I can feel my blood pressure surging every time I think about how to survive for another month -- assuming this extended job interview even pans out. Why they need to stretch out developer interviews for weeks or even months, I don't understand. My family is hungry *now*. But I'm just supposed to sit in a holding pattern while they do ridiculous IQ-like tests and committe-style interviews spread out over the holidays. We already wrote off Christmas. It isn't happening this year, *at all*. I just want to be sure I can feed them. I hate this. My wife is trying to hold in her tears. She tries to hide it but I can always tell. Fuck. I'm trying to hold in my tears, too. When can we go back to normalcy again? The profoundly ignorant AI bubble, the profoundly ignorant tariffs, the hateful immigration roundups, my health issues and diabetes diagnosis, my layoff... I just want to have my feet under me again. I fucking hate this. I just want things to be normal again.

I feel like I'm going to burst. I'm holding it back but my tears are leaking out and I'm scared my girls will see and then they'll know just how *fucked* we are, and I don't want them to be in the frame of mind my wife and I are experiencing right now.

Our car is going to be impounded if we get pulled over, because the insurance and registration are out. But we have to keep driving because the bus doesn't run here, and we can't afford groceries being delivered. Our electricity bill will have to be paid soon, and my wife tells me we only have a week once it comes due. We'll have a gas bill and a water bill and a phone bill, too. I won't be paying the internet bill again; we'll just have to use hot spots. At least the data is unlimited for that, so that's one tiny bright spot.