It's quarter to six in the morning and I just finished washing the dishes, which means I'm freaking out about money. I should have realized it sooner; yesterday I washed five loads of laundry, cleaned the bathroom, and washed nearly every dish in the flat, all of which are activities rare enough on their own, but positively spooky-freaky-weird when manifested on the same day.

Cluing in earlier would have maybe saved me some sleep. Instead, I woke up at 4:45 (otherwise known as an hour ago) changed and fed the baby, and then tried going back to sleep. Tossing and turning might not be Olympic-caliber sports, but the way I was doing 'em they were, at least, aerobic.

Some of you might not know that when I was about halfway through my pregnancy, I got fired. Feel free to read coincidence into that statement: my attorney does. And by that point my blood pressure was, for me, through the roof, so I didn't apply for unemployment for a solid month afterward, because you have to be well and healthy and able to work when you're getting unemployment, and after being put through the emotional and pre-natal ringer, I was not, not, and not.

I've been on the dole since August, having previously been the primary wage-earner in the household, and {sarcasm tag on} that's fun {close sarcasm tag}. Now it's five months later and here we are in the middle of our second New England winter, having already burned through $1,500 of heating oil — can't just turn down the thermostat and put on a sweater when you've got a new baby in the house — and if last winter was any indication we'll need to keep the boiler cranked until May.

And I'm pissed off because our nation does nothing to support new mothers, save WIC, which don't count for us because we make, like, three dollars and seventy five cents over the limit, what with my sweet husband working his ass off doing two jobs while, oh yeah, pursuing a Ph.d.

Maybe I'm just cranky because I bought my family's Christmas presents with three-dollar limits on Ebay and at tag sales last year, but this money thing is getting to me and even if I were to magically find a 40 hour/week job (and don't think I haven't tried, but the economy for swell writer types out here is such that they don't even send me a “thank you for applying, but fuck off” letters for my trouble), I'd spend 30 hours just making enough for infant childcare, which I'm leery of anyway having grown up in California back in the day when every day-care operator was molesting her charges, one of whom was in my hometown and went to jail for a long, long time.

And if I hadn't just checked my e-mail and learned that Steve Sloan just blogged me a valentine, I'd probably be on my hands and knees right now, mopping the floor.

Craning neck behind me, evaluating the state of the kitchen floor. Hmmmm. Not such a bad idea, that.