Midlife Crisis Postponed by Reality Check

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored" at yet another low point in the good ol' employment search!

While trying my very, very hardest to break into the school teaching biz last winter, I missed an email from an editor for whom I'd done a piece of writing. All the editor needed was a date. Not a full date, just a year. (The year she needed was 1996.) By the time I sent her the date (with apology), she had to insert it in pages, which is expensive.

Last week I politely inquired if she had any work. She emailed me huffily that she did not. A fellow scribe, trying to be helpful, also emailed me with an entire book of entries that this editor was assigning.

That is how I lost my final job as a writer. One little date, 1996, missed in an essay of 4000 words.

Annie's always helpful free advice: Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be writers.

Today in the mail I received my kiss-off letter for not one, but two English openings at the school that I have been substituting at faithfully since the fall of 2005.

Here's the best part of the letter, which was lovingly crafted by a brand-new assistant principal who is at least 15 years my junior, if not more:

"While your credentials are impressive, and although you have been a member of our school community for some time, another candidate was chosen for this position."

My fundie sister would blame all of this on my change in religion.

We at "The Gods Are Bored" are toujours gai, however. Perhaps all this rejection opens a window to a whole new venture. Chonganda and the Salmon of Wisdom willing.

Yesterday I was so down in the dumps that I wanted to punch a hole in the drywall. But today, as I perused the morning newspaper, a sobering reality check caught my eye.

This gal and I were born within a year of one another. And while she never had to worry about how she would pay her bills, I think her troubles were worse than mine. And besides, she's been dead ten years, as of today.

And I'm alive to take my daughter The Spare to quarter-a-card Bingo night at the Funkstown Rod and Gun Club.

So la di dah, there's a dance or two in the old dame yet. Cheerio, my pets!