Leeway

How many hours have you budgeted for this book?
30.
WTF? It's not physically possible to do it in 30 hours.
It's already been copyedited. How many do you need?
It doesn't matter that it's been copyedited. I still have to read every line. Maybe I can do it in 40.
That would be good. Then the next project will come your way.
(So basically I'm being threatened that if I can't do it in 40 hours, I don't get another project. That's nice.)

This is what it is. All the work I have is these people, who futz about for weeks and then give me two weeks to turn round 300-page books and want it done in less time than most readers will take to read it, should it have any readers, and my main gig, which rather than the easy editing job that it was when I took it has become a nightmare authoring gig, which I don't want.

***

In the bathroom she covers her breasts.
I don't say anything.
It's like dealing with a silly teen.
I realise that I could have managed a woman quite easily, but I don't have the patience for teenagers. I suppose I should develop it for the time when (if?) I have to deal with Zenella, who is already pretty hormonal.


I'd like a woman, actually. A grown one.
I have flaws, but not being an adult is not one of them.

***

My dad offered me money to take a holiday in the UK.
But I said I'd rather take the money to get everyone home.
That seems so distant a prospect though, now I don't know whether I should just take the holiday, maybe with Zenella, who really wants to go.
It doesn't make me feel better, going there. It makes me feel much worse.
I was embittered, depressed and hopeless before I went.
Now I'm pretty much lost all interest in even living.
I'm at the point where I'm beginning to wonder whether living without my kids would be worse than living with them.

***

Could I keep Zenella there? Not bring her back and use her as leverage to force Mrs Zen to bring the twins there too?
If I had more money, that's what I'd do. Mrs Zen would resent it, but so fucking what? She already resents everything I do.
What if I restricted her access to money? She won't work full time, so she doesn't have all that much income. I could possibly restrict her access to her own money even, in the short term.

***

Am I at the point where I need to show her what a bad marriage is, in the hope of her reconciling herself to the truth that she doesn't have that? She has a marriage that is in dire straits, but it's fixable. She's not married to just anyone.

Although this dreary shit really has made me almost indistinguishable from just anyone.

***

What would I tell you if you were me? If I was advising you, what would I tell you?

***

If I had regrets, I would have two, maybe three.
1. That I never learned to be a TESOL teacher, because I think I would have liked being a teacher. I like teaching people what I know. I feel good when I do it.
2. That I didn’t take the job in Korea as an English tutor because Mrs Zen was pregnant and she made such a huge fuss about that.
The third is a secret, although it's not a big one, and if you think you know it, you do not, unless you are the person I mentioned it to.

I think (2) is worst, because I did "the right thing" but it was the oh so wrong thing. I didn't resent it then and I don't now, although it's one of the few bad decisions in my life that weren't my choice.

***

Sometimes in an STT, you just don't know what to do, so you just shove your chips in. You know it's -EV, but that's for the long run, and right now, they'll mostly fold and you'll gain some leeway.

I love to shove. I love the freedom of knowing that you have put it all on the line. I hate losing, of course, but shoving is a kind of winning, a display of your willingness to win and gamble to do it.

***

And I am getting blinded out here, day by day, losing my stock until I have nothing left to gamble with.

posted by Dr Zen @ 3:01 pm