WWJWD?

Or “Back In The Saddle Again”

It’s been a whirlwind couple months, and since only sissies keep diaries I’m going to jot it all down here so I can forget it in peace.

As you know (or maybe I didn’t mention it here, I have a usually hard & fast rule about mixing blogging and complaints about my work-life), I lost a regular part-time job a couple months ago and we’ve been eking by ever since. This was the gig that evaporated while I took a week off to recover from shoulder surgery. In journalism, as in comedy, timing is everything.

I actually officially lost it January 20. I spent inauguration day preparing for the party we were having that night and having panic attacks about losing my job. To say it was a buzzkill would be to sugar-coat the reality of the day. Pictures of me from that night’s party show a doughty middle-aged man with a worried look on his face in a crowd of happy-go-lucky revelers. I still get shortness of breath just thinking about it.

Well, it turns out my replacement was more incompetent than I am unlikable (you can take a minute to let that sink in) and I just got the job back. The thing is, I didn’t really want it back. We were mostly getting by without the extra income (although poor-folks things had started happening already, like when our toaster broke a month ago and we haven’t been able to afford to replace it yet), but now that the gig is back, I wonder how long it’ll be before my obvious distaste for it gets me fired again. I promised the boss and The Missus to do my best not to be an asshole this time – this was Friday morning – and Saturday morning I ended up on the phone with one of the salespeople, chewing them a new one for calling me on the weekend. I mean, Christ, I’m not even back on the company teat till Monday and I’m already past my stress breaking-point.

For instance, I’m afraid now to look at my email. I think about checking my email and I can feel my blood-pressure rise.

But I keep telling myself, I’m not going to work in the mines every day. On my worst day my biggest complaint is that I accomplish two solid hours’ worth of work spread-out over an extra-long workday. Really, that’s it. And I can get to have my time wasted in the comfort of my own home. And I have my magic stress-be-gone pills and an extremely supportive wife.

And probably every song Johnny Cash and Hank Williams ever recorded.

I should be thanking my lucky stars. Some people out there have real problems. The same day I got my job back, my friend Cliz got bounced from hers after nine years. And she barely mentioned it in passing on her blog.

When the hell did I become such a primmadonna? Somebody out there please give me a swift kick in the ass, will you? (Sean, I’m looking at you…)

I need to ask myself, What Would John Wayne Do? and then do that.

Which I guess is why I’m back in the saddle again. I am going to so suck it up and be a man about what is actually my extremely good fortune that I won’t even mention the subject again till I get fired the next time for having a shitty attitude (or my publications join the great scrap-heap of print journalism in the sky, whichever happens first).

Stay tuned…