American Idle

I'm the new American Idle. And I've hit rock bottom in my esteemed position.

Princeton defines "idle" as "not in action or at work." Well, duh. Then I get to yourdictionary.com and there you have it: "having no value, use or significance; worthless; useless idle talk; vain; futile; pointless an idle wish." Oh - why go on?

I haven't posted for lack of anything to say. I have been thoroughly idle. Until today. I got a job - yes, after three years of holding the crown, I am about to relinquish it to the lowliest of bidders - would you like that with or without thorns?

Funny, when you're a kid you think, "I can't wait to be an adult and not have to go to school and take all this crap from people and make my own decisions." Then you get to be an adult and think, "God, I wish I didn't have to go to work and take all this shit from people and let someone else make all the decisions."

And so you lose your job. At first it's kind of cool. You get unemployment, and then you extend unemployment and then you start in on your savings, knowing that's not going to go down too far because, hey, you'll get a job. And you sleep in every morning and then go for a walk with the dog to get your coffee and wave at all the neighbors pulling out of their driveways for their various employments and think how lucky you are to have your "freedom" and not have to take any shit from anybody or be strapped into a cubicle somewhere downtown or make any stupid decisions. Like what to do about nuclear disarmament or what font to use for the Earth Day bus poster.

And time goes on and you've read several books and taken a couple of day trips and cleaned out the closets and done some landscaping. Because you have an adult conscience, you think maybe you should start checking out craigslist or the Times for jobs. And you warily apply for a couple because you don't really want to go back too fast, just stretch your search muscle a little and no one replies. So you go to LinkedIn and Monster.com and a couple of other networking sites and enter some information and then lie back and read another book. And no one replies.

Hmmm. Savings is going down. So you make a few phone calls to friends in "the biz" and ask what's up and who's where and find out that there's layoffs going on everywhere - Liz from PR had her hours cut in half and even had to get a job at CostCo bakery starting at minimum wage and 4 o'clock in morning just to pay for her heating bills. Joe Schmo from Research got cut totally and just started auto mechanic school because he couldn't find a job anywhere.

Okay, never mind, don't stress, what have you always done before? Hit the streets, shake some hands, sell yourself and get a job. I mean, it's always worked before and I really don't want to have to cut into my 401K or sell my car...

There's nothing in your field. And there's nothing in anyone else's field either. And you find yourself hitting the pavement with your resume - but no one wants to see it. Because they're all hiring "online" now - "No, I'm sorry, you can't speak with a manager. We only take applications online." And you get all kinds of emails saying you're overqualified or that they thank you for your information but they are going "in another direction" this time.

So you go to temp agencies and register and they have no work at this time. Geophysicists are now becoming temporary typists and PhD-holding teachers are receptionists. Call again tomorrow. And then next week. And then next month.

And your savings is gone and now you have to sell the car and cash out your 401ks and there goes your kid's college fund and the tiny inheritance (it seemed big once) from Uncle Bob. Sell a few pieces of gold maybe, an old 50s designer chair? Now you find yourself standing on line at the Washington Department of Social and Health Services, the only one with all their teeth, waiting to take a number to talk to someone about food stamps and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Your grandfather would roll in his grave! And your daughter asks you, "Mom, are we poor?"

Past due notices, pre-existing-conditions-not-covered issuances, disconnections, foreclosure and a $10 check from great-aunt Lena are the only things you get in the mail anymore. Forget about the root canal, baby, you got to eat!

And so on and so on. Not to mention that subtle attitude from certain "friends" who aren't really certain you've made a true enough effort.

So what DO you do with your days now? Well, how much can you clean? And then how much can you maintain? How many walks can you take? How much does a class cost, how much can you read, how many weeds can you pull - where are your friends?

At work.

And so, after three years of widdling your life down to within a two block radius and a spot you've been staring at incessantly on the bedroom ceiling - you find a job. And where will you be next week?

At work.

Welcome to America Today.



I'm massively grateful for my new job.

Blind Along The Walls

Here's my day. I awake to the sound of my dog having yet another grand mal seizure. It's 5:00am and Gus has not emptied his bladder since 9 last night - until now. All over the kitchen floor (at least this time it's on the tile floor instead of the silk Persian rug) and then, if you've ever seen a dog seize you know this answer, he commences to drag himself through it over and over again. Complete with mucho frothing from the mouth.

Can you tell I'm getting used to this? I've documented his seizures and apparently this is going to happen every 2-3 weeks, ad nauseum or ad infinitum, whichever comes first. Because if nauseum comes first, I'm not sure what my decisions will boil down to. But I'm not there yet. So be it.

I clean up Gus and the kitchen for about an hour and then attempt to calm Gusgus, who is blind for about 1/2 hour, hence he paces along the walls, until he drops from exhaustion and then I try to fall back to sleep on the sofa. But Gus insists whining and licking my face at the same time with his pewy mug. This is not working.

Sasha, my absolutely NOT morning-oriented teenager, gets up for school and whines and badmouths the state of...everything, then paces along the walls until she leaves for the bus (okay, not really the "along the walls" part.)

I'm tired and I have no coffee. I must have coffee. I harness up Gus and ride him to Diva, where he proceeds to raise the hair on his back and snap at two small children, well-dressed in their regulation plaid Catholic school uniforms. Their well-coiffed Catholic mother flits about along the walls and tells me in so many words to train my dog. Okay, not along the walls here either, but she does flit and spit Catholically-correct fire at me.

I get home and have to get the papers together to meet my ex-husband for our next, most current notarization experience - we have yet another mortgage offer from Bank of America, this time at a lower price and as a result of the intervention of Senator Patty Murray. This should be a red-letter day for me, no?

And yet I find it necessary to pace along the walls, yes, along the walls because I want to be as blind as Gus is after a seizure and even more desensitized because I have to "see" my ex and endure what I know will be the regular recitation of the reasons I'm going to, in his weekly words, BURN IN HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY. Sometimes I can actually find it funny now, because it's become absurd in its roteness, but many times I cannot control how I will feel because I don't have control over all 54 people who live inside me, particularly the ones who remember what it's like to be put down regularly, both in childhood and other past "relationships," for various pathological reasons, several from people who threatened my BURNING IN HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY. Please see former post , among others.

But I do meet him at Bank of America and the receptionist signs us up for the next available bank exec and then makes the mistake of having us take a seat in the same waiting room as several other innocent bystanders. He sits across from me and begins his regular recitation of my failings, complete with names and dates and other assorted details and I grunt an answer rotely on occasion just to see if this time he will stop (what's that definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results? Yep.) and finally I cut him off, giggling somewhat hysterically to the semi-horror of the innocent bystanders who have been listening, and I say, "Jesus, man, wouldn't this make a great scene in a really shitty play? Like Mamet, you are!" To which, again to the horror of the innocent ears not three inches away, he shouts, "Fuck no! Too wordy!! Mamet would cut to the chase!" To which we both laugh and then are totally silent. The room feels blown away by the insanity, like the persons sitting with us appear to want to get up and pace along the walls.

It is all executed and done in perfect silence, at least on the part of him - he signs in front of the notary, he flips the papers back in my direction, he leaves. It is sufficiently dramatic to win at least a Drama Desk, with maybe even a nod from the Obie's and I should feel thrilled to have had my mortgage cut in half, yes?

But no, I cry on the walk home because as he has pointed out I'm a loser who still does not have a job to pay for this and I never will since I am about to BURN IN HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY, only about half of which I really believe, but since I can't pace along the walls I have to at least cry to relieve the tension. I can pace when I get home right?

No. I get home and it seems Gus has gotten up all the way up to the middle of the dining room table and snagged Sasha's Easter basket, which was filled with chocolate. And its contents? All gone. Anyone know what 25-30 pieces of chocolate do to a dog? Generally speaking, it throws them into a seizure. But we've already had one of those today, you say? Yes, but I don't think Saint Gustavo, Patron Saint of Mutt Seizures keeps count nor shows mercy.

I call the vet who, of all things, laughs, and says I'll have to stay close to Gus FOR THE REST OF THE DAY. But I have appointments and errands? Gus will have to go with me FOR THE REST OF THE DAY. There shall be no escape nor respite.

I take Sasha (and Gus) to drop her at her first appointment across town and I think, jeez, it's nice out, maybe we'll go to Magnuson dog park close by and I'll let Gus out for a little spin. It's nice out today, sun shining, birds singing.

We get to the park and the first person we run into is...my ex with his dog. He's also there with his dogwalker "friend" who's 20 years younger and 20 pounds lighter than I am. "Tee hee," she says. Joy. Five minutes later, the heavens open up and we are drenched, me and Gus, while the ex, his stick girl and his designer dog drive off in heated-leather-seat comfort. Me and Gus pad back through the monsoon, slide back into my 21 year old vehicle with the door that won't shut all the way and the window that won't completely close and we head off to pick up Sasha. But not before I slam back into the bumper of a brand new Toyota. And I think, great, let's call the police now that it reeks of wet-dog-who-has-peed-all-over-himself in here.

But we all get out and and - Aha - made of rubber! I get my 13th dirty look of the day, smile back and thank the Patron Saint of Bumper Makers, St. Come-On-An-Hit-Me-Sucka. I pick up Sasha, who immediately points out that she is thoroughly disturbed by it reeking of wet-dog-who-has-peed-all-over-himself in here. Perhaps her father should have picked her up? Ah, the beautiful silence.

I'm tired. There have been no further seizures. I have not had any demonic spirit show up to DRAG ME TO HELL yet. Is there a conclusionary lesson to this essay today? No. I'm just grateful it's all over.

Greetings From The Empty Vessel

It's three years ago this week that life as I knew it completely fell apart.

I walked into the extra bedroom where my then-husband was "sleeping" and found him in a state that no human should ever have to experience, either as a condition themselves or as a witness to such condition. He had a fever of 107, was yellow-ish green, his neck was swelled out to his shoulders, he could not open his crusty, puffed up eyes and when he tried to answer my question, "can you stand up?" he just blew sheets of the inside lining of his mouth out in large bubbles.

That's as much as I will graphically describe - except to say that when he finally did answer me, he reached in and pulled his lip off, taking his earlobe with it as he tried to move his hand from his face.

This was a catastrophic, toxic response to a prescription medication that years later a court would find both the prescribing doctor and the drug company NOT RESPONSIBLE for. I am attempting to write a book about the whole experience, but as one can imagine, I do get stalled out and stare at the wall for hours at a time without realizing time has passed at all.

But for this post I'm going to stick to what happened to me. This was my life three years ago this week: I was a wife and mother living in a home that we had just paid top dollar for in a great neighborhood. Our combined income was up to a couple hundred thousand a year and rising. We had two luxury cars, 3 401k's, a substantial savings, even moreso because my mother had left me a small inheritance. I had a career that I loved - other than being a writer myself, I managed the 3rd largest grossing Barnes & Noble in the country, and had for about 8-9 years. I was up for promotion. My then-husband's career was skyrocketing, selling land to builders and buildings from the land. Our daughter was a straight-A student who was one belt away from a black belt in karate, something she had worked toward for about 6 years. We had just bought a French bulldog and she was a little tiny expensive bundle of energy. I was clean and sober 20+ years.

David was in the hospital in a coma for almost four months. Despite the odds he lived. But one must remember that there are states that are worse than death, and he was definitely in one of those for a long, long, long time. Sometimes I don't think he's passed through it completely even now.

Our marriage was precarious to say the least – hence the aforestated finding him in the EXTRA bedroom, i.e. HIS bedroom. But I would have stayed that way indefinitely I think rather than face change because: we had a child together; we made a lot of money together; nobody has a perfect marriage, so said my mother (yeah, a future post on the Relationship Theories of Marge to come); I was too lazy to do anything about my unhappiness and; blah, blah, blah fear of the unknown.

As one can imagine, and I will not go into it here, our already broken marriage could not withstand the rigors of the attempts to heal from a state worse than death and we split.

So – over the last three years I have basically lost everything that I could possibly use to naturally describe myself – except that I am still a recovering alcoholic and a mother. I can’t even say that I’m still blonde, because stress turned me grey and I pay a high price for that blonde now.

I lost my marriage, I lost my job and my career, I lost the income from my husband’s lost career, I lost my mortgage, I lost my healthcare coverage, I sold my cars, I cashed in the 401k’s, I spent the inheritance and the savings. I lost belief in a god of my then-choosing, I lost quite a few friends (future post on Are People Afraid That Tragedy Is Contagious?), I lost my dog to my ex-husband, I lost my concentration, I lost my mind. But not really, because when you’re a mother you don’t have the luxury of insanity.

No more wife of an rising star, no more wife, no more manager, no more future district manager, no more homeowner, no more free-to-get-sick person, no more safe driver, no more financial security, no more credit rating, no more writing person, no more Scary-Ass God believer.

Three years now I’ve been a single, sober, unemployed welfare mom.

Whatever It Is That Runs The Universe has seen fit to make me an empty vessel.

And that includes ridding me of the voice of that Scary-Ass God.

You live through enough, and there's not much left to be scared of. And for that I'm grateful.