BakeryWorld

I'm not sure that three dried apricots, a prune, two crackers with cheese, two cookies, and a half a glass of wine really count as "dinner," but it's going to have to do.

What I would have liked to have done today:
Get up "late" (i.e., some time around 5:30 or 6:00), make a cup of tea, read my email, finish an editing job, leisurely begin the end of the other editing job, practice some yoga (or even go to a class!), get a massage, sit in the sun in the window of a cafe and read "The Mists of Avalon" while sipping some hot tea, and have a lovely dinner somewhere, perhaps with a friend.

What I did instead:

• Pounded 36 pounds of butter into rectangles (3 pounds per rectangle)


• Put the frozen croissants for tonight's bake onto sheet pans and racks so there would be room in the freezer for today's dough


• Cut 144 (or so) pounds of dough into 12-pound chunks, put each chunk on a sheet pan and cover it with plastic, and put each into the aforementioned freezer


• Counted the croissants on hand and tried to figure out a production schedule that takes into account Saturday's market, next week's holiday (no market Wednesday, which is good, but the bakery is closed Wednesday, which means no production happens on that day and no dough for Thursday gets made


• Fixed some Excel spreadsheets for Bossman


• Cleaned the dough sheeter


• Laminated the aforementioned chunks of dough with the aforementioned rectangles of butter (takes about 90 minutes to 2 hours)


• Pulled a stack of sheet pans and put paper on each one, in preparation for the Festival of Plain Croissants


• Took a brief hiatus from that task to help Phil with the sourdough rolls while Woody mixed some dough


• Made eggwash


• Put a second fold in each piece of dough


• Took a 20-minute break (it being nearly 1:00 pm by this time) and tried to reach a friend so we could plan food for Saturday night, failed in that task, but read for 15 minutes while chowing on a chunk of sourdough bread with butter


• Began the Festival, which involved rolling somewhere around 830 plain croissants


• Put the last of tomorrow's croissants on pans


• Made a 150-pound batch of dough for tomorrow and put it in the walk-in


• Punched out, not quite 12 hours after I punched in


• Upon arrival at home, edited for an hour and a half, which enabled me to finish one job

As you can see,* this is not exciting. It's not particularly difficult or interesting, and it probably didn't involve nearly as much variety or skill as, say, Brazen Tart's day on the job. It's grueling, and somewhat boring, and did I mention the low pay? The other thing that's been getting on my last nerve is the lack of paid days off. Now THERE'S a benefit you don't think much about until you don't have it any more. Having spent most of the previous 25 years in academia or OfficeWorld, you get used to sick days, vacation days, personal days, whatever the fuck your company calls them. Here in BakeryWorld, you don't get any of that: you don't work, you don't get paid. Of course, in BakeryWorld you also get the fabulous amusement-park ride of Bossman's Spouse--one day she hates you, the next day she loves you!

So fuck it, I say. As I've noted before, and as my conversation with J reminded me yesterday, I realized 10 years ago that I didn't want to work 80 hours a week.** At the time, I was contemplating trying to get a big-dollar consulting-type job (not that I necessarily would have succeeded in actually getting such a position, but I was thinking about it), and I realized that, while a six-figure salary would be nice, I really didn't want to work that many hours. Turns out, not only do I not want to work those hours for a six-figure salary, I really REALLY don't want to work those hours for an average of $12/hour. I'm planning my escape. It'll probably be as successful as all of my previous plans--let's not forget that, ten years ago, when I made this big conclusion, I was (a) making about what I'll make this year, most likely, and (b) working about half as many hours, plus I got vacations and such. But I'll take a stab at a new plan--probably two or three simultaneously.
__________

*I have no idea why the typeface changed after the list, but I'm too tired to try to solve it.
**In fact, I happily would have worked 80 hours/week as a professor, but keep in mind that I wouldn't have been doing so much of the same thing every single day.

More Whining, Followed by Cultural Commentary (Which Is Merely Whining of a Different Flavor)

I had dinner with a friend the other night, and as we wandered over to crunchy-granola-land, I was (what a surprise) moaning about how many more croissants I have to make now that the farmers' markets are in full swing, and our orders are up, and so on. He grabbed my hand and pointed out that people are not buying the croissants to torture me--that I'm GOOD at this. It was very sweet of him, and it made me laugh and refocus, both of which were helpful.

But you know what? Some days--most days, lately--it's just not enough, given the compensation I get in return. I'm looking at my calendar for the next three weeks, and it's ugly. The Students are graduating on Friday, then they're either going away for a vacation, starting the internship, or both, and, of course, the week when I have neither of them to help me is the week that Bossman is taking a class. I've already decided I'm not going in that Monday, despite his class, because he didn't pay me for Memorial Day. (The general principle is that you get paid for holidays that fall on days when you're normally scheduled to work, and, of course, I'm theoretically off on Mondays, but the other principle, for me, is that I've gone in on Mondays, most recently at the end of May, when he's out of town. So: don't pay me for Monday holidays because I'm not scheduled to work that day? Fine, but that means I'm not, in fact, going to work on Mondays.) He's offered to pay me my editing/proofreading rate to write the website on Mondays, and I told him I'd put it on the schedule, and I will, but I don't see it happening any time soon.

I'm wearing out, plain and simple. I've been applying for jobs, but except for the film company (they hired someone else), I typically don't get any response at all. I'm thinking more about what I need to do to do the copyediting and proofreading full time. In short: save up money, which I've been doing as best I can; figure out how much I need to have banked to feel comfortable quitting the bakery entirely; and line up some other publishing companies or clients for whom I can freelance. I have little idea how to go about the last thing, though I used to know an editor at a university press and I intend to ask him, and I'll do some research on it tomorrow. (Also on tomorrow's list: edit the last chapter of one of the current manuscripts; schedule a mammogram; pick up sample divorce papers from the clerk of the court's office; find out what happened to the pants I tried to exchange; call a friend who had a heart attack a couple of months ago; do laundry. So, nothing much, really. The original plan included a trip to a bar tomorrow night, where someone is doing a little cafe thing on sex differences, so I could tell him how wrong he is, but I don't know that I feel like dealing with the shlep home afterwards, which easily could take 90 minutes.)

The real question for me in doing the freelance thing full-time is whether I can get enough work. I'm not worried about being able to do the work if I get it--shit, I'm working nearly 80 hours a week now. If I can find enough work for, say, 50 hours a week, I'll end up making substantially more money each week AND working 30 fewer hours. I don't see how that's a bad thing. And I can keep looking for a full-time "regular" job, too, while I'm at it.

I'm a little afraid of being a full-time freelancer, in that it means I'm always going to be hustling for jobs. I also worry somewhat about the lag between doing the work and getting paid. Occasionally there's a snag in getting paid--an invoice not received or not submitted, say--and about 25% of the time (it seems), a job takes longer than the editor originally predicted, typically because an author has lagged somehow. My most lucrative gig, for example, was supposed to be done by the end of December or maybe early January: I didn't get the last bits until April. If I'd needed that $4k to pay immediate bills, it would have been ugly--hence the need to have a "comfortable" amount of money in the bank.

Really, though, I'm blathering on here so I don't write about the sadness that's been overwhelming me of late. I ignore it most of the time, because what's the point in dwelling on it? And I know it's exacerbated by long workweeks like the one I just had and the ones in front of me. And I'm tired of talking about it to friends, who, I'm sure, are tired of hearing it. I'm also tired of feeling like the world's biggest fucking loser, however. And you know, I can rephrase things in my head, such that I didn't make a bad decision (in going to work for the biotech company; in getting involved with, and--what the fuck was I thinking?--marrying Chuck) so much as I made a decision that didn't work out well, but I end up in the same goddamned place, no matter how you phrase it.

Yeah, okay, whatever.

For our movie review tonight, let me say that i watched "The Devil Wore Prada" the other night. I loved Meryl Streep; she was brilliant, as was Stanley Tucci. But parts of the script made me want to smack someone. Specifically:

Why did the assistant woman have to be all proud of herself for getting down to a size 4? Why did that have to be a plot point after the opening scenes where everyone is mocking her for being a size 6? They could have dropped it after that and it would have been fine, but NOOOOOO, she had to be all bragging about it at the end. I'm sorry, people, but most women are not a size 4. And the Devil can go on at length about how the blue of assistant-woman's sweater is, in fact, a product of the fashion industry, albeit a down-market version, but the high-fashion shit she was selling? What is the point? Oh, wait: to reinforce the notion that women are the sex class.

Why was the Entourage-boyfriend guy's ambition okay--remember he got the fancy-ass sous chef job at the end?--but the assistant's ambition not okay? You can make an argument that fashion is not a worthwhile pursuit, but the movie didn't make that argument at all. You can make an argument that ambition is a bad thing for everyone--but, again, the movie didn't make that argument (and, to be fair, assistant-woman DID get a Dream Job in the end, but one that she only got because of the experience with the Devil). You can make an argument that some kinds of ambition are destructive to the people around you, and, ultimately, to yourself, or you can choose not to participate in certain (kinds of) rat races--but the movie didn't make those arguments. What we saw was ambition in a woman being a bad thing, especially when that ambition meant she wasn't around to Take Care of Her Man and Attend His Birthday Party. (No one seemed to mind the ambition when it resulted in expensive gifts for them.)

And I still haven't made up my mind about "The Corrections." I'm still reading it, but the I-don't-believe-that-part bits are piling up in the corner. For one example, the gun artist's stuff? Doesn't seem right to me. I do not claim to be an expert on parental grief, despite my first-hand observations, but that whole section did little except annoy me with what appeared to be efforts to be clever. That, really, is what's piling up in the corner: too many efforts to be clever, such that even the ones that succeed irritate me.

Yes, a Second Post This Week!

Years later than everyone else, I'm finally reading "The Corrections" by that Franzen guy, and I haven't decided what I think about it yet. On one hand, he has some wonderful writing going on there--funny, evocative, lots of detail without that Cormac McCarthy thing going on (I tried, i really did try, to read Cormac, and he put me to sleep)--but I don't know whether he really likes his characters. (Tom Wolfe, for example, hated all of his characters in "Bonfire of the Vanities," which is the last book of his I tried to read, and I eventually wanted to thonk it against the wall because of it.) Yes, they're a little absurd, but aren't we all? So that could be okay. The one thing that's making alarm bells ring just the teensiest bit is the magical way that one of the main characters gets out of the huge mess he's dug for himself. One of the reasons I love Richard Russo's fiction as much as I do is that we get to see his characters--for whom he has much affection, because of, as well as in spite of, their absurdities--muddle through their messes. Sometimes they find a peace of one kind or another, but no magical fixes. So we'll see.

Meanwhile, Bossman's wife has made a liar out of me. I was sure that she was hatin' on me lately, but yesterday she came up to me and made it a point to say how much she appreciates me, for my consistency and reliability and something else (I couldn't quite make out what). I suspect that Bossman had made it clear that I'm humping away, magically producing nearly 4000 of the best croissants in the city, pretty much by myself, and, by the way, helping out Phil and (this past Saturday, because Phil kept bugging me) making pizza. In the face of that, my not doing the customers' orders for Bossman rather pales.

We've got two new people around the bakery these days. One of them worked there years ago, and he's pretty much an okay kid (early 20s, I think, so I think of him as a kid). He's reasonably competent, though he screwed up my croissant dough--in ways that we couldn't figure out how--three days running when he started. He mostly focuses on bread--and he leaves after about 8 hours. Which, okay, whatever, but when the fuck am I going to get some help during the week? Student 2 has been coming in on Saturday with Student 1, and he's going to start full-time after graduation (end of June) and his trip to Paris (early July), and he's meanwhile going to come in on Thursday and Friday after school, as well, which should help with the Thursday Festival of Plain Croissants and the Friday Market-Preparation Clusterfuck.

The other new hand is the 19-year-old son of one of Bossman's best friends (who also owns a bakery), and he is getting on my last nerve. He kind of means well, but he is So Fucking Slow. Seriously; he makes NP (who actually improved over time) look like a fucking genius. And he's just clueless. He's all proud of himself for working an 8-hour day and working at "his" bakery on weekends, but, I hate to tell you, I worked two jobs the summer I was his age, and (a) neither was for a "friend," meaning I had to actually, you know, work, and (b) I needed to earn the money, meaning I had to actually, you know, work. He's basically playing bakery. I, on the other hand, have 11 to 12 hours of work to get done each day, and I don't have the time to deal with him or teach him shit. Because you know what? After 8 hours he punches out, no matter what work remains to be done. (He wants to not get caught in traffic, and go work out, and so on.) I have never met anyone who can stand around as much as he can. And I think the thrill is wearing off, despite the small amount of work he does. That is, when he started a couple of weeks ago, he was all excited, but, let's face it, he doesn't want to work particularly hard, and no one's going to make him work particularly hard at our place, and he's not going to lose his job if he doesn't work hard, so he just lollygags, and chats, and leans, and plays bakery.

Oy.

I wish Brazen Tart would come work for us instead of suffering the craziness at the restaurant (and the hotel). She'd get so much done, in no time at all, that she'd make the rest of us look like slackers. And my opinion about the craziness, since she asked? The restaurant chef is insane, and why do you need that insanity in your life? Leave, already. Or, alternatively, have what my old boss called a come-to-jesus talk with her and tell her you really don't have time or patience for that shit. (Brazen Tart is MUCH nicer and more diplomatic than I am, so it would come out sounding much better.)

Muscle and Machine

I love this time of year: the sun seems to be up forever (and it mostly is, given that it starts getting light before 5 am and doesn't get dark dark until 9) and it's warm without that underlying knife-edge of cold that seeps in in April and sometimes May and definitely October, but it's also not unrelentingly hot. I'd say the weeks around the summer solstice are my favorite time of the year.

I still spend most of my time working these days, though--after more than 55 hours at the bakery, I spent four or five hours yesterday and another nine or so hours today slogging through the manuscript. (I'm seeing proofreading marks in my head.) I also watched three auto races in less than 24 hours (the Indy car race Saturday night, the Formula 1 race at noon on Sunday, and the Champ Car race at 3 on Sunday), which was interesting as well. I'm getting to know a little bit more about the courses and drivers and such, and I've realized that what I like about it, in addition to the raw speed of the whole thing, is the interesting intersection between human and equipment.

With handball, for example, there's not a lot of equipment: eye guards, gloves, gym shoes, shorts, t-shirt. The rules even specify acceptable versions of much of that, meaning one simply isn't going to get an advantage from the equipment. Presumably steroids would help with the body, but even there, if you don't get to the ball, you can't hit it. Fitness certainly helps, especially at the top level, but I've also seen people who could stand to drop a few pounds--or someone who was pregnant with twins--play spectacular games. In short, it's a game that's more about the human than the equipment, and the human doesn't have to be some finely chiseled specimen to play and win.

Football often seems to me to be the worst combination of human and equipment. The players wear a bunch of protective equipment, and, over the last decade or two, have begun to add physical poundage such that you essentially have multiple collections of 300-plus pounds of flesh hurtling at each other. And, as George Will once noted, the game itself can be described as violence punctuated by committee meetings.

In baseball, it's obvious--from the home run shenanigans of recent years, in particular--that players can modify their bodies with steroids in ways that affect the game. Nevertheless, it is possible to play well and to succeed without steroids, and it's possible to be both normal-sized and good (something that's not possible in basketball or football).

With racing, though, the machines obviously make a big difference--though more in some series than others, in that, in some series, all the drivers drive cars with the same specs. What you get is an interesting nexus of driver, vehicle (teams with more money have better equipment and better crews), and engineering, all at very high speeds. You can have the best driver in the world, and if the car sucks, s/he isn't going to win. Conversely, faster/better cars need good drivers at the wheel.

Anyway.

I've been diligently applying for jobs and such, and trying not to panic. The "don't panic" injunction works some days better than others. But hey, my anniversary is coming up, which means we'll have one less piece of paper to file when we file for the divorce (working on that, too). (In this state, if you've been married less than two years, you have to file an additional form of some kind.) Next week's project involves going to the Clerk of the Court's office and getting the papers to file. And editing, of course.

Random Notes

Let's see . . . since I last showed up in this space, I've gone to the Indy 500 (in short: really, really fast), worked somewhere around 115 hours at the bakery, stayed up one night--until 7:30 am--drinking wine and talking to a friend (just this past Saturday, which meant not nearly as much editing got done Sunday as I would have liked), and had a job interview (at a film production company that's looking for an administrative assistant). Yesterday I even managed to clean the bathroom (which had turned into a godawful pit) and do the laundry. I'm still not as caught up on my proofreading as I'd like to be; I have a batch due next Wednesday, and I've only scratched the surface.

May I also add that this particular manuscript is written hideously. The copyeditor apparently isn't as much of a martinet as I am, in that s/he allowed to stand some truly heinous writing. The writer and copyeditor also aren't so good about keeping subjects singular or plural (e.g.: The patient has to decide what is best for them.), and apparently don't know that the past tense of "lead" is "led." It's kind of a train wreck, but since it's already gone to the composition people and I'm supposed to be only proofreading it, I hesitate to do any more than correct egregious errors. But have I mentioned that the writing sucks AND blows? It makes me wonder, too: I worry about my own copyediting, which I mostly do electronically--which, I'd argue, is much harder to make neat and much harder to format, but substantially easier in other ways. Because I tend to get things in batches--and, therefore, often have to send things back in batches--I don't always realize in, say, Chapter 2, that I'm going to want to format or write something differently when I get to it again in Chapter 5, and, by the way, Chapter 2 is already gone back, so tough luck. It's not clear to me how many passes a given manuscript gets, so that could be less relevant than I think it is, but it still worries me.

I have long said that chocolate and raspberries are two of my three favorite things. I think I might have to make the list longer, though, to add ginger and honey. Thus, the bar of Green & Black's chocolate with ginger in it is transcendent, and if were a less prudent person, I'd eat the whole damned thing right this minute and run out and get another one.

I saw Chuck briefly yesterday, so he could borrow my tent for a scout camping trip with his son. Chuck looked like shit, and when I asked if he was okay, he said no, but that it I didn't have to be concerned about it any more, and he didn't want to talk about it with me. Whatever. He really did look haggard. I know I'm supposed to be working on the divorce papers, but I simply don't have the time right now. When I'm not making croissants, I'm editing, sleeping, or, occasionally, recreating a little, and all of those things need to take precedence. The last batch of the current crop is due June 25th, so I'll be able to get to the divorce paperwork on June 26th, maybe--our anniversary. Eh; whatever. I'll make the time for the divorce crap, and soon. It breaks my heart, still, but not because I want to reconcile. Maybe I'll have a new job soon, and thus have more time for stuff.

I'm neither particularly hopeful nor excited about the film production company job--it's pretty simple, and involves things like answering phones, tracking packages, ordering lunch (the company buys lunch every day), running the dishwasher, making coffee, etc. I have no idea what I'd say if they actually offered it to me. On one hand, I'd perhaps go out of my mind with boredom--it's a very small company, and I do not see how they would fill up my days, even when they're in production. On the other hand, if they offered me a little more than I'm making at the bakery, for, say, 10 to 15 fewer hours per week of work, it'd be mighty tempting, just to get the hell out of the bakery. On the other hand, if I can manage to hold out a little while, I could add $10k to $15k to what the film people are likely to offer, were they to offer to me. Or maybe not. I suck at this.

Wal-Mart and Murder

Over in kStyle's comment sections, Ann wants to know whether Wal-Mart or murder can be beautiful, in part because I argued, elsewhere in the comments, that functionality can/does "bestow" beauty on something. Ann's question is whether it DOES, by the rules I've already suggested.

I'm insisting on messiness, as I often do, and probably being Kantian, in the sense that I'm arguing (whether or not Kant would agree with me) that an end that is, in itself, problematic (as, i would argue, Wal-Mart is) or downright wrong (as, I would argue, murder is) makes it difficult, perhaps impossible, for the execution of that end to be beautiful. That is, it's not just that something must (or perhaps only should?) be functional in order to have the attribute of beauty, it's also that the thing that is functional must itself be a worthwhile thing. This may be merely a question of whether functionalities must be interlinking and must be considered in that way to judge them properly. For example, Wal-Mart may serve certain kinds of ends, most notably the enprofitulation of its owners, but do a poor job of serving other worthwhile functions that we may properly regard as linked to the functionality of business establishments. That is, if Wal-Mart's functionality at enprofitulation requires treating workers poorly, degrading the quality of merchandise available, etc., then we might argue that Wal-Mart is not, in fact, beautifully functional, unless, of course, I had the luck to be born into the owning family.

The biggest problem with this, of course, is who decides--whether something is worthwhile, whether it's functional, whether it succeeds, on its own or others' terms, at the thing it sets out to do. And, if it does, is it beautiful? A spoon may function perfectly well as a spoon--which gets it some points, in my book--but not be notable in any other way. Is that a sufficient condition for beauty? (Probably not. Mere functionality may be a worthwhile goal, but may not suffice for beauty.)

On the other hand is the question Anne posed, i.e., the one raised by the decorative impulse. That is, some things, jewelry and paintings being the objects in question, don't serve an obvious or utilitarian function, even if they serve a decorative function. If we're not sure whether "decoration" is properly regarded as a function, then we must ask whether functionality is a necessary condition for beauty. Even if we do regard decoration as a proper function, this is obviously a situation where it's easy for the decorative impulse to take over, as it were, and overwhelm functionality. (Most "fashionable" clothing, for example, suffers from this.) So, I think, I'm insisting that something not just be functional, but that the function it serves be worthwhile (or moral).

Who decides all of this? I do. Well, and you, too. i think the interactive aspects of life require that we all take part in these conversations.

As you might imagine, I could say more, but it's time to make the croissants.

nth Update

Another 60-hour week, plus another 7 hours in front of the computer today, and the prospect of another 2 or 3 tomorrow. But! Breakfast tomorrow with the Brazen One, by which time I should be finished with the said two or three hours of work, which means I get to have a half a day off, anyway. Today was pretty desultory, too; I didn't leave my apartment. And I finished off the evening by watching the rest of Wordplay, though I couldn't find Orange.

It's difficult to say what's going to happen at the bakery. The Saturday person from my school is so good that the chef (the one who sent me to the bakery) basically tracked her down and insisted she be an intern. I think she's going to do it (and I think she should), but that means Bossman and I are back to square one. Saturday's person brought another classmate with her, and I suppose there's a chance he'll join us, but either way it wouldn't be until July. I don't know what the fuck we're going to do for June; both Bossman and I are rather concerned about it, when we're not too busy to think about it. The markets start in full force next week (a Wednesday market, plus three on Saturday). Plus, he leaves for Camp Bread on Saturday and doesn't return until next Thursday, which means my life becomes more miserable; for one thing, I have to go in at least briefly on Sunday and Monday to process orders.

Bossman's wife continued to bemoan Brad's absence this week. One day I asked him why she misses him so much, and he said that she thinks that's why he isn't home. I said, "That's not true." And he said, "I realize that." Which, for us, on this subject, spoke volumes. Basically, she wants him to take off at least a day a week, but she doesn't realize that the reason he doesn't and can't is that we need to hire more people, a project that involves expending even more time. I've already told him that I can't give up another day to work at the bakery, that I can't afford it financially, which is true. (Let's face it, when I can make somewhere around $25/hour sitting in front of my computer or $10 to $15/hour making croissants, I'm gonna pick the former. And if all I make making croissants is $10/hour, then I really need the hours where I can make the $25.)

I had dinner Friday night with Chuck and his son, and everyone behaved. It's so very difficult, though. Lately I've been wanting to write to Chuck's sister, and I write and write and write in my head, and sometimes on the computer, but I don't send anything to her. For one thing, I'm afraid that, if Chuck were to find out, he'd keep me from seeing his son, and I don't want to essentially sacrifice my relationship with his son to make a point of some kind. For another thing, it's not clear to me that wanting to tell my story is a sufficient reason to write to his sister; it's too all-about-me for my taste. I'm beginning to lean toward sending her a brief email saying that I'd like to tell her more, but only (a) if she wants to read it and (b) if she doesn't tell Chuck. And, you know, she may not want to read it, which is her choice.

Last year I had brunch with Chuck and Son for Mother's Day--their "treat,' though it was probably my money he was using to pay--and of course I couldn't help but think about that today. Part of the reason I need and want to get this divorce done is that I'm worn out by the last-year-at-this-time thoughts, and I don't see them ending until we're divorced. Sometimes I'm consumed with anger, and I try to get past that, too. What's the point of being angry? It's not like that will repair anything; it's not like that will replenish my bank account with the money he begged, borrowed, and, in some ways, stole. (Speaking of money, apparently his car was booted this week, to the tune of $450, because he had too many parking tickets; he doesn't drive every day, so tickets get blown away, etc., and he didn't realize he had four instead of two. He was hoping his rent check doesn't bounce. Me, I was relieved to not have to deal with it--I paid for dinner, as I always do, but I made no offer to help out with the other shit. And, really, he should just park his car at his ex-wife's.) I realized awhile ago that I don't want anything from him except the money he owes me, so there's no point in engaging with him on the ending, on the stuff, on what he did or what I did or what might have been. If I wanted reconciliation with him, if I thought he were capable of even being my friend, I might make that effort, but I don't. Truthfully, I don't even expect to be able to maintain my relationship with his son. I want to do that--even though it would be easier not to--because I don't want to abandon him, and because I love him, but who knows whether Chuck will continue to allow it.

In Perfect Harmony

So my friend is "doing" eHarmony. She hasn't been all that pleased by it--of the men up with whom they've hooked her, only a couple have any real potential--but it hasn't been a complete waste of time, either. And, really, if you're single and want to date someone and you're in circumstances that make it difficult to meet potential datees (or should that be date--ees? . . . sounds like a crunchy-granola pharmaceutical: Having trouble getting a social life? Try Date-Eez!), you gotta try something.

So, on a whim, I filled out the eHarmony personality profile to see what they could come up with for me. I did it honestly, too. After you do that, they give you a sort of summary version, one of those things that says "you are x." (You can give them money and get a more detailed version, apparently, but I didn't do that.) If you read the one that came up for me (and if you really want to read it, I'll send it to you; I downloaded the pdf), the person being described is actually kinda okay. If that's really me, well, I'm okay with that. For example, under the category they call "agreeableness" ("taking care of others or taking care of yourself"), the "words that describe me" are fair, considered, collaborative, responsive, sensible, diplomatic, contemplative, indulgent, and rational (I particularly like the juxtaposition of the last two).

Except after I did all this? The final evaluation said, basically, you're too difficult to match with anyone; we fail about 20% of the time, and you're in that group, so thanks for playing, but we won't be able to find anyone who likes you. (The Twisty part of me wonders whether i would have received the same response if I'd filled it out exactly the same except said I'm male; if I could remember my answers precisely, I'd do it just to see.) So, apparently, if I ever want to jump in the dating pool again, I'm screwed. And not in a good way. Which does wonders for me.

On the other hand, I reconnected today with someone with whom I used to work (at the substance abuse place) and we had a delightful afternoon. We dropped off the Flat Nephew pics and then went to Whole Paycheck--she has a vehicle, so I could shop without regard to how much things weighed, which was wonderful--and then we picked up the pics (now I just have to send them off). Then we went to Local Crunchy-Granola restaurant and drank wine and ate buffalo quesadillas and I told her the Narya and Chuck saga, complete, as Arlo would say, with three-part harmony (and best told, and heard, in the presence of fermented beverages). Yeah, okay, I have to go back to croissant heck tomorrow, but I got some time off today, and the trees are turning that bright new green of spring, and it was warm enough, and the sun was out, and I got to see my friend, so things are good. They might suck again tomorrow, or even later tonight, but they were good today. Even if eHarmony thinks I'm hopeless.

Chats in the Offing

As I'm leaving work today, after putting in another 11-hour day (total this week: 57+ hours), Bossman's wife says to me, "You have to convince Bossman to hire Brad to come in on Sundays." Bossman had mentioned to me, months ago, that Brad wanted to work Sundays at the bakery. No one--including Bossman--wants Brad around. We don't like him. The Wife, however, "misses Brad," she says, and "Bossman just can't work seven days a week." I kind of hedged and said, well, you'll have to convince a whole lot of people. To which she responds that "Bossman and I write the checks, babe."

I just left and left it at that, especially since I was on my way out the door after the aforementioned 57-hour week--you know, the one I work so that her kids can go to college, and so that she can flit in and out and do whatever bullshit she does and still collect a salary?--but I really would not have wanted to say any more, because who knows what would have come out of my mouth. (Bossman witnessed this whole interchange, and I'm sure he had some idea what I was thinking, even though it was all done in this supposedly joking fashion.) Because you know what? She has no fucking clue. And you know what else? If Brad comes back, I'm out of there. She thinks Bossman works a lot now? Wait until he has to produce 5,000 croissants a week for the store, markets, and orders--without me.

I'm friendly to her--because why not, and because I see how difficult she is and I don't see any reason to rock the boat unnecessarily--but lordy lou is she clueless. She talks about the business in "we" terms, but I'm here to tell you that she really doesn't have any idea what's involved in the business, and she sure as fuck doesn't do any serious work in the business. For one thing, if she really wanted Bossman to spend less than 14 hours/day there, she would do something more productive than nag him. And I'll bet you a dollar that she nags him constantly about am I doing the orders, because they're paying me a whole $10/hour and all.

I think Bossman and I are going to have to have a little chat on Tuesday. I certainly won't say "It's Brad or me," or anything like that; I am not a believer in ultimatums. But if Brad does come back, I will be disrupting my own personal plan in order to get out of there. It's also true that we need more help at the bakery, but we need a fuck of a lot more than Brad coming in on Sunday, which I'm sure Bossman already understands, but Wife does not. Part of the problem is that we have two people coming in on Saturdays--one from my program and one from another program in the city--who are great but who, because they're still in their programs, can only come in one day a week. Yes, fine, they'll join us full-time--in July. Bossman and I are trying to figure out how to get through June, not to mention May.

Okay, I must sleep. One of my best friends came through town last night--he's driving a car from New Jersey to California--and we were up until after 2 and then up at 6:30 this morning. It was quite wonderful to see him; I miss our long email exchanges from what seems like a million years ago. But I must now sleep, because tomorrow I must edit my butt off, then get a massage, and on Monday I must once again edit my butt off and then see a friend from the substance abuse treatment place days--and she has a car, and is willing to take me grocery shopping! Meanwhile, though, sleep.

The Lamination Chronicle

I should have named the blog that, though it's admittedly less Kosmic than the title I chose. Speaking of dharma, the Dalai Lama is in town this weekend, speaking publicly on Sunday. Am I going to hear his wisdom? ("Big hitter, the lama.") No. I'm getting a massage. So much for enlightenment.

More croissant compliments today, from Bossman as well as from some random guy who admired my lamination (his word, to one of the counter people, which means he must be in the food biz, because normal people don't think of lamination when they look at croissants). It's very strange, on so many levels: to know that I am making some of the finest croissants to be had in this hemisphere--or, hell, just in this city--and that I am making upwards of 3000 each week, by myself, but I must work extra jobs to make ends meet. There's something fundamentally wrong about that. Not for me, so much, because I can (perhaps should) do other, better-compensated work; I mean cosmically, really. Because being willing and able to do something like that, whether it's baking bread, or making croissants, or whatever, should be regarded as worthy and worthwhile. I'd argue that I bring more good to the world than many a zillion-dollar-a-year CEO, and I'd argue that my coworkers do likewise, and yet we're not the ones getting platinum parachutes even when we don't fire enough people to suit the shareholders. That is, it's not just me, it's also Phil and Johnnie who should be making a lot more.

Speaking of coworkers, yesterday Johnnie came out and tapped me on the shoulder, pointed across the bakery, then said, "Never mind." I was confused--until I looked down and saw a fudge rose on a cake scrap. (Johnnie knows of my love for the fudge frosting.) Then, at lunch time, I found a hunk of "lunch" sourdough bread, complete with butter, nestled next to my book and glasses, courtesy of Phil. (I've been helping him with his rolls a LOT lately.) And, really, I find it ironic that Artie--the person who least NEEDS help--is the one to whom NP has, de facto, been "assigned." Of course, that's partly because she's pretty useless except for greasing cake pans, arranging cookies in store pans, slicing and packaging rolls, putting liners in muffin pans and dropping muffin batter into the pans, and tasks like that. Bossman, Phil, and I are all swamped lately, especially me and Bossman.

Luckily, Bossman understands that I cannot afford to work at the bakery another day, that I need to earn the editing money. (My guess is that he feels slightly guilty for not paying me more.) And, really, I wouldn't care much if he didn't understand--or, rather, I'd be less willing to bust my ass for him if he didn't understand. I don't know what I'm going to do for the longer term, but i keep telling myself I don't need to deal with this problem until i get the divorce finalized, that I can't solve every problem at once.

My primary life motto is from Hunter Thompson: "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." I've lived by that motto for 40 years or so--consciously lived by it for more than 20 years. My secondary motto is from I don't remember whom, from the same quote-a-day calendar that offered up Hunter: "First this. Then that." And I decided that I needed to go to an assortment of medical professionals (which I've done, except for the mammogram, which I'll schedule soon), get results from various tests (for which I'm waiting), get a divorce, and THEN figure out what I'm going to do, job/life-wise.

Also: Larry, I love you, too, and I'm REALLY glad you played music last week. In public and with friends and such. You rock.

Better Than Paris

Bossman had a friend at the bakery today, a French guy who helped in some way (I'm not sure how) with the Big Competition that Bossman won in 2005. So Philippe is looking at my croissants, and he tells Bossman they're nicer than the ones in Paris. (France, not Texas.) So that was kind of cool. We've also been selling a ton of them--today we even sold out of my red-headed stepchildren, a.k.a. the almond croissants. For some reason, they don't sell very well, and it's a rare day when we sell them all. We also got cool little paper cups for the monkey bread, and we sold a bunch of those today, too; the paper cups also make it much easier for me to assemble and store the damned things.

They're a great solution, too. I'd been putting my dough scraps into the next batch of dough, but that seemed to be causing a problem, or so Bossman concluded. I suggested the monkey bread--how can you go wrong with croissant dough, cinnamon, and sugar?--and then was faced with the problem of assembly. I was using our large muffin tins, but they're a pain, and you can only get twelve on a sheet pan, and so on. One day last week Bossman is cutting up strips of paper and taping it into rings: he'd looked into the sizes available of these paper panettone cups, and we chose the size closest to the muffin tins. They came in yesterday, and they're perfect: they have straight sides, which means they fit next to each other. They're individual cups, so I can (a) fit more on a sheet pan and (b) only bake as many as I want to bake. In addition, I found a deep-sided hotel pan that fits on top of a sheet pan, which works much better as a holding bin than the sheet pan--I just take my scraps, cut them up, and throw them in the bin in the freezer as I go, and every couple of days I pull out the pan in the morning, let it thaw a little, fill as many cups as I have dough for, and throw holding bin and a now-full-of-monkey-bread-cups sheet pan into the freezer. And customers? When they ask what's in the product and hear the answer, they typically Must Have One Now.

Flat Nephew came to the bakery today, too, though Flat Narya hasn't come alive yet. About what, you ask, am I talking? I got a letter from Nephew One last week, complete with a paper doll (hand-made) of himself and a girl paper doll for me to color in to look like me. Nephew One's class read Flat Stanley, and the project they're doing involves each kid sending a flat version of him/herself to someone who lives in another state. I'm supposed to send Flat Nephew and Flat Narya back to him, along with an account of his visit and tales of my state. Today Flat Nephew came to the bakery and posed with Artie, Johnnie, Phil (the Hispanic Phil), Bossman, and a tray of croissants. Bossman posed with his trophy, and with me (the 3-D version). I took down the names of the cities in Mexico from which Artie, Johnnie, and Phil come, figuring the whole immigrant angle would be interesting. I'm also going to take pictures of a statue of Abe Lincoln (it being his land here and all) and some of the interesting sights downtown, seeing as I'm going downtown on Monday. (I'll have Flat Narya colored in by then, so she can appear in some photos as well.) I would have liked to take the Flats to the prairie (we've got a bit of it somewhere around here), but I have no vehicle and not a lot of time. I will get to the lake, it being two blocks away and all--maybe I'll take a break from my marathon editing session tomorrow. I hope the pictures come out okay; I don't have a camera, so I got a couple of those disposable ones.

I Am NOT a Human Resource, I'm a Human Being

(with apologies to Patrick McGoohan)

Larry's comment below made me realize that I've been particularly lucky: I have had bosses who actively sought out and utilized my intelligence and who appreciated what I brought (or bring) to the table. My boss at the substance abuse treatment place still uses me whenever he can for writing and brainstorming and such, and he's also become a good friend. My boss at the biotech company always valued what I did, even if he couldn't get them to compensate me appropriately. (That's a long, annoying tale that I'll leave for some other time.) My current boss really likes having me around, though I think he realizes, on some level, that he's going to have to pay me much better to keep me for any length of time.

It's had a price, however, in that one could argue that I've been relatively underpaid at every one of those jobs. As I put it to my last boss, what would it cost to replace what I do? At the biotech company, if they brought in someone Bigger than I was, then the compensation would have had to increase significantly--double, perhaps--and someone like that would have wanted an assistant and such. So, right there, more than twice what they paid me. If they went the other route and hired less-skilled people--sort of one per function, or something like that--they would have had to hire several people as well, and, while each might have been had for less than they paid me, the total still would have been higher.

I recognize that part of this is my own doing, in several ways. First off, I absolutely suck at negotiation. Second, I tend to be good at filling in little niches that people didn't realize needed filling, and doing a lot of that, across broad areas of the organization. People who are good at that never get compensated properly, because it's underappreciated as a skill. Third, I have not tried to create a Career--well, I did, actually, which is what the whole graduate school thing was about. You'll notice I am not a professor, however, so that didn't work so well. Point being, while my choices have made sense (to me, at the time, given the options I thought were available), and while my experience and skills are pretty broad, an HR person is going to throw my stuff in the trash.

You or I can SAY that I have great skills, broad experience, blah, blah, blah. But in order to get hired, I have to stumble across someone, in person, who's looking for me, or I have to find a posting where the resumes bypass HR and go straight to the person doing the hiring (and that person doesn't fit Larry's description below). My experience with HR people is limited, and all bad. They hate me. You see why this narrows my options.

I don't really want to write about that tonight, though. I'd rather tell you what's happening at work (though I must go to bed soon). Bossman took a class this week with a French pastry chef guy--a special three-day class at my old school, with a guest teacher they brought in. He brought back all kind of goodies and ideas, and I think we are definitely going to kick it all up a notch. He should be able to expand the bakery's square footage this fall, as the printing shop next door wants to move; Bossman has already started talking about what he'll put in there, and it includes space devoted to laminated doughs. Which is all well and good, except if he wants me to be doing the laminating, I want more money and fewer hours.

In other news, I may be getting a new laptop, which is pretty exciting. (I have one of the old iMacs right now--the half-basketball base, and a small screen.) I decided that I'd go ahead and get it--not least because I can write it off as a business expense--once I (a) got an all-clear from the doc (i.e., no looming medical expenses) and (b) earned enough on the side to cover me through the end of the year. It would be very nice to be able to do the editing work someplace other than my apartment. Part of the reason I want to work fewer hours at the bakery is that I really do want time to do my own writing, too, and that ain't happening if I'm working 55 to 60 hours a week at the bakery, even if I still get my two days off.

Meanwhile, it's after 10 pm, and I have to get up at the ass-crack of dawn tomorrow.

Cha-Ching

I think maybe, in response to Ann's comment, that I should 'splain some things. For one thing, her comment (and reading my old posts) helps me see just how much I yammer about money. I think it's an awkward subject, but it seems to me that I should try to find ways to talk about it, not least because it's important in our everyday lives.

Although my day job is low-paying and physically grueling, it IS a job. I could live on what I make, just barely, if I were willing to live in a tiny apartment, have no social life, and eat as cheaply as possible; doing without health care or health insurance would help, too, as would doing without cable/internet and doing without a cell phone. I'm willing to work a second job so I can live in a one-bedroom apartment, go out to dinner or drinks with friends, eat organic (insofar as I eat anything other than meals out or bakery food), have health care and insurance, have an internet connection and cable TV, buy stuff, and have a cell phone as well as a land line. I don't like debt: my only debt right now is my student loan for pastry school, and I pay more than the minimum payment so I can (a) pay it off sooner and (b) pay less over the life of the loan. (If I paid it on their schedule, I'd pay twice the original loan amount--the loan amount plus the same amount in interest--which I think is insane.) That is, though I have credit, I have no desire to use it for material comforts, not least because interest rates are usurious, and I will do without rather than run up consumer debt. (I am not critical about people who have had to use credit cards to get out of jams and then find themselves in an even harder place; I have a parental safety net that many people simply do not have. I am critical about people who pile up debt for big houses, cars, and other conspicuously consumed items, but I may also be overly harsh about that.)

Not so terrible, really, especially compared to most of the rest of the world's population. Relative to what I have earned in other jobs, relative to what people with my level of education and experience can/do make, well, that's a little different comparison.

The other thing about my current situation, and probably the reason I write about this so often, is that it feels precarious to me. I've been getting enough side work such that I feel like I can breathe a little right now, but it's all built on being able to continue all of this work for the indefinite future--which is simply not realistic or pleasant to consider--or on finding another job that is less grueling and pays more--which, as I've noted before, is much more easily said than done. That's the source of the anxiety, I think, and why it shows up in my writing here so much. That is, it's not the immediate lack of money that makes me anxious--I have enough for my current needs and such--it's that I know my current situation is not one that will work for the long term, and my options seem so limited or difficult to attain that I start to worry about what I'm going to do.

It also brings up old crap. When I finished grad school, I was un- or underemployed for more than a year, as I've said here before. Could I have moved back in with my parents, if all else failed? Yup--and that's not an option that everyone has. But seriously; who'd want to do that, at the age of 36? Yeah; me neither. The fear and anxiety (and grief, for an assortment of losses) stayed with me for much of the last 13 years. It abated somewhat, with the last job; even when the company started to fail, I thought I had a partner who would help me as I made a transition to something new. As all of that blew up in the past 18 months, the anxiety has reared its ugly head again, and the particular choices I've made and circumstances in which I have thereby found myself have reawakened the fears again.

Keep in mind that I don't think I "deserve" this or that--job, salary, compensation, material lifestyle, whatever. I think all of us "deserve" work that is valued, living circumstances that are comfortable and free of anxiety about things like food and health care, etc.--me no more or less than anyone else. I'm closer to having a lot of that, because of the time and place in which I live, and also because of the genetic luck of the draw, i.e., I have brains and skills. And, yes, I work hard, but that is by no means either a necessary or sufficient condition. So it's not that I feel cheated, that I've been deprived of something that's rightly mine or something like that, it's that I don't know how I'm going to maintain. I want to create the time and space to do needlepoint, to write (other than to you guys), to make dinner for friends, to sit in a cafe and read a book for fun, without having to worry about anything right that minute. I've had those things before, and I want them again, and instead I'm worrying about paying the rent--not next month, but next year.

Anyway. I need to sleep.

Good Times

Well, THAT was fun.

Or not.

I met with Chuck after work so we could exchange income tax forms (he made about $20k more than I did last year . . . and he still can't pay his fucking bills) and divorce forms and such. We discussed the promissory note that he's going to execute regarding the $14k he owes me--he suggested $25/month as a repayment for now, because he's so very strapped for cash (for which I have no fucking sympathy, believe me). He also wondered whether I'd consider giving back his mother's diamond. He said that the question "wasn't from him" but, apparently, from his mother. He was nervous and almost apologetic--as well he should have been, on an assortment of levels. I told him I really didn't want the diamond, but did not have the money to have it removed from the ring right now. (Let's face it, I'm not going to have the money until he pays back the $14k. Which, at $25/month, will take 47 years.) I've been waiting for that request, so I wasn't surprised, and I managed to avoid open hostility, but it took a serious effort on my part.

I've set a task for myself to maintain an attitude of compassion, and I told him that. He of course said he didn't need compassion, and I said that everyone needs compassion, in the buddhist sense or the golden rule sense, which he accepted. I didn't succeed as well as I would have liked today, but it could have been a lot worse. As I said to him--when he thanked me for the lack of acrimony--the last thing either of us needs is more pain in our lives.

Maybe tomorrow I'll have the energy to tell you about my flat nephew (it's a class project--kind of cool, actually), which I got in the mail Tuesday. I had three editing projects simultaneously, but I finished one tonight--the one on which I've been working since November. The other two are due next Wednesday, which, for me, means Monday, so my life, except for Tuesday, has been pretty much come-home-from-the-bakery-and-edit. It's fine, though, and I'm happy to have the work; I figured, when I got the last two, that they'd be pretty quick, that it would be two weeks of editing heck--followed by two checks, and that doesn't suck.

Così Va*

As I left my building at 5:45 this morning, I saw a text message on my phone from my friend Roberto: "So it goes," it said. I thought, "Hmm. Who died?" First I thought it might have been his grandmother, who has been in ill health, but as I walked to the el, I decided it had probably been Kurt Vonnegut, and, indeed, it was. I gave R a copy of "Player Piano" last year, because he and I have been talking about embodied knowledge, and there's a passage in that novel that perfectly captures the aspects of the notion that interest me.

My father went to the public library in my hometown every week or two, to exchange one stack of books for another. I often went with him, and, when I was about 12 or so, I started wandering into the adult fiction shelves. ("Young adult" fiction made me crazy--the books for girls were always about how the girl who felt like a misfit eventually got a boyfriend after all, so there!, and I knew none of that was going to work in my life, for one thing, and the stories were insipid, for another.) For some reason, I pulled "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" off the shelves and added it to my stack.

Reading it changed my life.

I could no longer tell you any salient detail from the novel--the media has been rife with recountings and quotes, but that doesn't count--except the presence of Kilgore Trout and Mr. Rosewater Although I own a bunch of Vonnegut paperbacks, I don't have that one. But it did, in fact, change my life: I don't claim to have understood completely what I read, but I wanted more--of Vonnegut, of whatever it was. I worked my way through the rest of the Vonnegut that the library had, and for several years I kept my eye open for the latest one. (I didn't find the short stories until later, and I admittedly didn't have the reaction to "Welcome to the Monkey House" that many of Twisty's readers had, though I probably should have.) The thing about it was, he played with language, he told stories that weren't straight lines but still had points, and the point he was often making had to do with the brutality of patriarchal, war-mongering, capitalist society. And to my adolescent, small-town, social-outcast self, it was a revelation. It opened a side door that I didn't even know existed, and the very existence of the door, much less anything I might find on the other side, changed my sense of the possibilities. So, yes, Kurt Vonnegut changed my life; thank you, Mr. Vonnegut.
______

*So it goes. In Italian, or so says BabelFish.

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.

Skip This

Unless you're up for more whining.

Turns out that realizing you're in a dead-end job and that your Life Plan has once again immolated itself doesn't really do wonders for your motivation. Throw in the fact that I simply have too much work to accomplish in a reasonable work week, and, well, let's just say that Narya's cranky. On top of that, Bossman has been gone for a week, so I was the Unofficial Bossperson for many things. And today's paycheck did not have a comma (though it IS the third paycheck of the month). Unfortunately, all of my friends have heard the whining even more than you guys have, and they can recite my woes as well as i can. ("Moo, moo, moo," said one the other night, after reciting said list so I didn't have to, which made me laugh.)

Seriously, though, I have had to try to sleepwalk through this week just so I didn't put down my knife and walk out. (Actually, I'd take the knife with me, it being my knife and all.) If I think about the summer--and the work that will be required for the farmers' markets--I get even more depressed. I hate it all. I hate the croissants. I hate the laminating. I hate the constant struggle to get out of work before 6 (after punching in at 6:15). I hate coming home to more work. I hate not being able to play handball or have the motivation to practice yoga. I hate not being able to talk to my coworkers or understand them very well when they talk to me. I hate working 11- and 12-hour days. I especially hate working those kinds of days (a) on behalf of someone else's business, (b) with no end in sight, and (c) for relatively little money. I don't want to ask for more money, because (a) it wouldn't be enough more money and (b) even a little more money would cause Bossman to regard me as obligated to work the kind of hours and days that I hate working, and did I mention I hate that?

And looking for a job--which I am, indeed, doing--depresses me in a whole other way, and not just because I don't have a lot of time to look or apply for one. My skill (luck?) at finding work is really pretty abysmal, and my checkered resume isn't going to make that process any easier. And the jobs out there? I really think I'd suck at writing or editing (a) a mega-company or industry newsletter, (b) for a financial services firm, or (c) for the health care industry, which seem to be the most prominent editing/writing jobs available. (Seriously, can you see me writing cheery, upbeat crap for some health care industry megalopoly that doesn't want you to notice that it's sacrificing your health for shareholder profits? Yeah, me neither.) Yes, I know I'm being negative. Take a look at the last three years of my life--at the wasteland of job loss, money loss, marriage to a liar, separation from same, health care issues for both parents, mental health issues for said spouse--and it's no wonder I'm overwhelmed. But knowing that I am, and knowing why I am, do not help. And it especially doesn't help me get a job, which is the thing I most want these days. Okay, second-most want; divorce would have to be at the top, and no, I haven't had time to get that moving, either.

Dead Parrot

I wish I had something to write that didn't fall into the categories of (a) whining, (b) complaining about work, or (c) reporting more mundane details from my life. Even the so-called epiphanies I've been having are repeats, though occasionally more pithily phrased. (For example, I realized today that, in essence, I'm working 55 hours/week to put Bossman's kids through college. While I'm all for college education, I'm not sufficiently generous to want to fund Bossman's kids' college education.) And I'm torn, too, because the farmers' markets are coming soon, and I'm already at a level of production that requires between 50 and 55 hours a week to accomplish--but i find myself looking at local universities' websites, looking for an administrative job that pays as much as (or, often, more than) I'm making now, and likely for fewer hours and better benefits.

As has become obvious, what I'm doing now was in no way part of the original plan. The bakery work was always a means to an end: my own business, with Chuck to assist with supporting me in various ways while I created and grew the business. But that whole plan has passed on. It is no more. It has ceased to be. It has expired and gone to meet its maker. It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If I hadn't nailed it to the perch it'd be pushing up the daisies. Its metabolic processes are now 'istory. It's off the twig! It's kicked the bucket, it's shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!!

THIS IS AN EX-PLAN!!

Which means, once again, I need a new one. I know I'm supposed to get the divorce out of the way first--and I intend to spend some time on the financial affidavit this weekend, even though I get NO days off this weekend, which is a wine of a different vintage--but it's difficult to stick with a dead plan, especially one that is so physically taxing and for which I receive, relatively speaking, so little compensation. Triple (maybe even just double) my pay--without doubling my work or responsibilities, and it might be worthwhile. Maintain my pay but cut my hours significantly? Same thing. But long hours plus low pay, eh, not so much. And if I'm pretty sure the plan is dead, then why stick with the means to execute that plan?

No, Because There's an Elephant in the Way

The Patchouli Princess--my patchouli-scented white-chick-with-dreadlocks next-door neighbor to the east--has begun the Friday Reggae Festival, so I'm being bombarded with music. Through two walls, mind you. Every Friday night, she cranks the reggae--though last week she changed it up with some Stevie Wonder. It occasionally wears a bit thin (one week i was forced to crank up some Bruce), but she tends to shut down the Festival by the time I go to bed, so I let it be. Some Fridays I get her music from the east and my other neighbors' thumping bass from the southwest (my apartment goes around the corner a little). Add to that the banging from the stairwell, and we've got a veritable cacophony. This is NOT a quiet apartment (the stairwell is probably the worst culprit, though I can hear the elevator, too, from my bed), and if it didn't cost money to move the cable and phone and such, I'd probably consider changing apartments if something more desirable opened up.

Yes, last night I was once again tired (and depressed), it being Friday and all. I've been having a week-long pity party for myself, and I am getting mighty damned sick of it. I've decided that the crap--the sentimental, sad crap, I mean--is this big ol' elephant, and I pretty much have to chew through it a bite at a time. I don't think there are any Unresolved Issues, or some big Meaning I'm needing to get out of it, or some Life Lesson--or, at least, if there are lessons, I already know what the fuck they are, so can we get the elephant out of here already? Why do I have to eat the damned thing? Can't I just move on? Why do I have to eat my peas in order to get dessert? Can you guarantee that there will BE dessert if I eat the peas? Of course you can't--so fuck the peas. So can I just move on? NO--because there's an elephant in the way.


And, of course, I AM moving on, because, as a friend of mine put it so succinctly this week as she contemplated some of the crap she's been dealing with, when you've got crap in front of you, you can either deal with it or lie down and die, and neither of us is much for that latter option. But I am so tired of it all.

I really must create a different life for myself, a different occupation of some kind. This one, as noted, is way too much fucking work, for way too little fucking pay, relatively speaking, and, in my case, no fucking future except more of the same. I was determined to do my editing last night so I get two days off--in a row!--which I mentioned to Bossman, and he said, only half-kidding, two days off? a year? a quarter? a month? Because two days off in a row in a WEEK is just . . . incomprehensible. Which, you know, to me it's actually not incomprehensible, because I've had jobs--SEVERAL jobs, actually--where two days off in a row, every single week, plus this thing called VACATION, where they pay you but you don't have to go to work, is routine.

Five Things

Responding to Landismom's request, albeit a bit late, my five favorite things about feminism are:

1. Twisty. Sometimes I want to move to Austin so I can find her and buy her tacos and beer and get her to tell stories. Critiques of the patriarchy are more numerous, and more available, than they were when I was a teenager, and Twisty's is one of the most thought-provoking, and most accessible, ones out there. I've long thought that people only begin to Blame slowly, and that it takes someone prodding, and pointing, and maybe saying something with which you disagree but you don't quite know why, but figuring it out in part because of the things Twisty wrote.

2. Being able to make my way in the world. Back in the day--and I was alive while this was true, but not in a position where it mattered personally--it was much more difficult for women to get credit, or mortgages, or jobs that would enable them to maintain either of those things.

3. The possibilities it has opened for men. I suspect my sample is skewed wildly, but I have several male friends who spent significant time as the primary caregiver for their child(ren), who moved for the sake of their wives' careers, etc. I know many men who simply do not like the frat-boy dude behavior that Twisty so often points out and critiques, and not because they're Nice Guys (a Twisty-ism), but because they do, in fact, regard women as people, not as receptacles. Feminism has provided men and women with alternatives to the strait-jacketing roles that bound our parents and grandparents (and that bind many of the people around us still) and has provided a language for disdaining the patriarchal view of women (and men).

4. The possibilities it has opened for women. Oh, there is still so very much work to do, but each step enables us to see more possibilities. Doctors, lawyers, executives, professors--they were all men when I was a kid. All. (Not that I knew any executives or professors, but still; even in college, there weren't all that many female professors, and none in either of the departments in which I majored.) Yes, what we see on television is the girls gone empowerfulled version, where every woman has been surgically altered to achieve perfect sexbotdom, but in real life, there's a little more going on.

5. Sex. Yes, I know, woman had sex--and even enjoyed it, at least some of the time, presumably--before feminism, but feminism has helped women reclaim their sexual experience as their own. The sexbotification and empowerfulication notwithstanding, there are at least a few of us out here who enjoy it for its own sake and do not feel the need to justify that in any way, shape, or form.

I'm not going to tag anyone--not least because I'm almost a week late here--but anyone who wants to join in, either in the comments or on her/his own blog, is welcome to do so.