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“Bring your own sun
Just enough for everyone…”
-Tori Amos
A few days into this whole unemployment thing, I guess nothing has changed. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. It’s kind of amusing – here we have a three day “holiday” weekend, in a house where none of the adults now has a job outside the home to go to. Happy memorial day weekend. It might as well be a Thursday.
This is not going to turn into the “bitter wife who is bitching about her unemployed husband” blog. I know he’s having a tough time too. He’s really trying. Calling headhunters, sending resumes, touching base with people, and all the stuff that you’re supposed to do. I can’t fault him when I talk to my friend who said to me yesterday that her husband told her he didn’t know if HE would be able to find a job because, “I don’t really have any skills.” She was incredulous as he said it, and even more so as she was telling me – and I was gobsmacked – how can you get into your 30s and not feel that you have anything to offer any workplace? And seriously, if you don’t think you can do anything, how the fuck do you even START looking for a job? I can’t imagine there’s a section for “Useless people who have nothing really to offer our company besides hanging around breathing our air and taking our paycheck”. Who knows – maybe on Craigslist there is. But it definitely cleared up how on earth she’s been supporting their family for all this time. The job market? It’s so fantastically shitty, but, wow.
So, I’m lucky – I know my husband has job skills that are gonna make him an asset in the right place. I just hope that place happens to be lookin’ for him. Like now.
The past few days have been a blur, though. I spent awhile today just lying on the dining room floor. Guess I’m feeling a little bogged down and sometimes it feels good to get amoebic on your dining room floor – just bleh. Lying there, looking at the ceiling and just looking at things in a different way. I got up when I turned my head to the right and realized there were so many cereal crumbs on the floor that if I stared at it much longer, I would feel the need to vaccuum and I just didn’t want to go that route at the moment.
I guess it’s just a matter of taking things as they come these days. What choice do I really have at the moment? Just rollin’ with it.
“She is something altogether different
Never just an ordinary girl…”
-Counting Crows
Poor Adam Duritz – this video was obviously taken in the midst of all his hooey where he gained a bunch of weight and I still have to say that he could be the size of two houses put together and I would still adore him for the magic he makes out of words.
“Let it rain,
Let it rain on me…”
-Amanda Marshall
Yeah, so when I said, “Oh hi blog readers, I’m doing so much better, I am feeling a lot better than I had been feeling… I just have a bit of writer’s block…” Well, the cosmos took that as a sign to kick me in the face: My husband lost his job yesterday.
Today was day one of unemployed husband and I alternate from feeling sorry for him to being mad as hell that we’re going through this again. I’m stressed, but really trying to put a happy face on it. A friend said to me today, “Well, you sound good or are you putting on a face for me.” The only one getting the face is my husband – with my friends, yeah, I’m straight up. It sucks – it sucks so fantastically I can’t describe the extent to which it sucks. BUT, I also know that bitching about it, stressing about it is not going to solve our problems and it’s not going to get my husband a job any quicker.
But to be totally real about it:
I’m mad as hell that he got let go. I think the company has made some horribly bad business decisions in the past few years, so no, I wasn’t shocked to hear that a factor was the financial need to save some moohlah. But then they criticized his work performance in direct contradiction to a review he had a few months ago and in my opinion, that’s pretty shitty.
Do I think his performance was a factor? Yeah. Probably. I think that could very well be. He’s not a super detail oriented guy – I know it drives me batshit crazy sometimes. But, who knows. We’ll never really know because the explanation they gave was the face they chose to put on it and no one knows what happened in whatever meetings they had behind closed doors.
So, that’s where we are. I am the breadwinner. I am the breadwinner? It’s scary as hell, and I hope this is a short lived nightmare.
“John says I look at the moon and the stars
These days more often than I look at his face
And I can’t disagree so I don’t say nothing
I just stare on past his face at venus rising
Like a shining speck of hope hanging over the horizon…”
-Cowboy Junkies
The sun is high in the sky – not a cloud to be seen. A soft breeze keeps the air from feeling heavy and all around the colors of spring make every thing so pretty to look at. Yet, somehow it felt like a Cowboy Junkies day yesterday.
I have writer’s block – I don’t know what to write about. But I’m still here.
“Rainbows have nothing to hide…”
Well. I love this song. Always have. Since I was a kid. Happy Sunday, all.
“I’m quiet, you know
You make a first impression…”
-Howie Day
This is one that I want to learn on guitar because I just adore it even though it’s a few years old…
“I remember when we were driving
Driving in your car
Speed so fast I felt like I was drunk…”
-Tracy Chapman
It’s raining today. The weather since I rolled out of bed this morning has been causing chaos in my head – the warmer weather of spring has sent my allergies on a rampage, and the heaviness in the air with the pending rain has made me feel headachey.
I tucked my daughter in for a nap this afternoon, hoping for time to just bullshit and get things done. Instead, I got zapped with a work project out of nowhere. I had a very awesome reader email to ask if I was okay, how work was going, among other things (Thank you so much, by the way – your caring made my day). Work is… going. There have been more layoffs – once again I was spared. I have no idea how I keep escaping the land of the dreaded pink slip – but I do. As a result, I feel I have been busting my ass now more than ever before to ensure that my employment status stays as it is. Consequently, I feel like I’m spending more time than ever chasing projects and trying to prove my worth to the powers-that-be. It puts me in that ass-suck mode I hate so much. I hate kissing ass. I’m horrible at it (exhibit A would be my grandmother who would buy extra stuff for the ass-kissingest grandchildren. Never me. Nothing I want badly enough than to stoop to brown-nosing to get it. But it worked out well for my brother).
Speaking of my brother… I saw him Sunday and he looks like hell. A few months ago, his health was all a big mess and he was diagnosed with diabetes on top of all the other shit wrong with him. He was started on insulin injections and told he really had to manage his diet and all that other lovely stuff that you have to do when you’re diabetic. In the beginning, he lost a ton of weight and seemed to be doing better. He seems to have lost his grip on that – and is apparently doing whatever the hell he wants. The result is that he’s gained a TON of weight back. When I saw him Sunday, he reminded me of Fat Bastard from the Austin Powers movies (I wish I was kidding – he’s not THAT big yet – but his chin is blending in with his neck… he has a bit of a waddle in his walk now too). These are the times when I look at him and realize that there is probably no way he can live another ten years. Not with all this shit going on in his system, and not when he blatantly disregards the doctor’s instructions. My dad’s wife apparently said to him, “You keep this up and you will DIE.” But… he’s like an eight year old. He has a very self-centered view of the world, and I don’t think he grasps that concept. I think part of him feels, “Well, shoot. I’ve made it through everything else, so I’ll be fine. I’ll always be fine.”
It makes me worry for my mom. He’s going to die and it’s going to wreck her. It’ll be hard because parenting him has been hard.
Light hearted post, right?
Today, I was driving home from an errand. It’s a road I take all the time now. Back in high school, it was a road I almost never used. One year on prom night, I remember driving on this road – the guy I had liked at the time didn’t go to prom and he met me in the parking lot after the dance. Always classy, I changed out of my prom dress into jeans and a tee shirt in the banquet center’s parking lot and with him in the passenger seat, drove back to a mutual friend’s house. I am not a pedal to the metal kind of girl. Never have been – but that night, I was – speeding through the curves of the road, with the windows down, the music up and a cute boy beside me. When I think of carefree moments, that’s one that crosses my mind.
That boy died several years ago. Now that I have kids, I take those curves much slower. Somedays, I miss the carefree moments that let the wind whip through my hair. But most days, I’m really okay.
I promise.
“I wish you could talk to me ’cause now I wanna listen…”
-DMX, featuring Seal
A friend of mine introduced me to this song and I promptly fell crazy madly in love with it. Awesome song. It’s a weird combination – I wouldn’t have ever paired Seal with DMX, but somehow, it works.
I thought I published this post WEEKS ago, so imagine my dismay that I didn’t. SIGH.
Anyway, since it’s Tuesday, here’s a song I love and your question is… What are you currently wishing for?
“Mama said there’ll be days like this,
There’ll be days like this my mama said…”
-The Shirelles
Happy Mother’s Day.
Anyone who has read this blog for awhile might know that I have very little patience for Hallmark holidays. I’m a mom and yes, I still think Mother’s Day is kind of a Hallmark Holiday. I went into the day with no expectations other than breakfast in bed (promised by my oldest) and was served a mostly-cold leftover breakfast that I had originally made A WEEK AGO.
Downstairs, my family gave me cards but then my husband said the words that basically kicked the rest of my day in the crotch: “I was going to get you something and I realized I had no idea at all what you would want.”
First of all, I really didn’t EXPECT gifts – but to say he wanted to buy me a gift, but appparently doesn’t know me well enough to buy one? I wish he hadn’t even said that. I didn’t need to know that he wanted to buy me something. I would have been fine with no gifts – if he had said NOTHING at all, it’d have been fine. I had to pick up a gift for my mother, and he hinted at buying me something while we were out, and at the very least, “Starbucks can say happy Mother’s Day to you.” Alright, coffee. I can get behind that.
We hit the store, I pick up something for my mother. My husband didn’t go IN the store – rather stayed out with the kids. We start driving to the family event we needed to attend – drive past three coffee places before I finally asked if we could stop for the coffee he had mentioned earlier. He did. Acted like it was a huge inconvenience. I felt like a huge inconvenience. It was a miserable feeling and I spent the rest of the day in a funk.
Again, it wasn’t that I needed presents. (Someone’s reading this thinking, “That ungrateful bitch! If I was her husband I wouldn’t buy her anything, either!”). It wasn’t the presents – it was the inability to come up with something I would like so basically giving up and basically saying, “Screw it.” Which… would have been fine IF HE HAD KEPT HIS FREAKING MOUTH SHUT. I’d have never known that he basically has no clue what I would like.
We came home from our family event and I crashed on the couch – napped for an hour. Well, we all napped in our separate places. An hour after dinner, I think he finally realized how hurt my feelings were and insisted on the family going out for dessert, and we did.
Two and a half hours away from a new day and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve seen so many people talk about how overjoyed they have been with the day – fabulous breakfasts with their families, awesome gifts, big plans. I have just felt like an inconvenience to my family all day, and it sucks.
“Opinions are like assholes,
Everybody’s got one…”
-Salt n’ Pepa
Originally, when I started composing this entry in my head it was going to be about how a neighbor pissed me off. I had taken my kids over to her house the other day to chat and visit with her and my youngest started walking home. I called her back, she didn’t really listen. She stopped moving, but didn’t come back. My neighbor then started yelling for her to get back. Come back right now. My oldest went to pick up her little sister to carry her back (why, i have no idea except that my oldest likes to mommy her sister sometimes) and my neighbor proceeded to lecture me: You have to be more firm, you have to do this, you have to do that.
AND I WAS PISSED.
Sure, my kids have their moments where they’re not fantastic listeners, but… they’re kids. At the end of the day, by and large they are really good kids. They are well loved, they are well fed, they are healthy and they are happy. At the end of the day, one or both of my kids will wrap her arms around me and tell me how much she loves me – and I am all too happy to reciprocate with a big hug, a smooch and a “mommy loves you too”.
I don’t take too kindly to criticism about my parenting because I don’t think I’m doing a bad job.
Then yesterday my friend sent me an email. She’s going through some tough stuff. She’s unemployed, her husband’s job is fading to black (and he is making no effort to try to revive his work load – kind of a big mistake if your job is sales, but what the hell do I know) and she’s mentioned moving out of state. She may have to leave one of her daughters behind and seemingly seems okay with that and she’s prepared to uproot her other daughter and move – though I have to use two hands to count the number of times they’ve moved in the past several years.
BUT, I didn’t say any of that.
I waited a few hours after receiving her email and gave her a few suggestions on things I thought she could do. She is an awesome photographer and could totally make money with her skills behind the camera. She’s booked for several weddings – but… she isn’t charging anyone for any of them! I said to her yesterday, “You’re THAT good – you are allowed to charge for your work.”
And now she’s angry. Angry with people for all the “you should do x, y or z” .
So, for the question of the day – How well do YOU take unsolicited advice? Do you give it?
