Adventures in Real Parenting: Into the Blue Again After The Money’s Gone

Chloe is trying to figure out her next ten years.

I’m listening and offering guidance where it’s appropriate and comfortable.  I’ve pride myself on not being a helicopter mom or, when Chloe was dancing, one of those stage mothers who referred to their daughters in tandem.  “We have rehearsals….”  Had I been dancing and performing then ‘we’ would have been correct.  Since my role was primarily to drive the car, pay the bills, pick up the tights at Center Stage and volunteer usher at performances, saying ‘we’ had rehearsals would have made me feel ridiculous.  And the sound of Chloe’s eyes rolling in teenage disdain would have left me deaf.

And let us not forget – I am the founder of the school commonly referred to around here as Parenting by Benign Neglect.

One thing my kids have always known is that I’ve got their back, but they have to let me know when they want me to step in.  I don’t need to know everything (speculating is more fun most of the time anyway) and if I make all their decisions, what will they gain?  As painful and frustrating as it may be, making mistakes is a valuable part of the learning process.

So Chloe and I spent a few hours together in the car the other day and she discussed her future.  Where she might go to grad school (!), summer school at Cambridge (!!!), career options, intern ideas, the general uncertainty of any job market and how to weigh your passions against your desired lifestyle in the context of the way the world works and the economy.

As we chatted, I had a tiny epiphany.  I’m writing now.  I wrote when I was a kid, a teen and a young adult.  It never occurred to me to major in creative writing or English while in school.  A career in writing never crossed my mind.  Even though I loved to write, I would have felt ridiculous calling myself a writer.

I didn’t seek out other writers or anyone who could have guided me in that regard.  My parents thought I had two options – nurse or teacher.  I rejected both to get a degree in French because I was good at languages and I liked pastry.

I had no idea what I’d do after I earned that degree. I had no plan or vision.  I just knew I’d graduate from I.U. and get a job.  My though process stopped right there.

I fell into association management because I liked the International College of Surgeons better than the insurance company that jerked me around during the interview process.  Et voila!  Career path chosen with no more consideration than I might have applied to choosing a pair of pants or which drink to go with my Happy Meal.

My career wasn’t bad.  My limited ambition allowed me to go from a secretarial job to being part of the leadership team of the AARP Illinois State Office. That was significant.  I eventually ended up running small organizations.  I had a fancy title:  Executive Director, but was underpaid.  I SUCK at negotiating my salary.

Twenty years later, I have nothing to show for it.  No savings or retirement (I also SUCKED at negotiating benefits, opting to keep long-term staff instead of firing them so that I could make more money.)  Now the skills I honed are more liability than asset.  I’m told I’m overqualified for the jobs that are available.

So I was thinking, if it had occurred to me to write, would I have talked myself out of it by using the same unidealistic and unromantic arguments employed by my parents when they tried to convince me to just go study nursing and know that I’d have a secure job for the rest of my miserable life?

Because, I assure you, you would not want me as your nurse.  The first time you moaned in pain, I’d click my tongue and sigh at you and tell you how I had three babies with not even the teenist tiniest amount of pain medication so stop your groaning already!  You barf?  I barf.  Unless I’m related to you in which case I grab a bucket and insist in my most stringent and least patient hiss that you better not miss that bucket.  Shots?  Here’s the hypodermic, do it yourself.  I’d probably be just fine taking your blood pressure and weighing you, even commiserating with you when you’ve put on a pound or two, assisting by subtracting four pounds for your clothes because when it comes to weight issues, I feel your pain.

Just don’t tell me you have a headache.  I’ll diagnose you with a brain tumor before you’ve had a chance to describe the other symptoms that clearly point to a sinus infection.

Oh, and whatever you do, don’t tell me about the color of your snots.  I once had an AARP volunteer blow her nose into a hanky and then proceed to show it to me. “Would you look at that?”  she growled.  She was a growly type. Jowly, too.

For some still unexplained reason, I did.  I looked.  I gagged.  I still have nightmares about it.  Not even the photos of WWI wounded soldiers that I looked at last night have banished that yellow green gelatinous vision from my mind.

Wait. I think I’m a writer?  

But really – what if?  What if?  What if?

It’s the question with which we can make ourselves slowly and yet profoundly mad.

I’d like to think that I wouldn’t have talked myself out of writing. Oh sure, I might have said, “You’ll always be broke.”  or “Money will always be a struggle.”  or “What if you never get published?”  or “What if you don’t have any talent?”  or “What if you turn 45 and you’ve done all this work and you find that you have nothing to show for it?”

Ah.

And so, I could have done what I might have been good at, what would have undoubtedly given me a different set of life experiences, what might have even proven to be a wise career choice because it turned out that I was successful in it.

It’s something we’ll never know, but after I thought all this, I thought I should share it with Chloe.  “Just think things through, weigh your priorities, consider your passions.  Think about how if you want to do something that isn’t going to pay a lot, how you can set your life up now so you won’t be saddled with debt, try to think like an entrepreneur because depending on others for a job is sketchy.  But don’t talk yourself out of anything or into anything based on fear.  Fear is the worst possible reason to do or not do anything.”

Movie script trite, I know.  But it doesn’t make the idea any less true or valuable.

I read this post and the referenced essay by Laura Maylene Walter and thought “So there’s the other side of this issue.”  Because as she describes, Laura had success at a young age and has spent the following years building on that.  The trouble is, early success is no guarantee for future success either.

So how do I advise my child in any meaningful way?  I mean, if she’s asking for advice because heaven forbid I offer any unsolicited words of wisdom.

Well, it just so happens that I turn into my mother-in-law.  She died in 1992 before the internet became a household item, but I like to think of her having evolved her old habit of keeping stacks and stacks of newspapers from which she would tear relevant articles.  Each of her children had their pile of articles that she’d selected especially for them.  When we visited her, she’d get hand MathMan’s pile to him and say something like,”Here, Douglas.  I’m sure you’ll find something useful in this.”

Had she lived longer, I can imagine her forwarding emails of articles from education websites or Huffington Post, librarian news, The Rumpus or The Chicago Tribune.

Yesterday I sent Chloe links of two very different job types. I know she’s not ready to look for a job.  Graduation is two years away and  she’s threatening to not come back from Cambridge at the end of the summer (shades of her mother’s 1987 call from Dijon to announce she was staying in France?)  But I thought it was important for Chloe to see the broad spectrum of jobs for people with her interests and skills.  To know that there are jobs available for writers with Think Progress.  And producers for Democracy TV with Amy Goodman.  Both seem like very cool jobs to me.

I hesitated before sending the links.  Did this cross into helicopter mom territory?  Would I one day say “Oh, Chloe is going to be reporting on the Republican nomination for Think Progress.  We’re going to be at the Republican Convention on Saturday….”

Instead, I wrote a quick note.  “Just wanted you to see what kinds of things are out there.  Look at this Democracy TV news producer job.  You could be like Mary Tyler Moore!  Love, Mom.”

Same as it ever was…. same as it ever was…..

How did you decide what you’d be when you grew up?  Did you decide?  Did you grow up? Heh. me neither.

Adventures in Real Parenting: You May Find Yourself Living In A Shotgun Shack

Sophie likes to remind me that her birthday is coming up.  I think it’s because with a birthday on January 7th, she’s always worried that her special day will be lost in the downdraft of the holidays – Hanukkah, Christmas, New Years.  Come January 7th, it’s true, we’re suffering celebration fatigue and as a teacher’s family living on that once-a-month paycheck that comes early in November and then again early in December, January is typically a month with little cash flow, sapped energy, the grumples due to a return to the routine after a long break and the general grayness that is January.

She’s right to worry.

At the age of 12, I felt I knew the month of January, too.  In my journal, I wrote on January 14, 1978 “God, I hate this month.  It’s like an entire month of Mondays.  I am ready for it to be February already.  No, actually, I’m ready for it to be June.  I’m sick of this cold weather and I’m sick of school.”

What I wouldn’t give to go back and tell that 12 year old kid to stop wishing her life away.  And to apply herself in school and listen to her instincts more. And to stop whining about the cold.  Just wait until she stood on a train platform in Rosemont, Illinois at 5:30a.m. with the temperature hovering around -4 Fahrenheit and a north wind spanking her ass with icy fingers.  That’s when she’d know real cold.  Dog-sledding across the frozen tundra cold.  Fallen through the weak ice into the freezing water cold.  Watching the warm people in their cars drive by in a blur cold.  The damn it, I can’t feel my fingers or my toes cold.

So last night my own soon-to-be-twelve-year-old reminded me that in January of 2012, she’d be thirteen.  “How does it feel to know that your last child will be a teenager in less than two years?” she chirped.  “Old?”

I looked at her across the room as she sat swiveling in my office chair.  My laptop and pile of books and I decided earlier in the day to not leave the bed.  “Actually no.  I don’t feel old at all.  I feel quite young.  Like a kid,” I answered truthfully.

“But?”  She didn’t know where to go with this.  “I feel old sometimes,” she blurted out.

“Really?  When?  And why?”

She spun around in the chair, a definite sign of rapid aging.  “Oh, you know.  When I think about how I’m done with elementary school already.  Or when I see kids who are in, like, the third grade and they seem so young.”  She gave herself another spin.

“So in relation to other people you feel old?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“When I was your age, I thought I was pretty old, too.  I was even complaining about the cold like some grumpy old woman.  But you know what?  I had no idea how much of my life was ahead of me.  I had no clue that one day I’d be my age…”

“Forty-five,” she cut me off to ensure my accuracy, the little tart.

“….right.  Forty-five.  I couldn’t imagine being forty-five and having three kids and living in Georgia or that I’d be married to some guy from Chicago and all the rest of it.”

“No one knows what their future will be.”  Ah, wise words from the child with fingers still bearing smudges from oil pastels.

“Exactly right.”

“So what’s your point, Mother?”

“No point.  No point whatsoever.  But when you ask me if I feel old and I look at myself with my hair tumbling down my back and skinnier than I’ve been in years and, except for my sore neck and shoulder, not feeling any older than I did when I was your age, I realize that I still don’t know what my future holds.  And the thing is, I can plan and I can work toward something, but I’m still not going to know.  So why not just live?”

“You’re getting philosophical on me.”

“I am.”

She gave me the one-eyebrow raise, the look that says so much with just a few small movements of facial muscle.  “You know that hair tumbling down your back is silver, right?”

I gave her the one-eyebrow raise right back.  “I’m aware.  And guess what?  No birthday party for you.”

Get into the time machine and go back to your young self.  What would you say to that kid?  Do you remember being twelve?  Are you feeling old?  What’s new?

http://www.youtube.com/v/I1wg1DNHbNU?fs=1&hl=en_US&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b

And Then Some Shock Treatment Takes Place

Source

Just as memes work their way through the blogosphere, we tag each other with things on Facebook.  Sometimes I play along and other times I think Favorites?  Have these people not figured out that I can’t make up my mind about what to eat for lunch and they expect me to sort out my fifteen favorite authors in the Steampunk genre?

I was tagged with a couple of games.  Why not do them here and then they’ll link over to Facebook?  And yes, this is me doing a bit of lazy blogging.  I’m behind on my NaNoWriMo word count and have to use my energy worrying about writing my work in progress.

So this came from Holly.  The rules (rules?) are thus:

Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen fictional characters (television, films, plays, books) who’ve influenced you and who will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag at least fifteen friends, including me, because I’m interested in seeing what characters my friends choose. 

Ready?

1.  Hawkeye Pierce from M*A*S*H, probably more from the TV show than the movie. I loved how he played with words, pretty much thought the establishment could go fuck itself and walked around in his robe with boots.  Me.  Totally.

2.  Lucy Honeychurch from A Room with a View.  I still picture her played by Helena Bonham Carter with her pouty lips and long, flowing dark curls.  My favorite line of hers “Mother doesn’t like me playing Beethoven.  She says I’m always peevish afterward…”  But truly the memorable character in E.M. Forster’s novel is George Emerson.  I would have given up my Baedeker for a kiss from him in the field.  (Okay, so I may have made out with the hot Italian after George died, too, but that’s neither here nor there, is it?  Life is for living, yo.)

3.  Hermione Granger from Harry Potter.  I love her.  She gets on my last nerve, but I adore her. I want to be her and be friends with her and, well, corrupt her a little.

4.  Sam Stewart from Foyle’s War.  She’s Mr. Foyle’s driver.  I love her curiosity and how humanly flawed and funny and sweet and kind she is.

5.  Donna Reed.  I mean, come on. Of course!

6.  Elaine Benes from Seinfeld.  I have been Elaine on a number of occasions and it could be argued that I still am the Elaine to a photographer in Amsterdam and a college professor in Dijon.  I am international Elaine.

7.  Rhoda from Mary Tyler Moore.  Funny. Jewish.  Always fighting her weight.  Although I am not Jewish, I’d love to be.  Considering I was raised by Midwestern Protestants of a mostly Scots-Irish background, I’m pretty danged close.  Plus I used to imagine living in her cool attic apartment.

8.  Scarlet O’Hara.  Because as Bob is my witness.  No wait.  Because tomorrow is another day, baby. If I had a dime for every time I’ve repeated that line to myself, I wouldn’t be sweating the unemployment thing.

9.  Anais Nin.  I mean, I realize she’s not really a character, or was she?

10.  Daisy Buchanan from The Great Gatsby.  What an idiot.

11.  Harry, Alan Rickman’s character in Love Actually.  Another dillhole who made Emma Thompson cry to some Joni Mitchell.  Although I speak more like the Annie character and dance more like the Prime Minister.

12.  Emma from the Jane Austen novel of the same name.  I lack her confidence and those nifty empire waist dresses, but I understand her desire to hook people up.  We’re Noah standing at the foot of the Ark’s gangplank pairing up the creatures so that they might live on…….or I’m just an incurable romantic and matchmaker.

13.  Geraldine Granger from The Vicar of Dibley.   I’m not a vicar nor do I play one on TV, but I’ve worked in a situation like hers, with a cast of characters like that.  Except they weren’t as funny or interesting or British.  However, the rest of us were certain that one of us was indeed diddling farm animals.

14.  Bella from Twilight.  I know what it’s like to love an Edward.  Bella needs a good therapist.

15.  Hercule Poirot.  Everytime he gets his OCD freak on by straightening a picture on a wall or lining up the items on a desk, a table or a mantle, I think “Oh, yes.  Right there.  Mmmmmm.”

Your turn.  What fifteen characters have stayed with you?

Avec Gratitude

Dinner courtesy of some wonderful people.

Before we had dinner, I suggested to the family that we go around the table and state for the record what we are thankful for.  They glanced at each other over the rims of their root beer mugs and waited for my temporary insanity to pass.

You’d think we’d be more talkative around here, wouldn’t you?  Well, we’re not really that expressive when it comes to the positive stuff.  We’re aces at pulling each other apart, at dissecting the foibles and tics and pointing and laughing when one of us stumbles.  I should be ashamed, but I’m not.

That’s something to be thankful for.  We may not be soft and snuggly and Hallmark Channel fuzzy wuzzies, but I don’t think there’s a single person in this house who doesn’t feel loved.  Right down to the last wretched cat. Hang on a second.  Let me see…

Okay, I just checked.  I asked each of them (the humans, not the cats) if they felt loved.  Here’s how that went:

MathMan:  Yeah, who said I didn’t?
Nate:  Yeah (with accompanying eyebrow raise)
Sophie:  I don’t know.  Can I have a hug first?
Chloe:  Um….yes?

So there we are.  Love.  It is probably the greatest thing ever.  And we have it in spades.

And for that we truly are grateful.  Whether some of us are able to express it or not without a gun to our heads.

Here are some other things I’m thankful for:

RennRatt and her wonderful family who provided us with an authentic and delicious Thanksgiving dinner – Friends near and far – Family near and far – Laughter – Music – The moment right after I take off my bra – Good health – Shared memories – The gorgeous weather we’re having – MathMan’s job which pays the bills and gives him the chance to save the world – Books – Words – A hot shower – Remembering – Forgetting – Working out – Quiet – My trusty old laptop circa 2007 – The fact that Nate really loves going to school now – My digital camera that allows me to capture life as it happens – The silly cats – Movies that make me laugh or think or cry (as long as I’m alone) – The light and color at sundown when the trees are shadows against the palette of pinks, mauves, purples and blues – Hollyhocks on their tall stems – Art Deco Architecture – Still being able to recite Goodnight Moon – Chloe’s happiness at school – The entire Art Nouveau movement – Edward Gorey – Anthony K. and his sock – My active imagination – Catching sight of a hawk on a wire or post alongside the road – When the car starts – The roof over our heads – Dry pavement – The cartoons and reruns I watched as a kid – Comfortable clothes – Major appliances that work – PBS – Agatha Christie and her memorable characters – High count cotton sheets – Lotion – Skype – My wooden back scratcher – The internet – Homemade fabric softener – Ibuprofin – Red wine – Billy Nye the Science Guy – British TV – Edward Hopper’s art – Time – Sugar – How Sophie enjoys playing her clarinet – Dogwoods announcing the spring – When we get a little snow – Chocolate – Art created by my friends – A whole mess of other stuff – And you.  I’m grateful for you.

I hope you’ve had a good day wherever you are.  Tomorrow we’ll get back to the pointing and the laughing.

The rack is full and so are we, of laughing gas and ennui

Well, that’s what one of my snit fits looks like.  I’m sorry you had to see that.  I really do try to repress as much as possible, but that stuff was leaking out of my ears.   Please keep your eyes peeled for my gratitude post tomorrow.  No really.  I have a long list of things I’m grateful for even in the midst of my midlife meltdown.

Okay, so now I am over it.  This is me letting go of the traditional idea of work.  Once those benefits are gone, I’m going to be one of those people who simply stops looking for work.  If I can’t get paid to suck it, fuck it, flash my tits at it, wear it and then sell it on ebay, tweet it, bake it, youtube it or write it, I’m not worrying about it.

We will adjust further.  Priorities will be rent, utilities, food and gasoline.  The doctor, dentist and other small business people who normally enjoy a few dollars from us each month, well, sorry.  The big guys get their money.  Georgia Gas, Georgia Power, AT&T, Progressive Insurance, the water company, the oil company selling the least expensive gasoline.

I still taste the bitter.  Dang it.

Anyway, today has been interesting.  I paid what is likely my last visit to the Department of Labor.  They were holding a farewell party for some of us long-termers.  They even provided party hats and noisemakers.  And cake.  Three kinds.  There was chocolate for the transplants, red velvet for the real Southerners, and a carrot cake for the hippies.  It sat forlornly on the edge of the table next to the cruditees, mostly ignored while we gluttonous slackers attacked the hot wings and store brand potato chips with gusto.

I never did find the alleged cooler holding the beer, but while I was surfing the job search website, the guy at the computer next to me offered me some moonshine in a flask.  I typically don’t drink after people, not even MathMan or the kids, but since we’re talking serious alcohol here, I figured whatever crud that guy had left on the rim of that flask wouldn’t do me any damage.  Plus, I’m pretty good at the waterfall move.  (Just don’t mention backwash, please.)

I had to be furtive though.  The security guard was there performing his normal duties – holding up the wall next to the check-in and pushing in chairs after ill-mannered clients get up and lumber after their counselors into the cubicle maze without taking a moment to shove in their chairs.  A couple of clients asked him if he’d give us all a patdown so we could pretend we were going somewhere for the holidays.  He told them to pipe down and have some raw vegetables because that might be the last fresh veggies they see for a while.

I saw some folks pocketing food.  Sometimes you just have to look away.  Or at least don’t make eye contact. We all deserve a little dignity, right?

I high-fived the counselor on my way out.  He wished me bobspeed and told me to let him know when my book gets published.  I felt propelled by his confidence.  So much so that I skipped across the street to where MathMan sat in the middle of total chaos at the pediatric dentist’s office where he waited with Nate for a 10:45 a.m. appointment.

I sat reading Laura Munson’s This Is Not the Story You Think It Is (psst, read this book) while MathMan graphed stuff on a calculator.  He is so hot when he does mathy stuff in public.  I leaned over and licked his ear. Around us a herd of preschoolers thundered about, shrieking and running, climbing into the playhouse in the corner.

The most talked about kid in the waiting room was named The Rattlesnake.  The rest of the kids hollered The Rattlesnake! The Rattlesnake! over and over while I tried to focus on the book and MathMan tried to recover from being licked in front of twenty-seven other adults who lined the room, staring up the TVs showing Food Network and wishing they were anywhere else but in that noisy room with the floofloovers and the tartookas, the whohoopers and gardookas…..

Nate was finally called back for his cleaning at noon.  I was feeling grateful for the guy and his flask of moonshine…

Thanks to all of you who left comments, sent jokes and emails and who contacted MathMan to make sure I hadn’t leaped from the top of garage and broken my blogging fingers.  You guys are the best.  I love you all.

xoxoxox,

Lisa

P.S.  What are you reading? watching? doing over the long weekend?  Do you know anyone named The Rattlesnake?

Unemployment Diary: The Unemployed Just Need to Get a Job and Stop Being So Lazy

Crude drawing by Lisa Golden

Greetings from the Pit of Despair!  The gameshow where we put the long-term unemployed through the paces of looking for work.  Winners will be rewarded with a job.  Some lucky winners will even receive full-time permanent work!  And one lucky winner will receive the grand prize – full-time permanent work with benefits!

(The crowd goes wild.)

This week’s contestants will be vying against an average of four people for each job opening.  Remember – those are just averages. For each opening, we’ll have at least four contestants competing for the grand prize.

So let’s get started, shall we?

Meet Contestant Number 1.  This rugged fellow in his flannel shirt, trucker’s hat and worn blue jeans has worked construction for fifteen years.  He still has his steel-toed boots and equipment so he’s ready to go.  He just needs a job.  He’s going to have to compete with forty other people for one job today.  And to make it even more interesting, he’s going up against a lot of guys who are willing to work for employers who are seeking ways around labor laws, if you know what I mean (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).  Oh, those rascally employers know how to get things done.  Keep those employee rolls under fifty and those pesky labor regulations disappear like shit through a goose!

Here’s Contestant Number 2!  Don’t let that gray hair fool you.  She’s still young at 45!  She comes with twenty years of administrative experience and her last job had some kind of Vice President title.  Since there’s nothing open in her obscure field, she’s going to run the gauntlet of online applications that require her to put in her salary information.  But here’s the tricky part – she’s going to be applying for jobs offering one quarter of her old salary.  So will she lie about her salary or will she lie on the affidavit that states she’s answered all the questions truthfully?

Contestant Number 3 has B.A. in computer science that he’s still paying for.  He’s going to be filling out the USAjobs application for a federal job, but his only previous experience is having worked at the local Chilis as a busboy and then a server.  He’s going to have to do some serious wordsmithing, isn’t he?

And finally, we have Contest Number 4.  This lovely young woman has a two year old and a husband serving in Iraq.  Look at her, she’s already stumped by the online application for the retail store. Hoo boy, that 114 question psychological test can be a bear!  And no, this isn’t like Who Wants to Be A Millionaire.  You can’t call your lifeline or get the audience’s opinion.

Every contestant is on their own.  

********

As some of you might have guessed from my previous posting, I’ve kind of reached the end of my optimism.  When I’m not applying for jobs or writing, I’m scanning the horizon for tall buildings.  And hoping that something good – I really have to qualify that these days – will happen for us.  Something good would be nice, we’ve had enough of the other kind of stuff.

Meanwhile, applying for jobs and that has turned into a great source of, um, humor? despair? Aren’t they just two sides of the same coin anyway?

So far this week, I’ve been told by the Department of Labor that since I don’t have three months of custodial experience on my resume, they cannot refer me to an employer to be a janitor.  “But have you seen my house?  It’s spotless,” I sigh at the drab DoL email.

The email doesn’t care.  Nor does the person I call in an effort to appeal their decision.  “The employer’s minimum requirements are set in stone,” she says.

“I understand that, but the people on TV who’ve bothered to stop talking about Bristol Palin on Dancing with the Stars or those TSA pat downs to discuss the plight of the unemployed, they say that all we need to do is to just get out there and get a job,” I whined.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Golden.  We can’t refer people without the minimum requirements.  Those are the rules.” She’s giving me the firm voice.  I get it. I used to have to enforce rules, too.

“But I can clean.  I’ve been cleaning since I was a kid and my mother would have the Home Ec Club ladies at the house and we had to scrub the baseboards in case any of them decided to do the white glove test at the point where the wall met the floor.”

“We’ve already referred a number of people with qualifying experience for that position and there’s only one opening.”  She wanted to get off the call.

I didn’t want to harass her anymore. She was just doing her job.  “Okay.”

When I get bored of driving my Cadillac from the spa, to the hair weave place or the Korean place where I get my weekly mani-pedis, I sit down with my $8 latte and apply for jobs with the federal government, a large coffee company, a large telecommunications company, a greeting card company, three retailers, an auto parts chain, a homeless shelter, a community college, a dentist’s office and a museum.  Although there are no job openings in my field here in Georgia, I did apply for a great job in Chicago.  Fingers crossed.  But it’s a long shot.  They were very specific about there being no relocation expenses.  I was undeterred and wrote in my cover letter that I would pay my own moving expenses, if hired.  I’m sure they’ll be impressed by my pluck and can do attitude.

Oh for the days when I would send out my resume and get a call within 24 hours.  I didn’t know how good I had it.

But all I have is time, right? So QYB, Lisa.  Turns out if you’re not already a federal employee with a level, it can take half a day to complete the USA jobs application as you write and rewrite your experience along with dates, project names and outcomes to support your assertion that you’re qualified to be an administrative assistant in some agency.  And good luck to you if want to be any level higher and don’t possess a Masters degree.  I’ve asked the Department of Labor if they offer any specific help in navigating the federal system, but to date, I’ve been met with blank stares.

Even more time consuming and mind-numbing are the online applications for large retailers, telecom companies, coffee pushers, and grocery stores.  They require you to complete psychological questionnaires containing 114 or so questions all to determine if you’re a thief or a liar or some kind of hard-driving, tattle-tale, manager-bashing nuisance.

I’ve reached the point where I can’t tell just exactly which psychological disorders they’re trying to weed out.  At one point, I tried to just put the link to this blog into a field.  “Just read my blog and you’ll see the color of my character,” I typed into the field.

Rejected.  Such a common theme.

Yesterday as I pushed the grocery cart dejectedly through the Ingles (another place that hasn’t called me for an interview), I ran into an acquaintance of mine.  Her husband has been out of work for a while now, too. We discussed how they’re managing.  He’s looking, too, but he’s in road construction and even with some of the stimulus money that has flowed to Georgia, he’s been unable to find anything.  They’re managing on his unemployment which runs out the second week of January and the money she makes substitute teaching.  While she and her husband go without health insurance, at least their boys have Medicaid.  Good thing – their son has food allergies and severe asthma.

So perspective, Lisa.  There’s always someone worse off than you.  I suggested she look into the food stamp program.  MathMan makes too much, I’ve already checked.  But I doubt they do.  And they certainly won’t after her husband’s unemployment insurance runs out.  After working and paying taxes all these decades, they should use the services available.

“Don’t go hungry, okay?”  I said to her, glancing into her cart which didn’t hold much.  There was no turkey, just some staples.

“We won’t,” she sighed, her eyes traveling to my cart.  I had the buy one get one free bacon, a loaf of bread and a bag of potatoes.

“Remember when we used to go out for margaritas and chips?” she asked suddenly.

I laughed.  “Yeah.  Our high-flying days.  Come over and see me, okay?  I’ll read you outtakes from my stories and you can mock me.  Instead of restaurant chips and margaritas, we’ll have cheap beer and pork rinds.”

It was her turn to laugh.  “I will.”

But I know she won’t.  She’s tired and depressed and her kind of misery doesn’t really want company.

I know because I’d rather not see people either.  I’m closing off.  I deactivated my Facebook account.  And I’m not opening Tweetdeck.  I can’t take all the holiday and shopping talk.  And I can’t stomach the political bullshit either.  I’m a little astounded at the whining by people who have the luxury of flying.  Here’s an idea – you stay here and enjoy our Kraft Dinner for the holidays and we’ll take your plane tickets and go see family.  I won’t even bitch about annoying security measure.  Hell, I’ll fly naked and solve that particular problem.  Just to get away would be nice.

I’m typically not such a delicate creature, but right now, I’m walking the razor’s edge.  The less noise I allow into the brainpan, the better.

Just get out there and get a job, you lazy ass.

So now I’ve taken to looking at which states have the lowest unemployment rates and trying to picture us living in North Dakota…..

So how about you keep me off the rooftops.  Make me laugh. Please. 


Hello, you’re not making me laugh so I’m shutting off comments.

Time to Fly

http://www.youtube.com/v/w47Z1PXaZHc?fs=1&hl=en_US&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999

Traitorous Cats and Poisonous Cough Drops

Photo source

Someone asked me where I find the inspiration to write here day after bloody day.

I wouldn’t call it inspiration so much as an exercising* of demons. Or perhaps it’s the manifestation of the internal Keystone Cops reel that plays through my head to the soundtrack of Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance, the circus march and Britannica Spearsorelli’s Oops, I Did It Again.

You might be surprised at the number of these posts that come to me as I scoop clumps and tootsie rolls from litter boxes.  Then again, maybe surprise isn’t what you’re feeling at all.

Mostly, things just come to me and I run them through the bloggability filter which is, admittedly, full of holes.   I pretty much go with whatever nonsense has shaken itself loose from the folds of my brain.

Take, for example, yesterday morning.  I awoke with a sales pitch for some unknown gadget looping inside my head.  It appeared between the time the alarm went off and the time I finally shoved MathMan’s leg off me and stumbled to the bathroom.

“It will protect you from your spouse’s wrath, the grating whines of your children, your mother’s icy glare, your father’s indifference, natural disasters, grizzly bear attacks, the plague and the mind numbing effects of reality TV.  In fact, the only thing it won’t protect you from is a great sale’s pitch!  And Sarah Palin.  Which might actually be the same thing.”

And we wonder how things like ShamWow! happen.

Having the cats around provides some inspiration, too.  Did I tell you that they read the advance copy of former President George W. Bush’s memoir Decision Points and decided that they like him now?  Yeah.  They think he is hysterical with all that joking about his father’s black testicles and spoofs on torture. Traitorous felines.

Since it’s far easier to organize against a common enemy than it is to organize for something, even something as noble as Peace, they’ve disbanded the Pussies for Peace.  Instead of discussing the horrors of war, they submit requests for TV time to watch the former President in all those hilarious interviews.

Still, they are cats.  Aside from a small number of things they can agree on – the fact that they are always hungry and never fed enough, for example, and their new affection for W. – they remain ever catlike in their lack of cooperation.

You should have heard the ruckus as they tried to organize a reenactment of a Brat Pack movie.  First, they couldn’t decide which movie and scene to do.  Some of them advocated for the Sitting Around in a Circle and Spilling Our Guts scene from The Breakfast Club.  Another faction wanted to do the Demi Moore Rocking Herself in the Empty Room with the Creepy Clown Head and Gossamer Curtains Blowing in that Crazy Georgetown Wind scene from St. Elmo’s Fire.

Some of them were concerned that our wind machine wouldn’t do the Demi Moore scene justice.  They tried to drag me into it by asking my opinion, but my voice was drowned out when things got physical after one of them threatened to boycott the whole Brat Pack idea if he couldn’t play Frank Sinatra’s part.

On the other hand, being sick wasn’t such an inspiration.  When I wasn’t whining to myself and poking lethargically at my keyboard as I shopped online to invest the last bits of my unemployment insurance on things like the Bradford Exchange‘s anticipated Prince William and Kate Middleton commemorative wedding plate and making donations to political candidates, I lay in bed counting the bumps on the flocked ceiling until I got to that one bump that sticks out more than the rest of them.  I always get hung up there and have to start over.

It wasn’t a complete waste of time.  I entertained deep thoughts, as well.  Like how are we going to become energy independent?  What are we going to do about campaign finance reform, job creation, energy and the environment, ending the war, equality for everyone, doing away with those horrible “free” trade agreements that have been ruinous to our economy, and rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure.   If you take a step back, you realize that they are all related.  So where does one begin?

I toyed with the idea that we could innovate our energy production by converting snot, a renewable and widely distributed resource, into green energy. No pun intended so stop looking at me that way.  Maybe sucking on cough drops that I found at the back of the medicine cabinet wasn’t such a good idea.  They were in their wrappers inside the bag.  Those expiration dates aren’t real, are they?  exp. 11/2001 is just a “framework” for freshness, right?  They more or less worked.  Instead of sounding like an eighty year old consumptive, I sound like a forty-five year old consumptive.

Small steps to improvement.

Have a wonderful, healthy weekend, gang. 

*I meant that.

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We Discuss Current Events

Thank you all for your encouraging comments yesterday when I shared with you the email I sent to my Senators asking them to vote for an extension of unemployment insurance.  Thanks to those who’ve blogged about it, linked and tweeted it, as well.

Predictably, both responded with form letters thanking me for contacting them, expressing sympathy for those of us out of work and explaining that they could only support the extension if it is budget neutral and does not add to the deficit.

I’m still trying to craft an appropriate response.  I thought about calling my mother, The Big R, for advice, but I already know what she would say.  While it’s apparently fine for her to say politically incorrect things about Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell and his lipless, chinless, marionette-lined face and his cat who swallowed the canary smile, it is not okay for me to embarrass The Big R by shouting in an email written in all caps.

According to her, it’s fine to treat politics like sports when one is safely walled off from prying eyes and ears, cocooned in front of the TV inside one’s domicile, shouting “Get your head out of your ass!” at Chris Matthews when he fails to ask some obfuscating political operative an obvious follow up question.

However, opening your response to a Senator who essentially told you (once again) to get stuffed with “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” is not okay.

So I’m thinking over my response to both Senators – one a hard right conservative and the other more moderate – who support the ongoing massive spending on warfare and making permanent tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Americans, a move that is projected to increase the budget deficit by $700 billion plus and has not created a single net job in ten years, but want to draw a line in the spending sand when it comes to putting money into the hands of people who need it and who will put it into the economy immediately by spending it on essentials.  Let’s just say keeping a measured and respectful tone is going to take some real effort.

Come to think of it, in the course of any given day, I do some really stupid stuff.  Trying to apply logic to politics and how our government “works” is probably some of the stupidest stuff I do.

Setting:  MathMan and I are sort of watching Countdown with Keef Overman’s segment on the airport “security” full body scanners and TSA latex-gloved diddlings.

Me:  I get the whole privacy/effectiveness thing, but really?  I’ve got more pressing worries at the moment.
MathMan:  Yeah, well look at the unit on that guy.
Me:  What? Shit! I missed it! Worth a rewind?
MathMan:  Yeah, go ahead.  Rewind.
Me:  Wow. That guy on the right is hung.
MathMan:  That wouldn’t have, by any chance….
Me:  My darling, I’m exhibiting symptoms of a severe upper respiratory infection and have had a fever off and on all day.  It would take a whole lot more than an x-ray showing the outline of some guy’s low-slung manhood to arouse me.

Except I didn’t say it quite like that.

Do you do stupid stuff?  How much would you love a government that really works for the people?  Do you think maybe I could get a job with the TSA feeling people up?  I’d be gentle.  I’ll even rub my hands together first to warm them up.  Can we just toss the whole thing out and start over?  Which whole thing?  You decide.