Unemployment Diary Day One

I know, actually it's day two, but yesterday was my running around the house naked, bookmarking porn and playing any song I could find that contained the word free, so I'm considering this as my first real day off.

It's now 12:53 p.m. and I've managed to do some things and yet, I still have a long list of things to accomplish. Yesterday, I did administrative things like finding out the particulars of our Chapter 13 deductions from my vanished paycheck (refile or self pay? Answer = self pay with lots of pain), what I must do with my severance, updated my linkedin, updated a couple of online job seeker sites and even decluttered some space in the house. All that was crammed into twelve minutes and thirty-nine seconds because the rest of the time was all that naked, porn and music stuff. I am left with some carryover items to finish today.

For example, have you ever tried to screen potential escorts for an old boyfriend? Challenging stuff. It's taking me longer than I expected. I mean, I know what he likes and I have a general sense of his timeline (he screamed at me in an email that I had to get off my ass because Friday is coming up fast!) But he's not helping when I ask him if I should seek out a blond, a brunette or a redhead and he responds with "Yes." Bless his heart, though, at least he went far enough to say that he'd be fine with all three at the same time.

The deal is that I will receive a finder's fee of 20%. I'm not just doing this out of the kindness of my heart, you know. I may be the world's best (former) girlfriend, but come on. I have my limits. I assume we mean 20% of whatever he's paying her, so, naturally, I'm not looking at the fuck for a buck sites. Oh, no. We're dealing only in highly cultured and educated women. In fact, it makes me a little annoyed that I gave it away for free and worse, let my body go to hell. What a shame. I could be looking at a whole new career had it not all gone to pot.

In addition to providing escort screening services, I must write. Draft one of my novel is nearly complete. When I've written the ending, I will start the process of editing and searching for a literary agent. I can't tell you what a pleasure it will be to finally be at that stage. I mean it. For my whole life I've wanted to be a writer and now I finally am. To be able to paste the word PUBLISHED on to that will be one of the most amazing moments of my life.

The other carryover item from yesterday was mopping the kitchen floor. Either Chloe will do it, or I'm going to skate through the kitchen in some tuna covered socks. The cats will lick it clean enough.

It ain't all fun and games around here, you know.

It's all just dizzying, these changes. Before I go, I want to share with you two things that happened yesterday. They don't convey any profound or grand meaning, but I think they illustrate something that's been missing around here - me.

Thing #1
Sophia got into the car after her Chorus rehearsals and asked if her packet from the 4H office had arrived. I motioned to her that it was on the floor. She beamed with pleasure as she picked it up and looked at it. Then she remembered that it was also the day when we could snag a time for her to be a Bell Ringer. "Say no more," I chirped at her. "I already took care of it."

"Wow, Mom, you're like a real stay at home mom, but less you know," she said in all seriousness. Honestly, I don't know what she meant or how she gets these crazy ideas, but I just savored the moment of being ahead of the curve, not running behind and hoping that I hadn't blown some Mom thing again. Some of you make this look so easy, you know that? And it's really not.

She ruined it by telling me that she'd volunteered me to help out with the class party next Friday. Wait - what?

Thing #2
I had to fetch MathMan from school yesterday evening. It was miserable out. Windy, rainy, just nasty. When he walked out to the car, I had a huge smile on my face. He got in and said that I looked happier than I have in a long, long time.

That, my friends, considering that it seems like we've been in some weird sort of phase that just keeps heaping and heaping and piling on the bad stuff, was really nice to hear.

And then did he ruin it? Of course not. He may have been crazy enough to stick with me all these years, but he's not stupid.