Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2002-01-15 - 6:40 p.m.

Under the Weather

That's where I've been, I guess. Under a gray overcast with a cold edge to it; even the sun has been awfully thin and unreliable. Rites of passage, adjustment to change, all the stuff I'm not so good at. I took another part-time job, and it's really racking me.

I need the job. I need more money coming in, first of all; it would take, at this point, less energy to earn more money than it's taking to be poor. Oh, don't worry, I'll still be poor - it would take more than a half-time job to move me out of the below-the-poverty-line demographic. And that's good, because I couldn't take any more change right now. All that caviar probably wouldn't agree with me, and I don't look that great in a swimsuit anyway. But I want to move up one poverty level, hoisting us from the "buys clothing AND food at Wal-Mart" into the "thinks dinner at Lyon's is a big night out" class. It may not seem like a big distinction, but it is, and I'm determined to get there.

But working two jobs and keeping up with all my other assorted goofy commitments requires a bushel of something I'm not blessed with: Organization. The Big O I just can't seem to achieve. I can get close, I can think, "Oh, it's going to happen THIS time," but then - I get distracted by something, like what IS all that stuff in the top of my closet, and I lose it again. To work two jobs, one must keep careful track of critical career aids such as one's car keys and one's eyeglasses. One must remember professional wisdom such as if one puts the car in the garage with a nearly empty gas tank, it will not refill magically in the night. One must prepare work-suitable clothing, which unfortunately no longer includes my purple bathrobe, and one must in general keep one's wits nearby - if one remembers where one set them down last.

(The winter air is dry here. I parked at work, and before going in, I grabbed a chapstick and smeared liberally. It was a heavily tinted chapstick. It's like that. "Hey, Bozo's right on time this morning!" Thank God for the rearview mirror.)

The other part of the change is that I'm actually MORE of a hermit than I was before I took the second job. There ARE people there (unlike my afternoon job), but there's no time for much contact. And the working hours mean I don't ever get to chat with my best friend, who has her own life changes at the moment, nor see my boyfriend much, nor enjoy late-night chats with other writer-owl types. It's early to bed, early to rise, stick a needle in my eyes. Or something along those lines.

So I am now a person who gets up and SHOWERS and GETS DRESSED in the morning, who puts her coffee in a "go-cup". Who carries a briefcase with miscellaneous papers and books, breath mints, and a slightly squashed peanut butter and raspberry jam sandwich (if I remembered to pack myself one.) Who is concerned about heavy issues such as how a black sweater can pick up so damned much lint, and whether or not I should get up fifteen minutes earlier in the morning.

And I hit the weekend, having had no personal time, no time to write anything, and a long stack of chores that needed to be done in the next two "free" days. Just like the rest of the world, I guess.

The rest of the world is crazy, if you ask me.

I prefer a life without go-cups, briefcases, bedtimes, or matching socks. But I also prefer paying the bills on the second or third notice instead of writing an elastic check to some guy with a wrench in his hand. And I want to go to Lyon's some day when it's not even Kids Eat Free night. Now THAT would be the high life.

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