Stay-at-home-rad!

Remember the name of my blog. It is important to know. Because I have a feeling that most readers will think that I'm either looking for sympathy or I will be told how easy I have it compared to (fill in personal story here). Back to sentence number one, please. This is simply a representation, a way to get life off my chest if you will.

What the heck am I talking about? My temporary life. Remember, faithful readers, that I am jobless. And childcare-less. This truly is as simple as one plus one, and it equals two of us at home. (My friend George has recently been paying me to do some work on his house, but what I'm talking about here is all the other days.)

Yes, stay-at-home-dad. Mr. Mom. Fortunately, those are the only nicknames I know for it. And also unfortunately, because I hear them a lot! For the record, I would rather work. I love Oliver - a ton. He doesn't drive me crazy when we're alone, teaching him things is fulfilling, playing with him is actually fun for me too, and I feel great about our time together. But I'm learning something that I have in common with babies:

In spite of every fiber of my being crying out otherwise, I NEED STRUCTURE!

You want to know how I know? Here's my current structure:

I wake up when Oliver wakes up. At first it wasn't this way, because I couldn't sleep through Nancy getting up in the morning. No more. And Oliver can sleep until 9. Sounds good you say? Nope!

Now I'm up. I read the paper while I feed/ignore Oliver and myself. This seems to wind down around 10. At which point I justify to myself that if I put him in front of a movie to job-hunt then it's OK. The movie starts, I put away breakfast dishes, which often means I unload the dishwasher, and while I'm at it I may as well put the dryer on for the last 15 minutes (don't ask, long story and sore subject) because by the time I'm done with the dishes the dryer will be done and I might as well move the clothes over from the washer and now that the washer is empty I can run another load and Holy Crap! I forgot about putting the chickens out and gathering the eggs and (expletive) those hungry (expletives) are out of food again!? so I get that taken care of and now the second load of laundry is wrapping up in the dryer and I fold and put those away (Nancy will be soooooo happy!) and the movie is over.

I have to admit that sometimes at this point movie number two will happen. Go ahead, call child services. I deserve it. But hey! Sometimes it is Sesame Street, and I learned a lot from Sesame Street. I still remember -tion (shon shon shon shon!), for example.

Anyway, when this happens I will then finally get on the computer. Check the email. Nothing. Check Facebook (because of all the job offers that happen there!). Boring. And now I'm also irritated because of all the freaking Yankee fans I'm friends with. Hey Yankee fans: DON'T POST ANOTHER RUN SCORING AS YOUR STATUS, ANY MORON WHO CARES ALREADY KNOWS! AND IT'S ANNOYING!

On a side note, I'm very happy for you that it took billions of dollars in payroll to get to the World Series again. Money well spent. The Iraq War called, it wants its waste of money back.

Anyway, now I go to Oregon Employment. Very exciting website designed by a 70-year-old in a web-design class. I click through the forty pages I need to go through until I can job search. Nothing. Something interesting is happening to me. I am qualified for most jobs that pay up to $10 per hour. I am definitely not qualified for any job over $17. And all those in between, I seem to be missing one key thing. Neato. And so I went to school to...do what I did before I moved to Eugene? Understandably, this is depressing. Cum Laude is Latin for "doesn't mean jack shii unless you go to grad school or are related to someone important." I hate Latin.

So back to my day. It is now time for Oliver to sleep. I lovingly put him to bed, complete with reading stories, rocking, and snuggling. Take that child services! You cannot take my son! He loves the way I rock him and read! I do many excellent voices, and I am a source of endless entertainment for him!

Anyway, back to the computer I am growing to hate. Notice no writing lately? No? Well, I did. Not even much on the story, which is funny because one of my first thoughts when I was in that weird lay-off meeting was, "Well, at least now I can really work on the story." Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, no.

I now bog down on applying for one job that I don't think I really want but may pay me an OK wage or offer benefits or at least I need to dress kind of nice for. Sometimes I get through the application. Sometimes a crazy thing will happen like...complete this weird interactive quiz thing that will only take an hour. Since Oliver usually sleeps for two, I am game. Then about 45 minutes in, I will finish typing a two paragraph pile of crap about how I would upsell garbage, hit backspace which inexplicably takes me to the previous page, and spend the next two minutes resisting the urge to discus my laptop into the park across the street. I don't finish. I chalk it up to "it wasn't meant to be."

Then Nancy comes home. She hates seeing me like this, and wonders why I need to be crappy every day after work. I try to explain but I can't. Yes, Oliver watched a movie today. No we didn't go outside. Now I feel like a bad parent AND a useless part of civilization. I don't want to argue with her so I just stop talking. Inside the head is danger, and now I am starting to feel really down. Then I eat dinner. Then we watch a movie. Then I reflect on what I accomplished today. Then I am down.

I'll find a job tomorrow.