyance, if you know what I mean. Like when you're wearing jeans and something's poking you in the stomach, and you realize that what's poking you is a wad of money in your front pocket. It's annoying, sure, but comfortable in its own way. It's so NICE not to dread the sunrise!
I did things differently today than I've done for the other years since JP died. I didn't go to the cemetery; I haven't sat around all day being maudlin and remembering. I haven't cried (though there are still a few hours left in the day!) I went to the clinic, ate donuts, cleaned the hell out of my house. Don't get me wrong: I miss him, no less than I ever have. But that sadness is only one piece of my life, and with most of the other pieces going well, I can't dwell on just that. There is much more I need to think about, right now.
I think, in part, I've learned to accept this truth: had JP lived, I would not be who and where I am--and on the path we were travelling, there's a strong likelihood that the difference would have been negative, not positive. That's not my favorite thing to think about--I've never wanted to be the beneficiary of anyone's sacrifice--but the fact remains: I'm still here. I wouldn't have chosen to make it this way, but this is how it is. The question is, what do I make of it from here?
Today it is eleven years since JP died. There are a lot of things about that simple statement that are almost as important as the fact itself. First and foremost, it was a year ago today that I had my relapse.
I can't even adequately describe, or even explain to myself, how far from that moment I am right now. I look back one year and it's like looking into some dark cave--not even a tunnel, because there's no light coming out the other end of it. It just goes back and back and looking back, I can't even see clearly where it ends. And it's not til now, when I'm standing in the light, that I even realize how bad it was.
I don't know what to attribute it to--counseling, Prozac, the passage of time--but I can't imagine what would have happened if I'd lost my job a year ago, whether I would have been able to stand it as calmly as I've stood this. I don't know what would have happened, and I'm glad I'm not there to find out!
I've had several reminders in the past few days of just how lucky I am, even when things are at their worst.
To begin with: A couple of days ago, while idly surfing the net in the middle of the night, I found myself at the Illinois Department of Corrections website. And I put in the names of some of my past and present comrades who might, somehow, have found their way into a bad situation. And lo and behold, I got a hit: for Lou, my old roomie with JP. He's listed as an escapee from Stateville, which I'm not sure I believe, but whatever. I Googled him, looking for a story about this supposed escape, and found nothing--but I DID find a link to an Ohio grand jury press release, named with ten or twelve others as being part of a credit-card fraud scheme. It gave his current address as "incarcerated, XXX County Jail", so I Googled that and there he was. I remember him as this young, classically good-looking guy, with blond hair and wiry muscles...now he looks old, worn-out. He'd never done heroin til he did it with JP and me, and his life was never the same afterward. I don't know why I could clean up and he couldn't; I don't know why I've had better luck and he's had worse. I know I feel a little bit of guilt for being part of his involvement with heroin, just as I know JP felt guilty for involving me, those long dopesick nights.
Then today I went to the clinic for the week's methadone, and I ran into this girl I've seen there in the past. We grew up in the same neighborhood, apparently, though she's a few years younger than I am. You couldn't tell it to look at her, though--she looks much, much older. She goes to the clinic to get methadone so she won't get sick if she can't scrape up the cash for a fix. I used to do the same, many years ago; the methadone kept me together enough to work long enough to get paid, so I could get more heroin. I've given her a ride, occasionally, back up towards where I live, where the drug spots are. Every time I see her she looks worse and worse; today was no exception. She had these big sores all over her face, all over her hands; on the ride back towards my neighborhood, she said the doctor told her she has MERSA, which is a potentially fatal form of staph bacteria. As a junkie I was far beyond lucky; I never had an infection, never had an abcess, despite shooting EVERYTHING into my veins.
On my right forearm, there's a small white scar. When addicts are really broke, too broke to get a real fix, they sometimes do cotton-shots--combining all our little bits of cotton through which we'd filtered the heroin as we drew it into the needle. We'd save them from several weeks of shots, and soak them and press all the heroin residue out of the cotton and then shoot it. I don't know what went wrong exactly, but this shot was full of little threads, and the only reason it didn't kill me or at least make me very, very sick was that I couldn't get a vein and so I did what's known as a skin-pop, where you just shoot the liquid into a little bubble under your skin. For weeks after, I could pull tiny tufts of cotton out of my arm. It probably should have been a lot worse than it was.
That's what I thought of when I looked at this girl. If she doesn't take her antibiotics, there's a fair chance this could kill her; even if she does take them, it could kill her. The "MER" in "MERSA" stands for MEthicillin Resistant--in other words, nothing to screw with. We came from the same background, we did the same things, and then at a crucial point I made one decision and she made another, and the results of that decision can potentially be life or death. It's chilling.
Eleven years. Eleven years is a very long time, but today just this ONE year just passed seems almost as long. Curiously I'm not seeing this joblessness as a step backwards; it's a sort of....pleasant annoyance, if you know what I mean. Like when you're wearing jeans and something's poking you in the stomach, and you realize that what's poking you is a wad of money in your front pocket. It's annoying, sure, but comfortable in its own way. It's so NICE not to dread the sunrise!
I did things differently today than I've done for the other years since JP died. I didn't go to the cemetery; I haven't sat around all day being maudlin and remembering. I haven't cried (though there are still a few hours left in the day!) I went to the clinic, ate donuts, cleaned the hell out of my house. Don't get me wrong: I miss him, no less than I ever have. But that sadness is only one piece of my life, and with most of the other pieces going well, I can't dwell on just that. There is much more I need to think about, right now.
I think, in part, I've learned to accept this truth: had JP lived, I would not be who and where I am--and on the path we were travelling, there's a strong likelihood that the difference would have been negative, not positive. That's not my favorite thing to think about--I've never wanted to be the beneficiary of anyone's sacrifice--but the fact remains: I'm still here. I wouldn't have chosen to make it this way, but this is how it is. The question is, what do I make of it from here?
Friday, October 27, 2006
Unemployment, Day 1: The Things That Happen While I'm Gone
Day One of my unemployment has been fairly quiet. I slept in, got up at 9, and went to the clinic to get the weekend's methadone. Normally I make my payment on Fridays, but I thought maybe today might be a good day to put that off. I went to the store to cash in the contents of my change jar at the CoinStar machine, then decided "hey, if you can't treat yourself when you're jobless, what's the point of treating yourself at all?" And I drove to Krispy Kreme.
If any of you have never experienced a hot, freshly-glazed Krispy Kreme donut, stop reading now. Stand up, turn off the computer, and find your car keys, and remedy this situation immediately. If you have never had one, you are missing one of the great sensory experiences of human existence. There are people who don't like Krispy Kremes, and I guess that's their prerogative, but if you've never tasted one, then you can have no comprehension of why I would drive several miles on a cold, rainy morning to spend money I technically don't have.
However, I wasn't aware til this morning that the Krispy Kreme people are trying to kill me.
I rolled up to the speaker and asked for half a dozen glazed. And through the speaker a crackly voice informed me: "Half a dozen would be $5.87, but a dozen would only be $6.24...did you want to get a dozen??"
"Well, when you put it THAT way..." I said. When I got to the window I said "You know, that's not right--You get 35 more cents, but I get thirty-five MILLION more calories!" The girl smiled. "It does come out cheaper, though," she said. "Yeah, everywhere except my waistline!!!"
My dozen donuts and I came home, and I ate two of them, standing over the sink to catch the sugar-shrapnel that invariably comes with the territory. I believe I made happy-noises, as well, or possibly did the Happy Wiggle Dance. I am not proud.
The rest of the morning and early- to mid-afternoon was spent, predictably, job-hunting. I've got about 30 resumes/applications out there already, between last night and today, all with well-crafted cover-letters, references, all the requisite bits and pieces asked for by each employer. (And yes, Spins--I also put three or four agencies in there, too.) A few of the jobs I applied for are a little below where I'd like to be as far as salary, but then again, so is $0, which is now my current salary. I'll cross THAT bridge when I get there.
It was while I was applying for jobs that I began to realize that life does not stop in my house when I walk out the door in the morning.
All day, I watched BadCat and Snick--chasing each other, washing each other, napping...crawling into the trash-can...eating random items off the floor (and in one case, responding poorly to my finger wedged into his mouth and my shouted command of "Drop it, NOW!" Snick is like an infant when it comes to floor-particles: if it's there and he sees it, into his mouth it goes.) I also got to watch him stalk, kill, and eat a millipede--my reaction to that was "I'll think twice before YOU lick my nose again, buster!"...watched him nest in an empty wastebasket (he left before I could get the camera, alas)...and experienced for the first time a phenomenon I had only heard in legend.
I've heard the phrase "strange as a cat fart", and I've had a couple cats who occasionally emitted odd aromas--though they were always silent, and they always looked so innocent afterward that I was torn between blaming them and blaming the roomie, the trash, or the litterbox. But until today, I had never HEARD a cat fart. This afternoon, after a nap, I came downstairs to check my mail, followed by my nap-buddy, Snick. He jumped up on the couch to pounce on BadCat, and as he did so, he let one rip. I mean, this was an actual, honest-to-god FART, not some quiet little kitten-sized "poot!" --a loud, quacking, carpet-frog of a fart. I think he startled himself, but he recovered quickly enough to bite BadCat in the ear before he took off running. I didn't know WHY he took off, but I soon learned; I was nearly knocked-over by a wave of funk before I could reach the can of Oust. No WAY was I gonna blame anyone else for THAT one. Besides, he looked so proud of himself afterwards that there was no way to pin it on anyone but him.
I wonder what else these two have been doing while I've been at work...somehow, I suspect some wild parties may have been thrown in my absence.
Incidentally, to all of you: thanks for the encouragement. I appreciate the offers of networking, the moral support, and the exhortations to WRITE!!!...which I would gladly do if I had six months of severance, but six weeks is a little skinny to produce anything consequential, even with the aid of Krispy Kremes and Pepsi. The hardest part of being fired is over, anyway; I told Mom last night. She went into that "oh my god" reaction that just barely conceals the question "Why did you give them a reason to fire you?" and I stopped her dead in her tracks. "Mom," I said. "I am NOT going to feel bad about this. I am not going to beat up on myself for something I had no control over. I tried to stop it, I tried to work around it, but it happened anyway and I'm NOT going to blame myself." Particularly not in light of the info she gave me the other night, about my dad having EXACTLY the same thing happen to him--how the hell is anyone going to say that it was willful behavior on my part? Seriously now. She didn't seem too ready to accept that interpretation of events--I'm sure she still thinks it was my fault, and to a certain extent I wonder whether, if I'd been an outstanding employee, would they have found a way around this problem? But then again, I'm talking about a company where the owner's whole family is on the payroll, including one son-in-law who is considered a "product line manager" despite the fact that since we moved to the new building back in early June, he has come to the office ONCE--and spent that day tying up Information Tech resources so that he could work on his grad-school project. Somehow THAT passes for productive behavior, whereas I got caught losing consciousness for periods of less than 30 seconds, totalling maybe 15 minutes out of a full 8-hour day, and I get fired. Hey, whatever, you know?? THIS is why I hate corporate America! But of course, if I say that to Mom, I'm being impractical, a radical. Well, yeah....and???
I haven't told LJ yet; he hasn't called in nearly three weeks, so I'm not going to bust down the phone lines to get a hold of him. Again: hey, whatever, you know? Somehow now I feel less-bad about kicking him to the curb. If I was feeling REALLY mean, I'd pack up all his stuff for him and deliver it to his mom's--but then again, I don't feel like doing that much work on his behalf, either. When he does call, I fully expect a non-sympathetic reaction, probably one which touches on how MY loss of employment will affect HIM. (If he does say something like that, protocol be damned--I'll dump him over the phone right then and there.)
Since it's only my first day of unemployment, and a Friday to boot, I'm not going to get discouraged by the lack of phone calls flooding in; instead, I'm going to crawl under my blankies, watch "Meerkat Manor", and hope that Monday brings better news. Oh--and defend the donuts from Snick. He loves pastries.
If any of you have never experienced a hot, freshly-glazed Krispy Kreme donut, stop reading now. Stand up, turn off the computer, and find your car keys, and remedy this situation immediately. If you have never had one, you are missing one of the great sensory experiences of human existence. There are people who don't like Krispy Kremes, and I guess that's their prerogative, but if you've never tasted one, then you can have no comprehension of why I would drive several miles on a cold, rainy morning to spend money I technically don't have.
However, I wasn't aware til this morning that the Krispy Kreme people are trying to kill me.
I rolled up to the speaker and asked for half a dozen glazed. And through the speaker a crackly voice informed me: "Half a dozen would be $5.87, but a dozen would only be $6.24...did you want to get a dozen??"
"Well, when you put it THAT way..." I said. When I got to the window I said "You know, that's not right--You get 35 more cents, but I get thirty-five MILLION more calories!" The girl smiled. "It does come out cheaper, though," she said. "Yeah, everywhere except my waistline!!!"
My dozen donuts and I came home, and I ate two of them, standing over the sink to catch the sugar-shrapnel that invariably comes with the territory. I believe I made happy-noises, as well, or possibly did the Happy Wiggle Dance. I am not proud.
The rest of the morning and early- to mid-afternoon was spent, predictably, job-hunting. I've got about 30 resumes/applications out there already, between last night and today, all with well-crafted cover-letters, references, all the requisite bits and pieces asked for by each employer. (And yes, Spins--I also put three or four agencies in there, too.) A few of the jobs I applied for are a little below where I'd like to be as far as salary, but then again, so is $0, which is now my current salary. I'll cross THAT bridge when I get there.
It was while I was applying for jobs that I began to realize that life does not stop in my house when I walk out the door in the morning.
All day, I watched BadCat and Snick--chasing each other, washing each other, napping...crawling into the trash-can...eating random items off the floor (and in one case, responding poorly to my finger wedged into his mouth and my shouted command of "Drop it, NOW!" Snick is like an infant when it comes to floor-particles: if it's there and he sees it, into his mouth it goes.) I also got to watch him stalk, kill, and eat a millipede--my reaction to that was "I'll think twice before YOU lick my nose again, buster!"...watched him nest in an empty wastebasket (he left before I could get the camera, alas)...and experienced for the first time a phenomenon I had only heard in legend.
I've heard the phrase "strange as a cat fart", and I've had a couple cats who occasionally emitted odd aromas--though they were always silent, and they always looked so innocent afterward that I was torn between blaming them and blaming the roomie, the trash, or the litterbox. But until today, I had never HEARD a cat fart. This afternoon, after a nap, I came downstairs to check my mail, followed by my nap-buddy, Snick. He jumped up on the couch to pounce on BadCat, and as he did so, he let one rip. I mean, this was an actual, honest-to-god FART, not some quiet little kitten-sized "poot!" --a loud, quacking, carpet-frog of a fart. I think he startled himself, but he recovered quickly enough to bite BadCat in the ear before he took off running. I didn't know WHY he took off, but I soon learned; I was nearly knocked-over by a wave of funk before I could reach the can of Oust. No WAY was I gonna blame anyone else for THAT one. Besides, he looked so proud of himself afterwards that there was no way to pin it on anyone but him.
I wonder what else these two have been doing while I've been at work...somehow, I suspect some wild parties may have been thrown in my absence.
Incidentally, to all of you: thanks for the encouragement. I appreciate the offers of networking, the moral support, and the exhortations to WRITE!!!...which I would gladly do if I had six months of severance, but six weeks is a little skinny to produce anything consequential, even with the aid of Krispy Kremes and Pepsi. The hardest part of being fired is over, anyway; I told Mom last night. She went into that "oh my god" reaction that just barely conceals the question "Why did you give them a reason to fire you?" and I stopped her dead in her tracks. "Mom," I said. "I am NOT going to feel bad about this. I am not going to beat up on myself for something I had no control over. I tried to stop it, I tried to work around it, but it happened anyway and I'm NOT going to blame myself." Particularly not in light of the info she gave me the other night, about my dad having EXACTLY the same thing happen to him--how the hell is anyone going to say that it was willful behavior on my part? Seriously now. She didn't seem too ready to accept that interpretation of events--I'm sure she still thinks it was my fault, and to a certain extent I wonder whether, if I'd been an outstanding employee, would they have found a way around this problem? But then again, I'm talking about a company where the owner's whole family is on the payroll, including one son-in-law who is considered a "product line manager" despite the fact that since we moved to the new building back in early June, he has come to the office ONCE--and spent that day tying up Information Tech resources so that he could work on his grad-school project. Somehow THAT passes for productive behavior, whereas I got caught losing consciousness for periods of less than 30 seconds, totalling maybe 15 minutes out of a full 8-hour day, and I get fired. Hey, whatever, you know?? THIS is why I hate corporate America! But of course, if I say that to Mom, I'm being impractical, a radical. Well, yeah....and???
I haven't told LJ yet; he hasn't called in nearly three weeks, so I'm not going to bust down the phone lines to get a hold of him. Again: hey, whatever, you know? Somehow now I feel less-bad about kicking him to the curb. If I was feeling REALLY mean, I'd pack up all his stuff for him and deliver it to his mom's--but then again, I don't feel like doing that much work on his behalf, either. When he does call, I fully expect a non-sympathetic reaction, probably one which touches on how MY loss of employment will affect HIM. (If he does say something like that, protocol be damned--I'll dump him over the phone right then and there.)
Since it's only my first day of unemployment, and a Friday to boot, I'm not going to get discouraged by the lack of phone calls flooding in; instead, I'm going to crawl under my blankies, watch "Meerkat Manor", and hope that Monday brings better news. Oh--and defend the donuts from Snick. He loves pastries.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
The Big One
I got fired today.
I knew I was getting sleepy this morning, but I thought I’d caught myself before anyone saw; I got up, walked around, waited for the No-Doz to kick in. And I was fine way before lunchtime, but apparently someone had said something already. I hope whoever it was—I have a suspicion, though it’s only a suspicion—can sleep with a clear conscience. If it’s who I think it is, her karma will take care of her for MANY transgressions other than this.
They’re giving me severance, which I’m sure they think is very generous, in exchange for signing a waiver that says I won’t sue. I don’t know yet that I’m going to sign it. I don’t know yet that I’m not going to sue. I notified them two days ago that I was seeking medical attention for this issue; the fact that they fired me anyway doesn’t seem quite right. Then again, I’m sure they covered their butts and checked everything out with their lawyers, to make sure they had an airtight case against me.
I would feel worse if I’d done anything wrong. I would feel worse if I hadn’t made all the changes I’ve made; if I hadn’t changed my diet, my dosages of medication, my sleep schedule. For weeks now I have slept through the weekends; in an effort to get as much sleep as possible I’ve stayed in bed for days. I tried coming in later when I felt that there might be a problem; I was chastised for that. I have done everything in my power to overcome this.
Of course, a couple of days ago my mom dropped a little bomb on me too. I was telling her about H.R.Chick’s assertion that there was “no accommodation for sleeping on the job”—as she so kindly phrased it—and my mom matter-of-factly informed me that my father had been fired more than once for EXACTLY THE SAME THING. Um, could that have maybe been useful information to have passed along before now??? Especially when you consider that I seem to have inherited more traits from my father than from my mother?
I’m terrified; I’m not going to lie. I don’t know how I’ll handle this during any future interviews, for starters, and then I’m worried that no one’s hiring, that no one will hire ME. I feel defective, diminished, less-than-normal.
But then in the darkest little corners of my heart I know: I never wanted this job. I was ambivalent when I took it in the first place, and though I tried to like it and tried to do well, I didn’t really TRY try, because I didn’t really care. One way or the other, whether this company failed or succeeded, I didn’t care. I TRIED to care. I felt bad for not caring, but I hated to get up in the morning, hated to go to work, couldn’t wait til the end of the day. I couldn’t see myself staying there forever. And I didn’t even have the comfort of HATING it, the way I did at the end of the last job. There wasn’t even anything worth hating about it. It was dull and boring and meaningless, and if the company failed tomorrow it wouldn’t be the slightest loss to the world; one more pointless, non-essential consumer product would disappear, and that would be the extent of the tragedy. I wasn’t making a difference; I was making it easier for some rich guys to get richer by selling something no one really NEEDS. The only benefit to me was the paycheck and what it brought. I felt no personal satisfaction from the work I was doing.
So yes: I feel horrible that I got fired. I feel terrified that I won’t be able to keep the house, that all sorts of awfulness could be coming down the road. But in a way I feel…relief. I won’t have to fight this battle anymore. I won’t have to try to like these people anymore, won’t have to try to motivate myself for a job I couldn’t care less about. In my dreams I imagine that this is a beginning; that somewhere out of nowhere an opportunity will come to do what I really want to do, what I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid and denied, denied, denied—because I was afraid, because I listened to everyone who told me writing was a hobby, not a way to make a living. In my dreams something happens and I don’t have to look for a job I hate, because I’m able to do what I love and actually make a life from it.
I’m pretty sure that’s only going to be a dream, but I’m going to indulge it for a day or two; indulge the dream and work on the resume, and start looking for something else. If I’m very lucky, the severance will be extra, instead of just survival money.
But as I’ve seen today, I’m apparently not a very lucky person.
I knew I was getting sleepy this morning, but I thought I’d caught myself before anyone saw; I got up, walked around, waited for the No-Doz to kick in. And I was fine way before lunchtime, but apparently someone had said something already. I hope whoever it was—I have a suspicion, though it’s only a suspicion—can sleep with a clear conscience. If it’s who I think it is, her karma will take care of her for MANY transgressions other than this.
They’re giving me severance, which I’m sure they think is very generous, in exchange for signing a waiver that says I won’t sue. I don’t know yet that I’m going to sign it. I don’t know yet that I’m not going to sue. I notified them two days ago that I was seeking medical attention for this issue; the fact that they fired me anyway doesn’t seem quite right. Then again, I’m sure they covered their butts and checked everything out with their lawyers, to make sure they had an airtight case against me.
I would feel worse if I’d done anything wrong. I would feel worse if I hadn’t made all the changes I’ve made; if I hadn’t changed my diet, my dosages of medication, my sleep schedule. For weeks now I have slept through the weekends; in an effort to get as much sleep as possible I’ve stayed in bed for days. I tried coming in later when I felt that there might be a problem; I was chastised for that. I have done everything in my power to overcome this.
Of course, a couple of days ago my mom dropped a little bomb on me too. I was telling her about H.R.Chick’s assertion that there was “no accommodation for sleeping on the job”—as she so kindly phrased it—and my mom matter-of-factly informed me that my father had been fired more than once for EXACTLY THE SAME THING. Um, could that have maybe been useful information to have passed along before now??? Especially when you consider that I seem to have inherited more traits from my father than from my mother?
I’m terrified; I’m not going to lie. I don’t know how I’ll handle this during any future interviews, for starters, and then I’m worried that no one’s hiring, that no one will hire ME. I feel defective, diminished, less-than-normal.
But then in the darkest little corners of my heart I know: I never wanted this job. I was ambivalent when I took it in the first place, and though I tried to like it and tried to do well, I didn’t really TRY try, because I didn’t really care. One way or the other, whether this company failed or succeeded, I didn’t care. I TRIED to care. I felt bad for not caring, but I hated to get up in the morning, hated to go to work, couldn’t wait til the end of the day. I couldn’t see myself staying there forever. And I didn’t even have the comfort of HATING it, the way I did at the end of the last job. There wasn’t even anything worth hating about it. It was dull and boring and meaningless, and if the company failed tomorrow it wouldn’t be the slightest loss to the world; one more pointless, non-essential consumer product would disappear, and that would be the extent of the tragedy. I wasn’t making a difference; I was making it easier for some rich guys to get richer by selling something no one really NEEDS. The only benefit to me was the paycheck and what it brought. I felt no personal satisfaction from the work I was doing.
So yes: I feel horrible that I got fired. I feel terrified that I won’t be able to keep the house, that all sorts of awfulness could be coming down the road. But in a way I feel…relief. I won’t have to fight this battle anymore. I won’t have to try to like these people anymore, won’t have to try to motivate myself for a job I couldn’t care less about. In my dreams I imagine that this is a beginning; that somewhere out of nowhere an opportunity will come to do what I really want to do, what I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid and denied, denied, denied—because I was afraid, because I listened to everyone who told me writing was a hobby, not a way to make a living. In my dreams something happens and I don’t have to look for a job I hate, because I’m able to do what I love and actually make a life from it.
I’m pretty sure that’s only going to be a dream, but I’m going to indulge it for a day or two; indulge the dream and work on the resume, and start looking for something else. If I’m very lucky, the severance will be extra, instead of just survival money.
But as I’ve seen today, I’m apparently not a very lucky person.
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