It's Official: I Am Nobody!

The downturn in the economy has gotten everyone gloomy about their jobs: will it end tomorrow? Will they have to take pay cuts? Once upon a time I worked at a happy little start-up company that was gobbled up by a giant, evil corporation, and then they began laying people off bit by bit. I lasted two years. Thursday of my final week we had a meeting in which they explained that production of the equipment would move to China within the next year, "but," they assurred us, "nobody will lose their job." The next day was the first of the month, so when they called me into the HR department, I naively thought they were finally going to give me the raise they had been promising me for, oh, five months. (I had taken on extra job responsibilities with no increase in pay.) Somehow it escaped my attention that it was also a Friday afternoon, which is when they always lay people off.

At first I wasn't sure what to say when they told me my position was being eliminated. Once the shock wore off, it occurred to me that I had officially been proclaimed "nobody" - after all, hadn't they said just the day before that "nobody" would lose her job? And then hadn't I just lost mine? The implication was inescapable. And with that, I was free to enjoy life on a whole new level. Let me just state for the record that being laid off was amazing; I had free health care for a YEAR, I was paid to sit at home and write a novel (and look for jobs now and then), and this was the start of spring so I was free to enjoy the beautiful weather. Just as things got hotter, I found another job - with air conditioning, which I didn't have at home at the time - and the day before I started the new job, I finished the stupid novel. (And I do mean STUPID. Hardingfele is the only other human who has ever read it, and she can attest to its lack of literary quality.)

Of course, now that I have a condo and all those dependents (two rabbits, a hedgehog, and a jungle full of plants) to support, I couldn't be as carefree about being laid off. Still, sometimes I remember those three months of writing with such nostalgia, when I chose my own hours and was free to take a walk outside if I so chose. Coincidentally, I am working on yet another terrible novel (actually, three, but one is nearly done) so I am all ready for this economic downturn!

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Monday Dreamin'

The title of this post is not a reference to either Mamas and Papas song; rather, it is about my morning. This morning I woke up, turned off the alarm, turned on the lamp, and somehow fell back asleep. I dreamed I was reading my morning prayers from Magnificat, brushing my teeth, and getting dressed. Then I woke up, realized I'd been dreaming, got up, read my morning prayers from Magnificat, brushed my teeth, and got dressed. Then I REALLY woke up and realized 15 minutes had elapsed while I dreamed about getting ready instead of actually doing it.

In psychology, there is something called a "fugue state" in which a person is disassociated from the real world and has no memory of who they are. What's so fugal about that? I think those stupid dreams we have all had about getting up and doing our morning routine, waking up, doing our morning routine, waking up and doing our morning routine until we finally actually DO wake up are more like a fugue, in the sense of a piece by JS Bach or whoever with a theme that keeps coming back. My conscious mind would rather listen to the Fugue in G Minor by Bach, but my unconscious mind loves those dreams, I suppose because then it can convince me that I am getting ready for work when I am really just continuing to sleep.

This weekend T and I were planning to go snowshoing, but we ended up just walking out on the frozen lake. It was so beautiful! We did meet up with Anna Banana 2 and the snowshoers (Rich, A-Fooze, the B Boys, Cecil Markovitch and a guy from Trinidad) for dinner. A-Fooze thought the guy from Trinidad was the same person as a guy from Ghana I was madly in love with a few years back, and I said, "No, that was..." and then I couldn't think of his name for a whole minute or two. Out of sight, out of mind!

Friday I was at a baby shower, and a group of nurses gave the expectant mother a whole set of safety supplies, including door locks, outlet plugs, a choking hazard measure, and... a GUN LOCK exactly like the one T and I inadvertently tried to smuggle into Canada! Half the people didn't realize what it was, so T felt vindicated when I told her the story. Then she told me a really funny story about how, when she was once given notice of layoff, she spent a weekend shooting guns with her relatives up in the North Woods. One gun had quite a recoil and gave her a black eye, so she had to explain to all her coworkers what had happened. Without thinking about it, she repeated the story to a manager who asked about her shiner, and then he asked nervously, "Why were you shooting guns?" Her coworkers said she should have really played that one up! But she ended up getting another position at the same company, so just as well that they don't all think she's crazy. (After all, it's the quiet ones who totally snap!)

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