I am officially exhausted. And, I now have another job.

Something is seriously wrong with me. Rick used to sometimes tell me that he really thought I was a work-a-holic: a person who honestly uses work to escape from other problems that could / ought to be dealt with. I'm starting to think he might have been right. Because, without formal hours and set work times, I CANNOT stop working. And, there is always something to do. Worse yet, that famous gift-of-estrogen, the ability to "multi-task" has grown from simply writing my name and phone number on the backs of Avon books while waiting for my ( slowly, painfully) dying computer to boot up, to having entire telephone conversations with people while writing e-mail on a completely different topic....v

Add in crashing guilt about the fact I'm not giving anybody my full attention, my "working from home" has not solved the problem of my house and garden still being a towering mess, and the fact that I'm not making the same monetary contribution to the household as The Hub is.....What we have here is a serious mess, which is, at the moment, my life.

But, about the "new job". It is, on many levels, the epitome of what Friend Will calls "The SLJ": S***** Little Job. I've taken on work at the grocery store up the street. Most of the employees there are high school kids and the pay reflects that. I was interviewed by a pleasant and decent-seeming manager ( he showed me his "non-regulation" box cutter he keeps with his "regulation"one in his vest pocket, but made me promise to keep it under my hat). He could hardly contain his excitement at being able to hire someone over 30, with heavy cash handling experience, who wore a dress to the job interview. Why, besides that I am a work-a-holic, would I do such a thing? Well there ARE reasons:

1. The Hub really, really, really wants me to provide some "steady" income. A lot of income is not what he is after. And he certainly doesn't want to lose his business manager/part-time helper/ Home Depot go-fer/ sounding board. But The Hub has been a steady middle-class guy born of steady middle-class people his whole life. He's not a hypocrite. He KNOWS there's something inherently wrong about expecting his wife to do crappy work he isn't willing to do himself in the name of stability, steadiness, and health insurance. So he doesn't expect it. He just really really really hopes that it's something I'll do all on my own. That I'll find some kind of "traditional" work that is steady and that, even if the whole world considers it to be a s*** job, I don't. No matter what he says, that hope comes out in every off hand comment, every flick of the classifieds pages, every shake of the head as I present our latest financial challenge. When questioned closely, honest man that he is, he admits it. He may not like it about himself, but he's honest. And I love him. And love makes compromise 51% sweet and only 49% bitter.

2. I loved working at the grocery store when I was working my way through college. I loved everything about it. I loved the customers, who used to make my line overly long waiting for their chance to tell me the latest installment of their son's missionary work in Haiti/ their dog's pregnancy/their attempt to ask the admired-from-afar girl on a date/ their quest for the perfect dinner party roast/ etc. I loved arranging the groceries in bags, and the excersise of running up and down the front end filling in for the porters during the times when I didn't have 12 million people in my own line. I loved the fact that, as a supermarket checker it is NOT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE TO DO MORE THAN ONE THING AT A TIME. I loved the food, the coupons, the wackey tabloids ( which I would otherwise never be caught dead browsing- they were all there ever was to read in the break room) I loved that I could mentally review my school work or develop my charecters for my writing during "down times" because, lets face it, this is work that your brain does not have to be there to do. As long as you are paying enough attention to tell a nickle from a quarter and make sure the check is the same as the drivers license, you are going to be okay. The single only downside was that, over three years, I got to be the fastest, calmest checker in the place, and thus got stuck on express a lot where people are the nastiest and the receipt tape was the most likely to get hopelessly jammed up.

3. "Grocery people" - that is, people who stick with it for any period of time, are mostly decent, kind people who give a crap about their co-workers. When my Dad was hospitalized and it turned out he had cancer, my ex called the store and told my supervisor what the deal was. The supervisors agreed not to call me off the register and break this lousey news to me, agreeing with my ex that it was better for him to come pick me up and tell me himself. When he got there and explained the situation (which was really not lookin' good) to me, I told him I had to go back in and arrange for some time off. When I came back in the office, the super tough supervisor took both of my hands, sat me down in a chair, and told me that my the supervisory staff and my co-workers had worked out coverage for my hours for the next two weeks, somebody had typed up a proposal for an indefinate leave of absence if I needed it, which had already been approved, and that the owner (this was a family chain) had granted me a two week paid "hardship leave" which was something he was allowed to do "at his descretion". Of course, she said, if it helped me to work, that was great too. I was to let them know what hours I wanted/needed and if any additional help was requested I was to let Mr. Family Owner know about it. All classy enough in and of itself, but you know how long it took them to get all this together? Only 45 minutes had passed between the time they got the initial phone call and the time she was assuring me I could go spend time with my family without worrying about my job in the least.

4. Health insurance. If I can stick this job out for a year, 25 hours a week, I'll be eligable for a health insurance policy. A good one. This is a union store. In 90 days I'll be a member of the Food and Commercial Workers Union. I'll get breaks on time, raises on time, and a certain level of protection against things like sexual harrassment, etc. There are rules. If somebody tells me to pick up a dead mouse, proofread their kid's paper, fix them their lunch, or any of the other bizarre things bosses have asked me to do in my whole crappy carreer I can say with perfect confidence "That's NOT in my job description" - and have the shop steward back me up. Of course, The Hub bets I'll BE the shop steward eventually if I stay there.

Sadly, though, I'm thinking this is probably the death knell for All Around the House. I'm only one person, after all. And, no matter how much I do, there are still only 24 hours in a day.