Patrizia and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

[mallorys_camera]

Yesterday: beyond horrible.

At the point at which it turns amusing – and it’s a peculiar quirk of my personality that eventually everything does get recycled as a cheap joke – I suppose I’ll write about it.

In the meantime, I’m feeling marginal and hopeless. So what else is new? I work and work and work and work, and it just keeps getting harder and harder.

I’m not stupid. I have some real skills. I’m presentable. But it’s been impossible for me to find a real job. I spend many hours each day looking and scheming. And the financial end of things is feeling so overwhelming right now.

I wish I was an alcoholic. Or that I still smoked. I feel like doing something horribly self-destructive right now.

I was sniffling about this to RTT on the ride home yesterday and he lectured me sternly: “You have nothing to complain about! You’re not one of the one in six people worldwide who went hungry today!”

Well, I am of course – but that’s only because my response to stress is to stop eating and go all ditzy and anorexic.

“You’re not one of the people in Brazil whose home was washed away by the floods!”

It’ s so weird to hear RTT, the poster child for entitlement, a kid with a chip on his shoulder the size of a small Brazilian Amazonian rainforest, lecture me about social injustice! I mean, it’s good that he’s into this stuff – assuming he’s into it for some reason other than to score points against poor beleaguered Mommy DiL – but of course, in some absolute sense, all suffering is equivocal. That hungry African, that homeless Brazilian, me, even John Edwards at Elizabeth Edwards’ deathbed – we’re all sitting in the same waiting room.

Is what I’m feeling right now “suffering”?

Honestly? Minus the glib jokes I sprinkle into everything, yep: I think it qualifies.

No, no, no, I did not threaten to commit suicide! But somehow – I have no idea how -- the car conversation turned to self-annihilation. “If you ever tried to kill yourself, Max and I would come and piss on your grave!”

“Dear me,” I said. “That can’t be good for the earth and sustainability! Uric acid, tsk tsk.”

“I mean it, Mom!”

“I’m sure you do.”

“You’d be abandoning us.”

“Well, I mean, not that I ever would, but if I did, don't you think it would be a little more complex than that?”

“No, it wouldn’t. We’re your children. Your first obligation is to us. We didn’t ask to be born!”

Well, neither did I, come to think of it…

Called LS whom I hadn’t spoken to since our stressful Europe trip though we’ve been chatting on Facebook. We babbled about all sorts of interesting things for close to an hour and under normal ciurcumstances, I would have been feeling very merry when I got off the phone. But these are not normal circumstances.

I feel like one of Napoleon's soldiers on the French retreat from Moscow: is that snow as comfortable as it looks?

This morning RTT was up at the crack of dawn vomiting, and I have a million small errands to do.

Comments

[christophrawr.livejournal.com]

Your kid is in for a rude awakening when he turns eighteen.
And he's got it backwards.

His first obligation is to YOU.

Check it:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html?mod=ITP_review_0

[misslam2u.livejournal.com]

I think there's something valuable about the observation of the desire to do something self destructive. Even if it is just in the awareness that the desire's come to the fore and the ability to suppress it, for whatever reason.

[jdquintette.livejournal.com]

“No, it wouldn’t. We’re your children. Your first obligation is to us. We didn’t ask to be born!”

Ineresting how, even when the subject is your death, it's still about how your death would affect meeee.:-P

As for the 'real job' thing. I always thought getting one would be the answer, but that just shows you how ignorant I was about how the 'other half' 9people with 'real jobs') lives. I'm a UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS! (insert stentorian major chord here). I have a 'real job.' And I work like a mule 60 or 70 hours a week, yet I'm still broke. One missed paycheck or a serious illness could put me on the street.

Is this a great country or what?

[slfisher.livejournal.com]

Does RTT have a job?

[bel-ebat.livejournal.com]

...but of course, in some absolute sense, all suffering is equivocal. That hungry African, that homeless Brazilian, me, even John Edwards at Elizabeth Edwards’ deathbed – we’re all sitting in the same waiting room.

i've been thinking about this over the past few months—it's absolutely true. it came to me whenever people tried to do "it could be worse" comparisons with my mom's situation (god, did those piss me off!)

are you still in the science fiction workshop? or has it ended?

[misslam2u.livejournal.com]

I agree with every single thing you said.

I'm in the same situation, I have a job that looks pretty glam on the surface, but I work like a Hebrew slave and am one paycheck away from utter despair and homelessness and two kids kicked outta Univ. And two with me sleeping in the car.
Which I won't own outright until March 15.

But there's nothing wrong with this country.... that a revolution wouldn't fix.

[anais-pf.livejournal.com]

I hope you feel better soon.

[cwmackowski.livejournal.com]

But at least you aren't one of Napoleon's dead soldiers, so you've got that going for you.

[gringo-in-tj.livejournal.com]

Ah, the grand sense of entitlement from the children. Ma'am, I live that one every single day. We just keep on marching, don't we? I mean, what else is there?

[katestine.livejournal.com]

Is Ithaca really big enough for your skills?

[fasterpussycat.livejournal.com]

I hate when people say shit like that. Suffering is suffering regardless of the cause

[sulphuroxide.livejournal.com]

that racist article, or atleast article which borders on racism 'Why Chinese Mothers are Superior (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html)' talks obliquely about how 'western' parents are permissive of their children because their children didnt ask to be born.. its dumb. parents didn't ask for their children to be specifically their children. everyone needs to be responsible for themself regardless of the relationship.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

His first obligation is to YOU.

Heh. I wish.

I must say, it's a very odd experience being somebody's parent...

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I think there's something valuable about the observation of the desire to do something self destructive.

I'm with you on that. In fact, I'll go one politically incorrect step farther: I don't get this cultural anger towards people who commit suicide. Why isn't it a viable option? In most cases, suicides are driven by pain. Maybe we tried to hold out a hand to them. More likely, though, we didn't.

That said, I've never actually thought about suicide much until this year. And I'm not really sure I'm thinking about suicide now, so much as some kind of off switch. I just want to stop functioning for a while. Start functioning again after my jets have cooled down a bit.

Not an option, I'm afriad.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Yep, teenagers -- itinerant vortices of solipcism. :-)

Is it really this country's fault? Serious question. Maybe things are marginally better in Canada and western Europe, but not in most places in the world.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Yes, of course: his job is to guilt-trip me! :-)

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Heh. It's the consolidation of the value chain -- production, distribution and retail owned by the same ten to twenty big companies. I'm not sure a revolution would accomplish much though.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Science fiction workshop ended. Presently owrking on my novel about the winter Joseph "Follow Your Bliss" Campbell fell in love with John "Wherever There’s a Fight So Hungry People Can Eat, I’ll Be There" Steinbeck's wife.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Thanks, sweetie.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Yep, I'm more like Pierre in War and Peace before he's rescued by the infantry. :-)

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I dunno, Senor Gringo. Wish I did. :-)

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, that's an interesting question. One of the things I can do is design websites. Not fancy websites, but quite functional ecommerce websites -- up to and including cusotmizing shopping cart software. Few days ago some nonprofit was advertising for a website developer, & I thought, This is two days worth of work. If I offer to do it for free, I can start some sort of local portfolio to use for paying jobs."

And so we dickered back and forth in email. And they haven't gotten back to me. Can't evengive it away in Ithaca.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Totally agree.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I can understand why you find the WSJ article racist. Interestingly, most social scientists agree that China's "one child per couple" policy radically changed the assumptions attributed to Chinese parents discussed in that article.

[katestine.livejournal.com]

Good thing web design (and ghost writing) is not geographically limited.

I'm still shocked that they didn't get back to you though - I assume that's bc they are disorganized, not bc they aren't interested.

[bel-ebat.livejournal.com]

yes, i love your updates on that project! i just couldn't remember if you'd ever posted anything from the sci fi workshop/reading about it very much—not that i KNOW very much about sci fi at all.

[slfisher.livejournal.com]

One could say the same thing about my living in Idaho, but quality of life counts for something, too, especially when a lot of work can be done virtually.

[misslam2u.livejournal.com]

And I work for one of those Big Ones trying to consolidate the whole thing....

[christophrawr.livejournal.com]

You are too kind.

[misslam2u.livejournal.com]

It is very very odd.

We are having older teenaged angst with son #2 (the twin still living at home) right now, he thinks I'm an asshole, and I might be, but his argument is so *weak* I'm just appalled he can't come up with anything better for WHY I'm such an asshole. And he's so angry at everybody and everything, which I don't get.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I know -- let's have a reciprocal hostage agreement and trade male teenagers!

The twins are... can they be 17 now? Where is the other twin living?

[misslam2u.livejournal.com]

They will be 19 at the end of May. *sigh*

No thanks, I don't want another one until I have to have another one (young laddy Isaac). I couldn't take the heartache :) Rearing teenaged boys is like a sport, but it is very ageing. Hard on the brain and body.

One lives upstairs here at my house *deep sigh*
and one lives in San Antonio *Deep sad sigh*

Oxo had a very sage take on it all last night when he said, "You are all he's got to rebel against, Lee." It kind of put it all into perspective.

So ~~I'll be that asshole. Since I'm all he's got.

[sulphuroxide.livejournal.com]

why yes. i was actually thinking about writing about that. i saw the last half of a documentary on it. how these 'little emperors' who have started to have children of their own can't really raise the kid themselves.