Feels like a long month, part 2

I think I'm learning something: Never, ever, tell you readers out there (if any) that I've stopped drinking; because the act of telling you so guarantees that I will fall off the wagon that very evening!

I've been in a foul mood all day. Part of it is the other stressors that I talked about in my post earlier today: the job hunting (combined with ambivalence for even getting a job in the first place), and Wife's contemptible stunt of wheedling a place to live out of Son 1 because she's afraid that the alimony I pay her might be interrupted (if I am jobless long enough).

But part of it is my phone call this morning with Marie. While I was cursing at the walls and failing to accomplish anything useful all day, I also found myself making up lists of things to yell about:

Item: The only two people whose spending I have ever tried to control before this were Wife (who spent like a drunken sailor) and D (who berated me for failing to follow through on an alleged promise that I still think I never made, to pay for one of her plane tickets). But now it's come up with Marie. In an email back in March she wrote:

I am realizing I owe you an apology.

I have been affected all along by knowing that I don't have the income to support indefinitely a jet-setting relationship.  And I've felt you were uncaring when that's what you seemed to want, when you seemed blithely to assume that we could just happily jog along the way we started.  

When I had deliberately hidden from you that I couldn't really afford this.  

I don't know when the right time to have had this conversation would have been, but I'm pretty sure five years in isn't it.

I hid pertinent information from you, and then, worse, I have been blaming you for acting in ignorance of that information.

As a rhetorical device, it's clever that she phrased it as an "apology." It sounds like she's claiming to be in the wrong. But surely this belongs on a list of historically magnificent passive-aggressive apologies. If you can read this and walk away thinking that she's really admitting to being in the wrong, you have a blessedly thicker skin than I do.

We emailed about it in March. No resolution. We talked on the phone. No resolution. I agreed to visit her in May, which I did. But that was a distraction, not a resolution. Then a few days ago she told me she had gotten a bonus at work, and how about if she spent it on a plane ticket to come see me?

And I told her No. Not on your nickel. If you are going to come see me, somebody else (like me, for example) has to pay for it.

So controlling.

And that's what we talked about this morning. She was offended at the idea that I should pay for her flight. I told her that now I knew it was a problem, there was no way I was going to allow her to keep paying for her own flights because I know for a fact it will come back to bite me. That some time five or ten years from now she'll be saying, "But Hosea, you knew that paying for these visits was hard for me. And yet you've allowed us to go blithely on as if we didn't have to change a thing. As if my finances didn't matter. As if  I  didn't matter." (Incidentally, did you pick up on the word "allowed" in that speech? After Wife and D, I have come to expect that any unsatisfactory arrangement will be retroactively ascribed to me as if I had the authority to change it. Better, therefore, to step up and change it now … by being so controlling. Marie has up till now not remarked on the choice of word.) We agreed that she will come to visit me some time soon, and I'll pay for the ticket -- even if only just this once. In other words, another distraction. No resolution.

Wow. That was a lot of background, wasn't it? The point of all the explanation was simply this: when I start micromanaging somebody else's spending, it's a sign that I do not feel safe in the relationship. It is therefore a danger sign for the relationship itself.

Item: Part of why I don't feel safe in the relationship is that Marie broods silently. She overthinks things heavily, and then follows the counsel of her inmost heart without ever communicating to the outside world. So, for example, she told me today that it hurt her feelings deeply that once I knew I was going to be laid off, I didn't consider moving to be near her. But I did consider it, I objected. I thought we talked about that. Apparently not, or at any rate not in her world. (I can't swear in a court of law that I discussed it with her; but gosh, I kind of thought I had.) The point, though, is that those discussions were back in February or March. This is the last day of June, and it's the first I heard of it. 

In the same way, I confirmed with my mother back then that if I never found another job I could move in with her. Marie says she offered that I could move in with her too, and I ignored the offer. OK, I'm not sure I remember her offering, but maybe. But again, that was February or March. This is June 30. What else is she hiding in her breast that I don't know about yet?

Hard to feel secure when I don't know what's coming.

Item: So -- about those offers to move in with her. Some time after we got involved, Marie explained that she had always wanted to be Mrs. Tanatu and she figured now was her big chance. When I explained that this was impossible because I am still legally married -- and in fact that there's no way I will ever marry again, even if Wife drops dead or is abducted by space aliens -- it did not go over well. But that discussion was more than four years ago. Surely she has had time to get over it?

Maybe not.

The thing is that I don't think I'll ever want to live with Marie, unless I've gotten old and feeble and need someone to look after me. It just feels like too much work, like the relationship comes with too much baggage for that. I love the literary side of the relationship, when we can trade poems back and forth. And the sex is fine too. But I'd have to be paying attention all the time. And the extent to which she needs me is just wearing.

Item: Speaking of that last point …. Over and over, Marie is distressed about things that come down to "It feels like I love you more than you love me." And I'm sure that's absolutely true. I haven't said so, because it's a hell of a thing to tell someone. But Marie seems to be still head-over-heels in love with me, suffering from that kind of self-forgetting romantic love that needs the other person 24-7, that is so captivating and delightful -- the kind of love everyone should enjoy at least once. And I don't think I have that in me any more. After Wife and D, I don't think I can trust anyone that far ever again. I'm happy with the time that I spend with Marie, but I don't think I'll ever again put my eggs in someone else's basket. That's why I'll never marry again.

And what this really means is that Marie isn't getting her needs met either. The relationship isn't right or fair for her either.

Have I just talked myself into breaking up with her?

I don't know. I'd better sleep on it. Maybe I'll get one more drink as a nightcap.

Bloody hell.

   

Feels like a long month

It feels like it has been a very long month.

I've had a couple of screening interviews: one for a job six hours from here that I really don't want, and one for a job that they said could be done remotely (though the office is about three hours from here). The second one also produced a real interview, by Zoom, late Monday. I think it went OK. At any rate there were no embarrassing silences. I can't tell whether they liked me, and in any event they were still in the middle of interviewing other candidates. We'll see.

On paper the job is perfect for me. I was excited while I was doing the interview. Now I just want to crawl into a hole somewhere. I find myself hoping I'll be rejected on the first pass.

I started a blog under my real name, about my real-life work. No links from here, though. Sorry.

Debbie visited for a night. Her plan was to visit a number of her friends in this town, and to spend the nights here. No, nothing happened in that sense -- I mean, no sex. Also she got sick for most of the night with some kind of gastrointestinal bug. I slept through it but she told me the next morning.

Debbie also has a number of hikes she wants to take me on. I've been trying to exercise more, so that these might even be possible. But I'm tired and I'd rather nap.

Last Saturday I had a routine physical checkup. My blood pressure was a little high, so they asked me to take it at home when I'm relaxed and send them the results. I'm doing that. But I've also stopped drinking in the last few days, to help pull down my blood pressure. I'm sure it's good for me, but I miss it.

Next month Wife is moving in with Son 1. He seems to have his eyes open about the whole thing. I think it is the most despicable thing she has done in a long time. Why hasn't she found some other form of income? Why does she insist on being so god-damned dependent? 

I've started to fight with Marie about how she pays for her travel to see me. I told her the same thing I once told D, that I have to pay for all her trips after this. She balked. We talked. No resolution. She's also been hurt ever since I decided not to go to Sticksville that in my worst-case planning I considered moving in with my mother but not moving in with her. She said she offered. I didn't remember that she'd offered, and I can't imagine a world in which I move in with her.

Maybe I'm depressed. Ya think?

      

If I'd known more about the Middle Ages?

I first started this blog -- way back when -- because I needed some place that I could talk out loud about Wife's serial infidelities and how confused they left me.

Now I read in Eleanor Janega's delightful blog "Going Medieval" that this was absolutely expected and taken for granted in the Middle Ages. Men didn't like it, but they looked on it as inevitable, kind of like bad weather.

See especially this post here: On cuckolding – a thing – Going Medieval (going-medieval.com) 

And gosh, come to think of it … Wife's academic specialty was as a medievalist. If only I'd known, right?

    

Directionless

I wish that I knew where to go from here,

Which way to turn to find another post.

I'm searching, but I just don't find it clear.

My resume's redone, or pretty near;

Though writing it, I find it hard to boast. 

But boasting's key to moving on from here.

On paper, yes, I've had a long career.

I should be more experienced than most.

But does it help? Well, that part's not so clear.

If I'm too old, folks worry I'll cost dear,

Or won't adapt. Of course I quick riposte,

But it means fewer ways to go from here.

What industry is hiring big this year?

With what new topics should I be engrossed?

The trend of business fashion's rarely clear.

I sit and stare, and -- idling -- start to fear

My working days have fled and I'm a ghost.

I wish that I knew where to go from here.

But even my desires are all unclear.

    

Detangling threads

What do I want in a job? Do I even want a job? And what are all the pieces that go into an answer?

I want to have some occupation -- I mean, some kind of obligation that makes me get up and do something. Without some obligation, I won't. I mean, I've got plenty of interesting books I haven't read yet; in a sense it would be fun just to sit home and read them all. But without some kind of external obligation, I'll just browse Twitter and drink. Or something else equally useless. So I need to have some kind of work to structure my day.

Also having an income would be nice.

My mom is getting old and I'd like to live within driving distance of her. I wouldn't even (necessarily) mind living in her home, if it could help her out. (I could never have said this while my father was still alive, because I couldn't have lived with him.) 

I want to travel. The idea of living abroad is still enticing, though less so as I get older. Yes, this contradicts what I just said about staying near my mom.

While we're listing geographical contradictions, I'd also like to live closer to Marie. Maybe not actually with her in the same apartment, or at least not yet. But it would be nice to be a lot closer than the thousand-plus miles that separate us today.

I'd like work that involves figuring things out.

I'd like work that trades on my half-baked skill in working with people, finding ways through bureaucracy, talking and talking until I can get what I want.

I'd also like work that is occasionally dull and plodding, when I just have to crank through the routine work of compiling graphs or reports. Some days I'm really not firing on all cylinders. I'm hungover, or I stayed up too late reading, or I'm just in "Mood 2" for whatever reason. And on those days it helps if I can just sit at my desk and talk to nobody and spend all day cranking out some insanely complex report by hand. 

Most of the jobs I've held in the last twenty or thirty years (or more) have included at least some tasks that meet this last description. Occasionally people ask me why I don't automate them, and I (truthfully) say I don't know how. Also they are so boring that nobody else ever automates them for me. Technically this is called a "win-win."

I'd like it if someone would compel me to write up a few ideas I've had that I've had over the years and never heard from anyone else: some of them related to the professional work I've done in the last twenty years, some of them related to speculations about the natural human Good (see, e.g., this post and a few that followed in the next couple of months), and some about all kinds of different topics. I don't expect to get paid for any of this last category of work, but I wish somebody would make me do it anyway.

Is there more? Probably. Is any of it consistent with what I've already written? Probably not.

Maybe later.

    

Consulting??

When I was laid off, my company paid for three months of a job-search consulting service, to help each of us land on our feet. They've helped me rewrite my resume (for the first time in 16 years), and they host a lot of the training videos and live webinars I alluded to briefly here. And they assign to each of us a personal coach to help us through the process of finding work.

As I think I've mentioned, I've been slacking at this whole effort pretty badly. At this point I've got a little over a month before they shut off the service, more or less. And today I had a 30-minute check-in phone call with my coach.

My first question was, "Do I still get access to any benefits from this service after my time runs out?" (Answer: no more webinars, and no more live coaching sessions with her; but I can still access the research databases, and I can still shoot her an email with a quick question if I have to.)

My second question was, "Back when we started I said I was writing a book last year about the stuff I do." [I allude to this briefly in a sideways fashion here and here.] "You said you were going to see if anyone in your firm has some advice on publishing your own book. What did you find out?" (Answer: nobody seems to have any expertise in that subject, because the focus here is all on job-hunting. Sorry.)

Then she asked, "So what have you actually been doing, anyway?" And I told her that I had just gotten off another webinar all about how to start a consulting business.

"Oh, really," she asked. "How was that?"

Terrifying. I never wanted to start my own consulting business, and this webinar just convinced me of that opinion. The only reason I registered for it at all in the first place is that other people have told me, "Gosh, Hosea, with all the stuff you know about the work you do, maybe you should hang out a shingle as a consultant."

"What part is terrifying?"

Having to sell myself every day. Having to be always on the search for the next client. Having to be able to stand up and say, "Here's a list of all my competitors in this space, but I'm better than all of them because …." Then I paused long enough to admit that of course the whole job-hunting process is actually the exact same thing! It's all about pitching why you are the best one to handle this or that challenge. And I conceded that it won't do me any good to be terrified of that, because I have to find a job. So it's a problem.

But she asked a different question: "When you say it's terrifying, that might mean it's really not for you. Or it might just be the jitters anybody gets before doing something exciting. Which is it for you, this time?"

Huh. Interesting question.

And the short answer is, I don't know. I have always told myself that I didn't want to be a freelance consultant, that I didn't want to have to sell myself, that I just wanted to do the work without all that other bullshit. But to some extent the very fact that I have made this such a well-defined story should make me at least a little suspicious of it. To some extent, I'm well aware that this story is a reaction against my father's determination to be his own boss no matter how bad he was at it. To some extent, I understand that I watched how poorly his business career went, and decided, "If being your own boss means pissing away your time and talent like this, then I always want to have somebody else as my boss so I can avoid this."

But of course I'm not my dad. My strengths (and weaknesses) are different from his. I'm not nearly so extroverted, I have a lot more social anxiety, but I'm also better organized and more realistic. So -- for better and for worse -- his experience doesn't have to be mine.

And I thought about a guy named Buddy that I used to work with (until the recent layoffs). Buddy is currently working as a consultant for some small company an hour or two away from here. Years ago he was fairly critical of the kind of work I do, thinking it got in the way of more productive activity. (And, if you do it wrong, he's absolutely right.) But a couple of months ago I ran into him at a social event and he started describing the work he is doing. He said, "Hosea, you can't believe it. These people have nothing. I've tried to tell them the need to have some kind of system to handle [the things I do]. So far they aren't listening, but they really need it!"

The last time I talked to Buddy, the status was the same: he was still pushing that they need some system for the things I do, and they still couldn't hear him. But I wondered aloud to my consultant, What if I got a job through Buddy? What if he sold them on me, so all I had to do was the work and not the sale? What then?

And my immediate answer was, That would be great! The work itself sounds pretty interesting, especially because I'd have to tailor it all to fit a hostile audience. 😀 As long as the actual sale is handled by someone else, I could be all in. And all of a sudden I realized that the question of whether or not to try consulting is more complicated than I had realized.

My coach left me with the task to sit with this for a while, to think about it, and maybe to find people who are already in the consulting business to ask how they like it. And we'll talk again next week. Hmm.    

      

Yet another six-word memoir

I realized a couple days ago that if I wanted a six-word memoir to describe where I find myself right now, unemployed and trying to figure out which way to turn, it would come out as: "So what do I do now?"

As you can see I've pasted that up on my blog header. Once I know my direction, I can take it down again.

My other six-word memoir posts are here and here.