Sleep, blessed sleep. I got some last night. In fact, I got quite a lot.

So, today's mood is much improved. I didn't even really mind coming in and spending the first 1-1/2 doing some of the Tweenybopper's work that she doesn't seem to have gotten around to in the last week.

Conference call today on the status of Hell's Own Software installations, so I have to frantically make a bunch of calls to try, one more time, to catch one of these health care providers between patients. (I'm working on them now.)

I see Lynnzo finally posted the story she owes to inapickle.

I wish I was writing. I haven't had a chance to read her story yet, but I'm sure it's just lovely. Can't read it at work, I'll have to read it tonight. Sigh. I shouldn't even be blogging. At this moment, Buehler is trying desperately to find enough work to keep making payroll.

He sort of half-offered to keep me on a bit longer if he can squeeze money out of Blister-Pak during today's conversation. Which, since neither of us like Blister-Pak, I consider to be noble of Buehler.

Now I feel seriously guilty for not having looked for a job more consistently over the last six weeks. Even if I was pinning all my hopes on Coco.

Buehler asked if I'd seriously considered taking Collette up on her offer to put me in touch with a recruiter looking for people. I've thought about it...but I really don't care for working in the healthcare field, my impression of the kind of job the recruiter is filling is that it doesn't pay well and they drive you nuts, and I'd actually prefer to work with Coco because the job she's talking to me about is right up my alley, being sort of half-tech and half-customer service. It's not my impression, from what Collette said, that the jobs the recruiter has would actually make use of any of my strengths.

I shouldn't be blogging. Buehler is sweating it out, trying to find business and I'm sitting here, wasting time and money on personal chitchat.

And yet...here I sit, don't I? Blogging.

It must be sad to be the actual owner of a company. If things get bad, you can't hide from them, you have to stay in there, fighting every minute.

Me, when work gets stressful, I think about my personal life. When my personal life gets complicated, I pour my energy into working.

We all have our coping strategies. Mine revolve around doing a lot of hiding from reality.

In other news, I made it through my blogroll last night, for the first time in over a week. I even followed links here and there to journals of people I don't know, a thing I almost never have the time to do. (I had free time because last week's Drawing Class Homework was only one drawing, instead of the usual 5-7.)

I see that it's become very acceptable to post "snippets" of 200 or 400 words, instead of writing an actual story. And I see from the comment strings that those who write for feedback are making out like bandits with these bits of nothingness.

So I, too, am going to begin whoring myself out. Begging for love in return for 200 words of dialogue or a half-considered bit of action that runs to less than a page of text.

I have many and many and many dribs and drabs of crap on my hard drive at home. I could beg for love fifty times just by yanking out the occasional bits of coherent dialogue and posting them as "snippets."

Those of you who are my friends...remember that I know where you live so be prepared to pour forth love and admiration or face the consequences. I'm about to be unemployed and I'm stressing.

[pause....]

Okay. Sorry about that. Little psychotic moment there.

I really do need to call my doctor and get my dosage increased, don't I?

On the other hand, what are friends for if not for offering you support at the moments when you deserve it least, but need it most?

Another topic of stress: Smoking. It's gotten very expensive to buy cigarettes in Colorado. I'm looking ahead at my Impending Unemployment and I'm acutely aware that the money I've accumulated will last me a lot longer if I'm not spending $3.50/day on portable carcinogens.

Of course, when I'm suffering occasional interludes of dementia, not to mention irrational hostility, from the I.C., fighting to lose weight, and unemployed and stressing madly over my ever-dwindling bank balance...is this really the time to add the psychosis of quitting smoking to the mix?

What do you think? Should I just go ahead and do all my psychotic things at once, or spread them out? (If you were the person sharing a domicile with me, would you consider this a good time to leave town for a week?)

I have to decide. I have one cigarette left. Should I go buy more, or just suck it up and deal with the slide into insanity?

__________________________

P.S. Hey! Bernie just came in to chat! He didn't know I was leaving and now he thinks he'd like to hire me. If some jobs he has pending come through.

He also said really good things about my work ethic and, with the memory of the countless hours I've spent politiblogging over the last three years in my head, I'm feeling guilty and ashamed.