first day on the dole

The worst happened ( employment-wise ) and I was told yesterday that it was my last day at work. And I had just begun to feel fairly confident that my job was safe after all.

My plans for  dealing with a crisis  like this usually involves getting ( moderately ) drunk the first evening. Instead, I went to a computer course I had signed up for earlier and sat there trying to concentrate on rectangle frame tools and on being sociable with my coursemates during the coffee break. Coming home, I was too exhausted to even contemplate alcohol.

My plans for the following days looked like this: get up early, get showered and dressed and breakfasted, make sure the house is tidy - in short, make sure all circumstances are optimal when I then sit down at the computer to start the whole business of job searching, CV writing and unemployment benefit application.

I should know by now that I never do that. I got up this morning and despair drove me straight to the computer. By noon I was still in my PJs, hair looking like a rain forest, stomach growling for breakfast. But most of the bureaucracy was done and despair had settled into something almost resembling optimism.

Or at least I was chasing the dog around the house, singing "Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman". That must be the same thing.