#083 In which our hero whines out a list.

I’ve been avoiding writing about the entire lay-off thing because I’m afraid it makes me sound like a whiny little bitch. No, I take that back; I know it makes me sound like a whiny little bitch.

I try not to, but sometimes it feels like an entire Parthenon of gods have taken a collective dump on my life, and I get more than a little “woe is me, oh woe is me!”

So, yeah, I got laid off. Ultimately, this will be a good thing, I suspect, because I tend to get too comfortable with work, and continue to stay with a place just because they pay me on a regular basis and it’s easy. And the agency I was at was really shitty, and wasn’t taking me anywhere good. This lay off shakes up my life, and forces me to ask, “What else is out there?” Of course, the fact that the answer to that question is, “damn little,” doesn’t make for many happy days.

The main reason that I feel so put-upon is that we’re about to have another baby (oddly enough, I was unemployed when my first daughter was born). Well, here, let’s just list the things that are adding stress to my life:

1. The dog is constantly on the verge of death. And not nice, quiet, die-comfortably-in-your-sleep death, but long, drawn out wasting death. Death that involves crapping all over the floor. I have to admit that he's a good dog, but he probably adds more to my stress level than any one other thing.
2. The Scientist is fully effaced and one centimeter dilated, and she has four more weeks to go before her due date. I would be much more stressed about this, except that she was in this condition for 14 weeks with Lily before she was born. Plus, her doctor tells her that she could have this baby at any time and they'd both be healthy and happy. So this isn't really stress-educing, except...
3. The Scientist hasn't quite been at her new job for an entire year. Matter of fact, the 24th of this month will be her one year anniversary. If she has the baby before then, she doesn't get paid for her maternity leave. This would normally just be stupid and annoying, except now that I'm unemployed it becomes potentially financially crippling. And, the stress (for me) is ratcheted up about a billion times because waaay back when we were talking about having another baby, I said, "Shouldn't be wait another month before trying? We don't want to screw up your benefits by having this kid too soon." To which The Scientist replied, "Eh, we won't get pregnant right away." And, of course, we got pregnant right away.
4. The new house is expensive. We love it, but the gas bills alone are more than twice what we were paying at the old place.
5. Day care is also expensive. We've pulled our daughter out for the time being. She goes when I have freelance to do or (hopefully) an interview; but otherwise I'm watching her at home.
6. And finally, I loaded up the little girl into the car this afternoon to take her to the park and... nothing. Car wouldn't start. Wouldn't even turn over. Wouldn't jump-start, either. I suspect it's the starter, but the nice men in greasy overalls will tell me for sure tomorrow what the problem is.

See what I mean? I don’t mean to pout, but Jesus, on top of everything else, my car goes and shits the bed?

When I start getting really down, I always troop out my theory that for every good thing in my life, five bad things happen, and vice versa. So, with all this crap going on right now, I can only assume that this means that my next child will come out of the womb doing long division.

And, oddly enough, I find that very comforting.