Category Archives: Life

Deal breaker…

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A few days ago, I was asked why I was so intransigent about not wanting kids and invited to come up with a post expounding on my view of what has been described more than once as a deal breaking issue. At an age when nearly all of my friends have settled in to the routine of child manufacturing and upkeep, it’s a fair question. It’s also a question I approached with some trepidation, because of the inherent risk of causing unintentional offense as I refine and clarify my own thinking on the issue.

While these may not be the best or most altruistic reasons, they are mine… at least my top five.

• People seem hard wired to think babies – their own, ones they pass on the street, any babies really – are adorable. That gene seems to have skipped me. My response is more along the lines of “Ohhhh look… a small scrunched up human.”

• I’ve heard my entire life “having a child will change everything”. That’s great and all, but I like my life. I like the things that are important to me now and I want them to continue to be important to me in the future.

• Having dogs has meant giving up a certain degree of freedom to travel and do things on short notice – but I can lock them in a cage for a few hours and go do what I need to do or drop them off at the kennel for a few days and fly off to whatever tropical place interests me. With a baby, that’s apparently considered “neglect.”

• It sounds selfish, and it undeniably is, but I’m my own highest priority. I’m not wild about the thought of completely subsuming my goals, wants, and priorities to a small human for the next 18-25 years.

• Kids are crazy expensive. I bitch about $200 vet bills and $50 a bag dog food. Want to guess how I’d react to a $500 stroller or thousands a year in private school tuition?

I’m not a militant kid-hater (unless they’re crying in a movie theatre or throwing food at a restaurant). I’m a three time Godfather. My friends’ kids are awesome. But when the end of the day rolls around, I’m not the one with the responsibility for clothing, feeding, and educating said friends’ kids and I’ll be going home to a house not strewn with toys, without crayon on the wall, grape juice stains on the carpet, or crumbs on the couch. Being Uncle Jeff is great like that. It’s having all of the perks without any of the drawbacks.

I just don’t see how this can be a point of compromise. It’s a binary sort of thing – unless there’s a lease-purchase arrangement that could be worked out – maybe two days a week and every third weekend. If there’s any uncertainly at all about the desire to procreate, it seems best to err on the side of caution. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days resenting the hell out a child or its mother for finding myself living a life I was never sure I really wanted. Maybe in my declining years, I’ll wonder “what if I had….” But those thoughts for a few years in my dotage seems like a far better option than spending the next 30 years wondering, “what if I hadn’t”.

For me at least, it’s about risk management. I’m mostly happy with the life I’ve got. As much as I love a good day at the casino, I’m not about to give up a sure thing now to roll the dice on the long shot that I’m wrong about all this. If that’s a deal breaker, I guess it is what it is.

It keeps me up at night…

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I’m not generally given to bouts of fear, but sometimes, lying in bed, late at night, I think some moments of trepidation are unavoidable – a product of a brain churning through a 100 different scenarios each more unpleasant than the last. Perhaps that’s the curse of the educated class; that we know the things we know and are thereby unable to live lives of oblivious happiness.

There are hundreds of possible “bad things” that one can reasonably fear. There are the perennial favorites: war, famine, plague, pestilence, dogs and cats living together. Then there are the more personal fears. Is tonight the night the “big one” is going to hit the New Madrid Fault? Is Uncle Sam going to open his doors on March 5th? And what could I have done to be better prepared? While those are quite real possibilities, that’s not the one that wakes me up at night.

The one that gets me every time is the fleeting notion that this 30-day hiring freeze could easily be extended through the end of the fiscal year – or beyond. Even more vexing is the thought that I’d then be sidelined here in Memphis indefinitely. It’s not an unreasonable thought. Should Congress pass a Continuing Resolution at or less than the funding level during FY10, I fear it’s altogether possible that the human resource managers at echelons above reality could decide that hiring and transfers are not currently in the best interest of the government due to the costs involved and in an effort to attrit the workforce into its desired size and composition. That would mean another six months marking time awash in a rising tide of disinterest and discontent.

To have gotten so close only to be turned away now would be a hammer fall. Even my self-confidence has its limits.

Stats…

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Even though the hiring freeze is still alive and well, I’m resolved to overlook such troubles for the time being and have continued my blitzkrieg approach to job hunting. As of this afternoon here are the stats:

Total Resumes Sent: 162
Total Rejected Outright: 87
Total Referred to Selecting Official – Rejected: 5
Total Referred to Selecting Official – Open: 7
Total Status Pending: 63

Even a blind dog finds a bone now and then, ya’know?

Mr. Freeze…

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It snowed in West Tennessee today, but that’s not exactly the freeze that is troubling me at the moment. It seems that news of my imminent departure for Pennsylvania was broken prematurely. Though not quite ready to retract the story, I’m moving it from the “cautiously optimistic” column to the “possible” category. It seems that in the interests of driving down operating expenses, Uncle has imposed a 30-day hiring freeze for civilian positions with the Department of the Army. Tacking that 30 days onto the 20 I had already waited to get the official offer and I can’t in good conscience rely on seeing a positive outcome. I suspect the human resources policy geniuses deep in the bowels of the Pentagon are using this 30-day hiring holiday to devise even more diabolical procedures that will make hiring and transfers even more complicated, cumbersome, and time consuming than they already are. None of this bodes well for a speedy exodus from the current unpleasantness. My expectations of enjoying springtime in Pennsylvania are fading rapidly.

This is why I’m generally happier when I’m in full pessimist mode – disappointments there don’t come as a surprise. They’re just the normal state of affairs and when things did go right, it’s an occasional pleasant surprise. I don’t know that I could ever be a real optimist. I couldn’t tolerate being so regularly disappointed when things go to hell in a handcart. At this point I’m driving on purely because I trust absolutely in my own abilities and the simple fact another six months of uncertainty is better than the absolute certainty of being stuck where I am. Just call me Mr. Freeze.

Terms…

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It’s possible that I’m starting to come to terms with living in a state of perpetual uncertainty. Maybe there’s a two week maximum on anxiety of this sort. After taking counsel in a dear friend last night, I’m reminded that getting things done the Army way can take much, much longer than should be reasonably expected. It’s not so much that I don’t care as it is that I’ve seemed to move beyond the point where fretting about it is worth the effort. It’s really an occasion where all there is to be done is lie back and think of England. The alternative is to pick up the phone and start ranting like a lunatic at the guy I’m hoping to work for at some point in the near future. That would probably be the operative definition of a situation other than good at this point. So, until further notice, I wait… and wait… and wait. At some point even the bureaucracy has to grind its way into an actual decision, right?

And holding…

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Tuesday will make two weeks that I’ve been sitting on the edge of my seat. No one knows that the gears of the bureaucracy grind slowly better than I do, but seriously all I’m waiting for is one simple phone call. I get that there is a laundry list of things that has to get done before making that call, but two weeks doesn’t seem like an unreasonable amount of time to get those widgets lined up. If I weren’t so stoked at the idea of bringing an end to my long mid-southern exile, I’d probably have more patience with the process. As it is, I’m feeling a bit like a 16 year old girl waiting to get asked to the prom. Honest. I sit at my desk waiting for the little blue light to flash. Or more often, obsess over why it’s not flashing.

I’m really, really ready to get this waiting part of the exercise over with. Every day, I wake up and grab on to the idea that today will be the day. I have to. Hope in getting that call is just about the only thing keeping me from climbing a nice belltower somewhere.

Chow…

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Sugar free Jello is food, I suppose, if you use the broadest possible definition. Having no actual nutritional value and minimal taste, it ranks somewhere between cardboard and unflavored rice cakes on the list of things I want to eat. But there it is in the fridge. A new week, a new flavor. This week is orange. Last week was cherry. It takes most of the edge off of a nagging sweet tooth, but that’s about the only positive thing I’ll say about it.

I miss food that’s filling. I miss pasta and rice. I miss potato-based products. And lord almighty, I miss Wonder bread. Baby carrots and house salads the size of your head just don’t pack the same satisfaction of a plate of spaghetti or giant sandwich. Everything I’ve read says “there’s no reason to feel deprived” on a low carb diet… But pretty much all I’m feeling is deprived.

Meh. I’m going to bed to dream about penne and garlic bread.

Virtues…

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It’s said that patience is a virtue. It is, however, not one that’s ever been visited upon me. I got the genes for impatience and a general tendency towards the impulsive. In fact not turning the living room into a giant cardboard box fort in three day orgy of packing is becoming the most difficult thing I’ve done in a long time. Such is my readiness to pull up stakes in Memphis and depart for climates north of the Mason Dixon Line.

All it takes is a simple phone call and all this pent up angst can come to an end. To be replaced, of course, by dozens of frantic moments trying to put everything in place on this end and that. At least then I’ll be doing something. As it is now, I’m sitting here looking at a room full of things that need to be packed up and endlessly stalking realtor.com. Neither of which feels particularly productive at the moment.

Have patience, they say. If anyone’s got the trick to that, I’m all ears.

Purgatory…

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No question about it, I’ve been slacking when it comes to posting. It’s been a bit of a week. I know that I have a formal job offer from a command in Pennsylvania that will remain nameless for now, but at the moment, I’m stuck in a state of suspended animation… somewhere between leaving the old job and arriving at the new one. Since I haven’t gotten the “official” offer yet, there’s really not much to do besides the pre-pre-planning kind of things; looking at the big picture what’s and hows of a cross-continental move. It’s too early yet to even start thinking about specifics like dates or the mechanics behind the move would work. That’s basically the long version of saying I’m effectively in a state of human resource-induced purgatory.

I’ve done this a few times now and know that when the clock starts running, things are going to start happening very quickly. Lots of decisions are going to be made in haste and things won’t slow down for 45-60 days. So yeah, there’s a pretty narrow lane of things I can do now to try getting ready. I’ve basically stopped buying groceries and started burning through whatever I have stocked in the freezer and pantry. Making good progress there. This morning I packed up the guest bedroom and bathroom. Basically everything in those two rooms is ready to be put on a truck. Maybe most important, I’ve started filling a Rubbermaid tub with the wires, cables, and accessories I’ll need to set up a TV and a wireless network whenever I get where I’m going. I figure as long as I have those, I can work out the rest on the other end.

The next step is to strip off, wrap, and pack all the nicknacks in the living room and office. Then there’s the great boxing of the books. That one always takes a while. Once that’s finished, we’re down to the kitchen and bedroom. Those I’ll hold off on until the last minute. Having one room that isn’t piled to the rafters with boxes seems to help preserve at least a touch of sanity. The truth is, I have no idea how long it’s going to take to to get the formal offer in hand and it’s entirely possible that I’m jumping the gun by a factor of weeks here – but the boxes strewn around the house and an email from Pennsylvania are currently the only real, tangible sign that I’m escaping from Memphis and the slow motion train wreck that is the office here. If it sounds like I’ve gone from cautiously optimistic to paranoid, there’s probably a good reason for that. This is the government and until the ink is dry on the paperwork, nearly anything can happen… and I’m terrified that if I breath wrong, the wheels could fall off. Sure, the probability of success is well over 99%, but the 99% is never what keeps you up at night. I’m ready to get this show on the road and every day that does by makes me a little more jumpy, even though I know it’s perfectly normal. Fun stuff, right?

Back at it…

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It’s a new year and I’m back at it here in Memphis. I’m not going to fiddle around with alot of end-of-the-year retrospective crap or beginning-of-the-year positivity. For the moment, I’m feeling relatively rested (aside from this damned sore throat) and more sane than I’ve felt in months. A good long stretch back east seems to have the effect on me. I don’t anticipate the restful effects lasting much past first contact with work on Monday, but I’ll deal with that when it happens. Now it’s about slipping back into the routine… sipping too hot coffee, early Saturday laundry, and plotting a weekend assault on the supermarket – seriously, this house is out of everything. If that’s the biggest thing I have to bitch about, it’s probably going to be a decent weekend.