Life In Ordinary Time

AIG In The News Again

I'm not thrilled these days to hear about AIG in the news, no matter what it is.  This was just a tiny mention on ABC news of the bonuses AIG employees  will get.  My ears perked up when I heard that, as when we transitioned from 21st Century Insurance to AIG last December, one of the things they told us was that bonuses were a thing of the past, AIG didn't do bonuses. 

What they should have said, of course, was that they'd no longer give out the tiny bonuses peon employees like myself were used to getting.  Don't get me wrong, as a peon of  long standing I was always happy to get anything from 21st Century, and lately from 21st Century when it was half-owned by AIG.  

But I should have realized (call me naive) that the big guys or Fat Cats as I prosaically call them would not be included in that prohibition.  Frankly, though,  it isn't anything I ever thought about.  Like a true peon,  without ever expressing it to myself in words I thought the less those guys at the top thought of me the better.  Boy, did that one turn out to be true.  And I wasn't going to tempt fate and think of them, either.

While still working for The Beast just before the big layoff,  and when we were terrified AIG was going to fold and take all our jobs and all our benefits with it, it used to irk us when people would say that the government should let AIG fail.   Besides the world chaos and ruin that some people predicted would happen if AIG went under (which I thought of not at all but wanted others to think of much), this would have mainly impacted people like me, who needed their salaries to live, and not the movers and shakers.  They'd still have their millions and billions, and what would we have?  Zilch, nada.... 

Well, it didn't happen, and since I'm getting my severance pay bi-weekly and not all at once, I hope it never does.  A pittance to those movers and shakers,  it's what's helping me plan my life after many, many years at one company, 21st Century/AIG.

Ironic Note:  when AIG sells off 21st Century as part of it's personal lines claims division, the buyer will market it in California as, no kidding, 21st Century.  It seems the name of AIG has been too sullied by the taint of financial ruin and the mishandling of funds.  And we  just dropped 21st Century and became AIG Direct in January 2007.....  Life's like that, to quote The Bonzo Dog Band and date myself.

And Now For Something  Completely Different

It's raining and storming here something fierce on my 34th day of unemployment.  We don't usually get rain with a lot of wind here in Southern Cal, but that's what we have today.  I planned to take the enormous bags of yarn I sorted out yesterday to the senior center but I don't think I want to do it in this weather.  There were three huge plastic bags, the kind you buy in TJ for a dollar,  and I'm not even finished, I have more yarn squirreled away in various closets.

 Mostly what I gave up was acrylic yarn from the days when I crocheted but didn't knit.  And there was also some cotton yarn in there, though I kept a little.  I don't know why, I hate knitting or crocheting with cotton , it has so little elasticity it's hard on your hands.  I'm also becoming a yarn snob, to quote my sister, preferring natural fibers to synthetic these days.

I'm trying to clear out some stuff, in preparation for the move.  The move I'm still not sure that I'm making.    The move that's been put off a month.  I'm moving, I'm just not sure where.  I'm doing everything to avoid making a decision, to actually say, yes, I'm moving to San Diego.  I'm letting everyone, including myself, assume it.  Think I should try something different, seeing how time's a-passing?

Christmas is coming and I'm just not ready for it.  Maybe if I tried to experience it as the spiritual holiday it is, I'd do better.  I'm not feeling particularly spiritual these days, I seem to blow hot and cold with that sort of thing.   I thought I should be a nun a few months ago, and before that a Sufi.  Seriously.  

I was moved by Gordon's concert last Sunday night of highlights from the Messiah, but it was momentary.  Maybe I have to cultivate it.  That's a thought.

Unemployment Update

I've been here forever.  Oh wait, it only seems like forever, in reality it's been 18 days, almost three weeks.  We're still getting along fine, but I'm just tired and want to go home.  My car is supposed to be ready either today or tomorrow.

It has put all my plans on hold, meaning all my plans that have to do with ending my unemployed status.  The only thing I've done besides my resume has been to go to the computer school here in San Diego and talk to an Admissions Counselor (so they call him) who let me know what we were talking about financially.  It's very expensive.  I don't think I want to owe thousands of dollars when I'm finished, if I have a choice. 

My plan is, once I get home, to go to EDD and see if there is any chance to get some of that education funded through them.  Maybe there is, and maybe there isn't.  But I intend to try, regardless.  I am a displaced worker and the job I want to do is something that's in demand.  That's my reasoning, anyway. 

So even though I'm not officially unemployed till December 26th, and can't collect unemployment benefits till after that date, I'm going to go in and see about the other stuff before then. 

I also have to go home and dig up my W2's so I can at least apply for financial aid.  I don't have to take it unless I decide it's the only way.

I had my first dream about my unemployed situation a few nights ago.  All I can remember is that at work they were having some kind of ceremony or service for us because of the lay off, and I remember everyone was standing in a circle.  We were all holding candles for what seemed like this "memorial" service, maybe people were passing the candles around, and I remember being most concerned that the women were going to set their hair on fire in the process...and I wanted to stop them from passing the candles....

The memorial service makes sense to me, but the hair on fire business?  Maybe it's just that somewhere inside me I perceive the layoff as a violent act. Yeah, that sounds about right.

Can't put any of my wonderful pictures in today (I'm being sarcastic) to break up this copy, as I didn't bring my camera with me to my sisters.  Now I know better....  The only thing I can take fairly decent pictures of (sometimes) is jewelry, which you can see if you go to my photo album.  I've had a lot of practice with that, even if my camera isn't the best.  So you'll just have to take me straight today.  I'm imagining someone besides myself is reading this.

Still Life With Desk

I'm still at my sisters, dealing with car trouble.  It's actually being fixed, but it's going to take a while.  So I'm going to be here for a while.  I can stand it if they can.  No, actually, we're doing very well (as far as I know), getting along, trying to stay out of one another's hair....

I get the chance to write in here when my sister goes out.  She lets me take her car when she doesn't need it, so I can get out of the house, too. 

I was out this afternoon, bought some yarn, went to McDonald's.  As I was eating my burger in the car, I had another one of those moments when it felt so peculiar not to be fitting everything I did around work.  I didn't have to get back by a certain time, so I'd have enough time to do what I needed before work in the morning.  My car doesn't have to be done by the end of the week so I can go home and go to work on Monday. 

Then I had a couple of other moments in Michael's.  I felt a twinge of regret looking at the tacky Christmas decorations that would have been perfect for work, except there was no work.  And then I realized if I wanted to I could spend the entirety of the remaining days till Christmas working on nothing but crafts...which I don't want to do, by the way.  I'd go stir-crazy. 

Yesterday I looked at my last day of work photos again and felt nothing about any of them (besides that they were bad photos) except what I call my Still Life With Desk photo.  

It's a photo of my desk taken, unbeknownst to me when I took it, on my last day of work.  Why should such a thing seem poignant to me now?  A desk covered with prosaic items (I emphasize 'covered' because my desk always was) similar to what millions of office workers use every day, along with a little bit of personal flotsam & jetsam--picture of Molly the Dog, running on the beach, picture of friends son, picture of tropical island, McDonald's coffee cup, Enterprise basketball hoop, Garfield hand sanitizer..!? 

Nothing to get sentimental over, you'd think.  And I'm not--but I do realize that they represent a particular time in my life, and a job that I had, and a  job that I grew in and grew into--and now it's over.  Time to move on. 

Another Type of Fire

Well, there wasn't another fire post.  I remembered I don't want to be a news reporter.  Since the fire didn't affect me or mine, I had the luxury of thinking of it as a metaphor.  I didn't do much of that, though, either.  And it's an obvious sort of metaphor, anyway.  I wrote a poem once, or started to write a poem once, or thought about writing  a poem once, about it seeming to me as if  all the physical remnants of my childhood, toys,  drawings, school pictures, clothing etc., had been destroyed in an immense conflagration.  That's because there are none--except for a few pictures that I can thank myself for keeping. 

Had I really existed?  Good question.  A mere fire didn't seem to fit.  I was looking for something more violent, bigger.  Conflagration seemed to be the word I needed.  Oh yeah, and if I also used the word "fire" I connected it to the word "razed" and that seemed to work well, too.  It felt right.  Everything was consumed.  Mother barely got through the years herself--she couldn't possibly take anything with her.

That's that.

I've been at my sisters since the Friday before Thanksgiving.  I didn't plan on being here so long but I got sick and then I had car trouble.  I'm in the midst of the car trouble now.