Still More Whining!

I am so pathetic.

I've begun to think about possibly maybe embarking on the Find and Get a New Job project, and of course I read job descriptions and eliminate myself from consideration before applying, which makes the "getting" part difficult to accomplish. Sometimes it's because the job requires skills I clearly do not have (I'm not a nurse, for example), and sometimes it's for a part of a university that I suspect would not be a good fit for me (the business school), but just as often it's because I read the description and think they'd never hire me to do that, whatever "that" is. So I read more job descriptions and I get really depressed, because I feel like I'm completely unable to get a job. And then I think about doing more of what I'm doing--somehow staying at the bakery, and doing enough editing and so on--just so I don't have to look for another job, and that makes me nearly frantic. You wouldn't be able to tell that I'm frantic, because I'm being frantic in my head, while I shlep through another 11-hour day at the croissant factory, but frantic I am. On the worst days, like today, I can't even find something else about which I can think, so I'm sheeting dough, or cutting it, or rolling it, or egg-washing it, or whatthefuckever, while I have all these dire thoughts inside my head.

Part of the problem, of course, is those 11-hour days; I end up with almost no time to myself. On a typical day, I get up a little before 5 am, get breakfast, put my bottles of tea for the day in my bag, get dressed, check my email, brush my teeth, and leave for work around 5:45. (I used to shower in the morning, but this week I'm experimenting with showering at night, which gives me an extra few minutes in the morning.) I usually punch in by 6:20 unless I have bad public transportation karma. I take a 20-minute break, usually around 11:30, sometimes later (nearly 1:00 the other day). I've been punching out around 5:15, give or take a half-hour, though occasionally as late as 6:15. I get home by 6:00, sometimes 6:30 or even 7:00. I read my email, I vegetate in front of the computer, maybe do some editing work, take a shower, and go to bed by 10:00. On Mondays I deal with all of the crap--phone calls, appointments, doctors, whatever--that I can't deal with the rest of the week. I do my laundry every other week, usually on Sunday morning, early, and I clean when I can find the energy. I rarely cook anything any more. I don't play handball. i don't practice yoga. On Tuesdays I meet friends for beer and free food, and I occasionally have breakfast or dinner with someone else, but I spend most of my hours in my own head (see above for the pathetic commentary that goes along with that) or working with people with whom I don't share fluency in a language. Even the things that used to provide me with satisfaction--for example, today's croissants were absolutely beautiful, and Bossman praised them extravagantly--provide only transitory moments of pleasure. I'm dreading dealing with the details of this stupid divorce; it's one more slog through a mud field. It occurred to me tonight that I am worse off than I was when I met Chuck, in just about every way you can imagine. I'm older, I make way less money, I have fewer career options, I have more debt (I'd paid off a lot of my student loans), I have less savings, and I have the wreckage of that relationship to survey and the legal wrangling with which to deal.

And then I hear (or read) myself whining, AGAIN, and I feel worse, not least because that's all I seem to do when I try to write here or talk to my friends. Also because there are so many people--including people whose blogs i read and to whose blogs I link--who are dealing with seriously heavy shit (cancer, death of a sibling) and who are doing it with a lot more style, grace, wit, and entertaining writing than i manage to throw up here.

This is a long-winded, whining way of saying that I may be posting even less frequently in the coming weeks. I can't stand it that all i fucking do is whine. I hate it that I try to write a post, because I haven't in forever, and this shit comes spilling out, so I try to think of something else, and my brain just won't go anywhere else. And i don't want to keep on with the whining. And I'm sorry.