By the way, if you’re looking for a sys admin…Kevin’s contract ended, and the economy is still jumping around like a frog on a griddle, so the people getting him contract work went from "We have tons of leads!" to "Uh. Err. Hmmm. Yeah." in the course of a couple of months. (And next week it may be "Oh, yeah, here’s ten more leads!" I hate this economy.)

The wolves are not yet at the door–not even visible across the tundra–so it’s not an immediate problem, but I’m still having the stress reaction this sort of thing engenders. "Oh god, what if it never gets any better, what if this is it, what do I dooooooo?" So then I start making contingency plans, because it at least feels like I’m doing SOMETHING in situations where there is nothing at all that I can do. But once you’ve mapped out your entire plan in case of long-term partner unemployment–which takes about an hour, after you talk yourself out of immediately joining the Peace Corps*–you still haven’t knocked down the stress much, and then you’re left with video games or comfort reads or prowling around the house gnawing on your fingernails.

Or cleaning. There’s always cleaning.

Which is all rather ridiculous because Kevin’s the one in the hot seat, except that he’s handling it calmly, so I’m taking this opportunity to freak out, so that when he freaks out I can be the calm one. I am firmly convinced that one of the keys to a successful relationship is that only one person freaks out at a time. If you both freak out, the system fails, then it’s all rains of frogs, rivers turning to blood, dogs and cats living together, and it goes badly.

In a few days, I’ll get over the stress–my capacity to sustain dread is limited–in a few weeks, a job will doubtless appear–it’s just one of those obnoxious things that you know will be better eventually, but you don’t have the option to skip ahead to that point. Linear time is a pain in the ass.

*Given how often this is my default response to a crisis, it’s kinda surprising that I never actually did join.