Me vs. Fate

Or God.

This is pretty much just middle-class whining, so ignore at your leisure.

What I want to know, God, is when I get a break. Sure, I'll go along with...oh, say 80% of this mess I'm in being my own doing. However. There is another 20% that needs to be accounted for. And maybe it's the old 80/20 rule - if you can brush off the 80%, then the 20% must be pretty choice.

Honestly? It hasn't been easy. Stop, I know, it could have been harder. But really. Could you please cut me some slack, or has that rope already run out?

How was I to know the weird pinging headache that I've had for over a week was caused by allergies? How was I to know that Benadryl suddenly made me go face-first into a conference room table? Especially since my past experience with Benadryl has been like waving away a fly. Yes, I know when I went out to my car for a snooze that I should have put my Big Finance badge around my neck. I also know that no matter how clever I think it is, it isn't all that smart to carry my debit card piggy backed in the ID case.

I just took three bags of trash out of my car. Oh - have you looked at my car lately? At the bashes and dings and scrapes? Anyway, I didn't find my Big Finance ID. And I'm kind of sad today because I let down The Worried Man at Big Finance.

Anyway. Ahem. RCW and I used to say to each other, in sternly warning voices, "Don't fuck away the magic." I don't think I did that. I think I gave it away in handfuls to people who didn't deserve it.

The other day, I asked myself, if I had a ten gallon pail filled with magical stardust, what exactly would I expect to have happen if I flung it up into the air?

I couldn't think of answer.

It was like the scene in "Uncle Buck" when John Candy is trying to talk to his girlfriend, who won't let him get a word in edgewise.

I could save some mone - no. I could take a va - no. I could buy new clo - no. It would rain - no. My front steps would stop crumbling - no.

Well, I still can't find my ID. Or my ego. Or my superego.

I also figured out recently that with the Mom Voice In My Head forever stilled, the Annushka Voice in My Head right along with it, that I now have the grooming habits of a 19 year old American male in a frat house. And the cleaning habits, too. I never got to rebel. Oh, I shot my mouth off a lot but I was always home before ten, cleaned the house on Saturday mornings, started dinner when I was told to, did my laundry, bought and ironed (!) table cloths. And used them. Newp. You won't see much of that around here.

So.

The Benadryl was a mistake. Reading Little Bee, despite how wonderful the writing is and how grab you by your throat the story is, I still think it's a mistake. I was going to join a reading group, you know. Oh, it's a long list. Do we have to do that now?

One thing I do have in my thin and ragged bag of tricks is a flashlight given to me by a fire fighter. (Don't ask.) It is a magic flashlight because it always illuminates the lost and misplaced. I'll use that and if it fails me for once, will go through the necessary drudgery of getting my ID and my debit card replaced.

Okay - here's the deal. You can keep raining shit down on me, but save up all the magic for that day in October, okay? Is that a deal?

You never talk back to me but I suppose that's a good thing.

Safety Dance

Still crying but in little drips and not so often.

RCW has a point, as she always does.

But it isn't just this. There was something else at work and I really don't want to go into it. I call my own foul.

I had hoped that Unnamed Co. would be the place where I once again knew what being safe felt like. I think I hallucinated the past three months of it. Even freakier, I can't really remember much of anything past last September.

Well, the simple truth for me is that there is no such thing as safety.

Oddly, I'm in a more precarious position now than I was six months ago when I started working at Unnamed Co. I have a new car and new debt along with it. Other than my 401ks, I basically have nothing in savings and Ma Maisonette gently crumbling around my ears. And absolutely no leeway in my budget.

Will I look for another roomie? I don't know. Pickings are very slim and given my past experience, I don't want anyone other than a female grad student from Nearby U.

Will I go back into petsitting as a parttime gig? This is tempting. Unfortunately, the liability insurance is $400/yr, which I don't have right now.

Will I try to get some freelance writing gigs on eLance? Hm. I'll look.

Will I sell stuff on eBay? Yes. That's a start in the right direction.

Maybe I'll be moving south a lot sooner than I thought.

Maybe when I go in today, Boy Wonder might have thought about what he did to me yesterday. I don't think he was expecting the reaction of utter devastation that he got. Could there be a conscience lurking beneath that Machiavellian exterior? I'm not counting on it.

But what it amounts to is that yes, I will go to work today. But my heart is gone for it. I think I'm going to look around for another job, anyway, most likely as a contractor. Obviously I can't hold a job for more than six months. Maybe I should find an environment where that's not just the norm, but it's expected.

RCW is right that I'm too fast off the mark. But better to leave before you're asked to leave.

Oops. Crying again.