...So buy lots of copies, okay?

Meters swum today: 1700
Playing in the background: Bird chirps and the occasional train horn

I've been laid off. Yesterday. So after some 20 months amongst the ranks of the working stiffs, I am once again unemployed. This does seem to happen to me--this is the fourth time, and I'm not 40 yet--but this time around I seem to be in plenty of good company. Like half the country. Hello, y'all.

The nice thing about being laid off multiple times, if there is one, is that you get better at it each time. It still sucks, in a lot of ways, but not having to go to work every day really isn't the worst thing in the world. Plus, by the time you're logging onto the Texas Workforce Commission's web site for the third or fourth time to file a new claim, you're a regular whiz at it. Job interviews? Pshaw. Done a million of 'em. Sending out resumes? Thanks, I know the keywords, I'm on it.

The other nice thing, if you're really honest about it, is that it's often a relief. I had a long to-do list on my Microsoft Outlook that is now Somebody Else's Problem. Including the Big Trial which was postponed to April. Nobody's working on the prep stuff now, which makes me wonder what's going to happen in three weeks when they suddenly realize, "Oh, yeah, we have a Big Trial." Hm, glad I'm not gonna be around for that.

The third thing is you find out who your friends are. T and T came over here last night, even though they'd both had long and exhausting days, to watch some comedy with us and hang out for a bit. Joan didn't strangle me. Two of my boys (all my lawyers are my boys, even if some of them are older than me and girls) have already called to say what the hell happened, nobody told us and of course we'll write you a letter of reference. Even the manager, who is not the most demonstrative person in the world, said something like, "I'm going to miss you because you were always so calm and happy."

Calm and happy. This woman does not know me very well. I am a bundle of anxieties stitched temporarily into a human skin. Or at least I used to be. Now I'm not so sure. I went to the Zen Center today and spoke with one of the teachers. I told him this story and he said something like, "She sees something in you that you don't see yet." So maybe I'm wrong. I haven't, for example, gone on a rampage or anything. I'm not sure what most folks do when they've been laid off but I gather it's usually not break out in a big grin, which is apparently what I did. (Come to think of it I did that last time, too, but I was being laid off by the Feds after doing a year and a half of Hurricane Katrina disaster assistance and working 12 hour shifts for most of it. You'd be glad to be laid off, too. Hell, you'd volunteer.)

So, anyway, I'm gonna go send out a bunch of resumes and stuff now, but if you haven't yet nagged any of your friends to buy the book yet, this would be a good time. I think the paperback is due out soon but tell them to buy the download, we live in economic uncertainty and it's a damned expensive paperback. At least compared to the download.