In which Primo and I come to an agreement about his job plans

The other day, Primo and I had that fight about his going back to work or not and I was pretty cranky and I also thought I am not a very nice person because I put something that personal online - in an interview with the Washington Post, The Bloggess, Jenny Lawson, said, "I never write about something I’m still fighting with my husband about."

I am not as nice as Jenny Lawson because I write about fights Primo and I are still having.

You guys all understand that although I vent about these fights here, I am not looking for anyone to pile on Primo, right? I do love him and even though we fight (sometimes I wonder if we are the only ones because other relationships I read about online are all sweetness and light), we still like each other and love each other.

And I do think he has a point that he did not get the advantage of a year off. Sly and Doris took that year from him and then kind of screwed him by disinheriting him. The only reason I am not livid about that - the disinheriting - is that Primo did get Sly's IRA. It was only because Sly did not have his act together in the end and didn't change the secondary beneficiary, but it worked out to Primo's benefit. I am glad the grandkids are getting money - being able to start your working life without school loan debt is a huge advantage.

(When I got out of the Peace Corps and was looking for a job in Washington, DC - I wanted to stay in international development, I could not figure out how organizations could get someone with a master's degree, a foreign language, and international experience and pay that person only $20,000 a year. That had been my starting salary more than a decade before that - my starting salary with only a BA and only one language.

Then I figured it out - DC and those jobs are designed for the children of rich parents who are willing to give money to their adult children. It's not for the likes of us, who have to earn our own living and whose parents had to earn a living and did not have much left over. So yeah - I am happy that my nieces and nephews will have some freedom as they figure out what they want to do with their lives.)

Anyway, we had that fight and I was stewing about it a bit and also feeling bad because Primo really didn't get a year off to relax but then feeling angry because I was going to have to make all the sacrifices here.

But the issue needed to be resolved and resolved without acrimony because divorcing would be a real pain in the neck, so as we walked to the farmers market, I brought it up. I won't re-create the conversation because honestly, I don't remember the whole thing, but what we decided was

1. Primo would start looking for a job in January.
2. He would start telling his political friends now that he would be looking for political work in January and if they heard of anything to please let him know.
3. A political job that pays only $20,000 a year would not be acceptable. It would have to be a somewhat decent salary, although we both know he would not get what he was making as an engineer.
4. If there is nothing promising happening after three months of looking for a political job, he will expand his search to include looking for engineering work.
5. He will use the "I quit my job to run for public office" line for political interviews, but believes me that such a line would be toxic in the private sector. For engineering jobs, it will be that he quit to take care of his dying parents. Which is actually true - it's what happened, even if that was not his intention.


I can live with that.