Zippy-leg Pants!

I'm wearing my zippy-leg pants today. For those of you not in the know, which includes, I'd assume, pretty much everyone, they're my new cargo pants I bought during a fabbo sale at, of all places, J C Penney. Made of pre-washed, silky-soft cotton, they feature "cargo" pockets on each leg. Pockets with zippers.

There's no telling why this makes me so happy, but it does. I have an endless capacity to be amused by little things. I walk around zipping and unzipping my pockets.

Because they are, in fact, quite silky-soft, I also catch myself walking along rubbing my legs, which is probably going to get me talked about if I don't knock it off.

And they're size 10, which is also pleasing.

The diet may have pissed me off while I was on it, but there's no denying that going down two or three sizes in clothing in three months is good for the old ego.

One day soon, although maybe not until after the holidays, I'm going back on the diet to lose that last ten pounds. I'll try to remember to warn you that I'll be in permanent Bad Mood Bear mode before that time.

For those of you not in the know about my personal life, well, things are a bit weird there. The stress of the last few months has come to a head and Alvin has confessed that the money to cover payroll is just not flowing in each month.

Consequently, he and Buehler have hatched a plan whereby I'll move over to work for the parent company, the one Buehler heads, for 6-8 months, while Alvin gets this company off the ground.

I don't know. It's not that I'm not flattered that Buehler wants to hire me, or that Alvin wants to keep me around for the day when he can actually afford my salary, it's just that I have a lifetime record of getting and keeping jobs and for the past three or four years, I haven't managed to stay in one position for more than about a year.

It's not my fault, I don't think. I mean, I don't get fired or anything. The companies just don't last. After a lifetime of working for small and start-up companies, I'm starting to eye the stability of big corporations with a wistful eye. Except that, of course, big companies aren't what they were when I was young.

(Alvin knows that I have nothing, actually, to work on at this moment except sales calls and he keeps giving me squirrelly looks as I'm sitting here typing madly. What kind of insanity does it take to be on the verge of unemployment and to sit here noticeably goofing off anyhow?)

2-1/2 weeks before Christmas is no time to be unemployed, okay? I'm just not cut out for working a seasonal job in retail. I have a zero-tolerance policy for idiots in large numbers.

For instance, I believe that women who try on clothes and then throw them in the floor in the dressing room should be sentenced to 30 days of cleaning public toilets. I think that people who stand in check-out lines and then pick long, drawn-out fights with cashiers over the price of goods should be put on street-cleaning patrol for sixty days. People who block store aisles with their shopping carts and just assume that the world is willing to wait with breathless anticipation while they choose between the 4-pack and the 6-pack of toilet paper rolls should be made to drive around the city collecting abandoned shopping carts and returning them to their stores. (Ditto for people who unload their shopping carts at their cars and then shove them out of the way instead of "corralling" them or returning them to the store.) Women who use their baby strollers as battering rams to shove past other shoppers in malls should have said strollers confiscated and be made to actually carry their children for a month to teach them not to abuse modern conveniences.

Over the weekend, I . . . I can't remember. I did laundry, moved some boxes of 'papers' into storage, dragged three boxes of books out and found space for them on various shelves, cleaned parts of the bathroom, went to the grocery store, and generally did nothing of major interest to the world at large.

It was peaceful, but not very blogable. I'm not done with my Christmas shopping, no, but I'm suffering from a dearth of creativity this year. I can't think what to buy or where to look. I don't buy for many people and with my job situation so uneven, I'll probably cut the list down substantially this year. Since I actually do enjoy shopping for gifts, that's a little depressing, but the small part of me that's Mature and Responsible tells me that I should get a little money saved up. Just in case.

The truth is that while the world around me seems to be determined to indulge in a cornucopia of holiday glee this year (as witnessed by the appearance of Christmas lights and decorations in October), I'm having a bit of trouble getting into the spirit. I want to be full of holiday joy, really I do.

I'm happy that my aunt's cancer is in remission but now we're all dealing with my uncle's recent diagnosis of cancer. They're trying some treatments but the prognosis isn't good.

I just returned (as we all know) from a Familial Visit and I'm worried about my mother. She's getting on and while part of me knows, absolutely knows that what I should be doing is packing up and moving to Missouri to keep an eye on her, the rest of me, the selfish, self-indulgent part, simply can't face the prospect. I have a nice, comfy, nearly responsibility-free lifestyle and I don't want to lose it.

The job situation has been making it Holiday Joy tough, of course.

Let's be honest, here. Even before this last problem, I wasn't thrilled about this job. Healthcare, even just an "associated" field, is just never where I wanted to work. I have zero interest and find most of the details of the kinds of things that can go wrong with the human body pretty icky. I'd prefer a more . . . well, a more cheerful field, okay?

No one is offering, though.

And, as much as anything else, I find myself discontented because I don't have enough work to do. I'm accustomed to working for a living. I'm accustomed to doing as much work as two or even three other people. While there's been some amusement value in spending 2-3 hours a day blogging over the past year, it's no real substitute for job satisfaction. I like to feel that I'm earning my salary.

Maybe the new position will take care of that.

I dunno. I'm just down recently. There's no real reason for it.

I mean, the Mature and Responsible part of me that worries about my mother is, in fact, a very small part of me. I've practically lost my work ethic, so sitting here blogging for half the does doesn't make me feel as guilty as it did for the first six months.

Maybe I've just internalized it all and I'm feeling guiltier than I consciously acknowledge.

Maybe it's SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder. People get depressed when the days get shorter and there's not as much sunlight. Considering that we had a warm and wonderfully sunny weekend, that doesn't seem likely. (I'm such a hypochondriac. I really need to get a job where I'm not required to research diseases.)

Maybe it's actually the job. I wasn't in a bad mood (I don't think) this weekend, in spite of my roommate's pointed remark about me being on the ragged edge of a tear.

Okay, maybe I was.

Really, I'm sorry I bored you with all of this. I was going to write something cheerful to cheer myself up, but it doesn't seem to have worked.