This is the Way the Year Ends

- though I'm not sure whether to consider it a bang or a whimper. My car is with a mechanic. Again. The rear struts broke driving around on the swiss cheese that passes as roads around here. And while we have managed to scrounge up the money to fix it, after rent it leaves us with nothing to pay the other bills that have their due date coming up before our next paychecks.

Okay, what the hell is going on here?! I get it - newlyweds struggle. We knew that going in. Newlyweds are broke. Well, we were broke before so that wasn't exactly a surprise. What I don't get is why we haven't gotten a single break this year. Every time we've had even the slightest bit of extra money something catastrophic has happened. Decide to spend a couple of days after the wedding in a motel, even if it was here in Logan? My transmission needed rehab. Mini-splurge on a used game cube for an anniversary? Turns out Luke's tire was about to fall off, so we adjusted to driving that car once a week or less until we could fix it . . . and that led to the battery needing replaced because the car was just sitting in the cold. Of course, we could manage replacing one battery, which must be why mine died three weeks later . . . right after we talked about maybe taking a long weekend to Cedar next summer during the Shakespeare Festival. And now Tuesday, when we decide to spend two bucks to rent a movie after doing some errands, my car starts bouncing in our newly re-done parking lot like we were driving down second freaking east at fifty miles an hour! Seriously, what is that about? Connection or not, the timing is insane!

This cannot be normal newlywed struggles. Team Jayla hasn't been married that much longer than we have, and they just bought new snowboards, and go boarding all the time. Luke's sister got married six weeks after we did, and their Christmas present to themselves was a trip to Disney World. They're all still in school . . . so theoretically shouldn't we be doing the best financially? But we couldn't do either of those things if our lives depended on it - literally. I just don't get it.

Of course, this year has given me something - the proof I've never really needed or wanted that I'm pretty much un-hire-able. I have never gotten a single job in my life that didn't either come to me through either familial or academic nepotism (everything except . . . ), or was at a place where they take everyone and their dog (western wats and disney). How did that happen? What is it about me that makes people toss my application into the shredder immediately? Why is it that I can talk to the hiring manger, who tells me TO MY FACE that not only are they hiring, but that they'll gove me a call in a day or two . . . and then never hear anything again? Why do I get a rejection letter three days before the decision of who to hire is even made?

And not only that, what little karmic sway I have over the universe seems to be waning, because this year nepotism bith gained and cost me a job. There's a permanent aid position open at Aunt Sharon's school. I applied for it because after she talked to the principal two months ago she was told that the job was mine if I wanted it. But now, two months later, and after I've been waiting for phone call in such a paranoid state that I've been afraid to pee, eat, shower, or do anything that prevented me from keeping my phone in my hand, not to mention checking it every ten minutes to make sure the battery hadn't died and I hadn't accidentally put it on silent or something, I found out I can't have the job because Aunt Sharon and I would be working in the same room. Forget the whole "what the crap kinda sense does that make" part, I should have just been realistic and seen it coming from the beginning. And in a way, it's probably a good thing. I don't think I could stand working with/for someone like that for very long. It's just frustrating that that's the brightest side there is to be found in this whole situation.

I just can't see how to get out of this mess. As far as we can see we're doing everything we're supposed to be doing, and doing it right - financially, work-wise, spiritually, mentally, emotionally . . . perhaps not grammatically, maybe that's where the problem is. < / sarcasm> We've even thrown around the idea of moving somewhere - almost anywhere! - else, but as far as I can see we'd be in the same boat as we are here, only minus the job Luke has now. Which, obviously, wouldn't help matters. And considering we left Orlando because the sheer cost of living was squeezing us to death, and now we could afford that if I could just get a frigging job, but since I can't we're still getting squeezed to death . . . well, irony, thy name is my life. And thy middle name is cruelty.

So, suffice it to say, we are going on essentially an electricity lock down, since that's the only bill we can even pretend to try to decrease. No more watching movies, no more Stargate on hulu, the computer only gets used for checking email and job hunting, and the heat only gets turned on when we can't feel our feet. Fortuneately I went grocery shopping Monday, and we got a couple of boxes of ramen recently. With any luck the next trip will be at the end of February.

You know what, 2009? Screw you too.

P. ost S. cript
Pretty much the only thing that makes me laugh right now.