Chaos

Back in middle school, I used to think that the word people said that was "kay-oss" was a totally different word-- with the same meaning-- from the written word "chaos," which I thought you said "ca-hoos." Everybody has a story about a word they mispronounced for years without knowing it. This is mine.

Fitting that it happened with that word, in middle school. That was such a chaotic time, really. And now? ...Now is also a rather chaotic time...

Granted

Last week was interesting. I feel confident that I can say YES-- I have a full time job now. I'm not so confident that I'll have it much longer if we don't find a way for the farm to produce some serious income in the middle of winter.

Technically, I'm the "Executive Coordinator" for the Farm, the Foundation, the Education programming that comes out of both, and to some degree also for the farm Community and Household. I asked the head of our Foundation Education Committee to look over the job descriptions that the three of us fleshed out for future reference, having filled in the details of what currently rests on my shoulders, and she said it was a perfect recipe for burnout. I agree.

Last week, I finally struggled through the last three days of writing and submitting a grant to the ubs govgt. The grant that may, in twelve months, pay for me to actually preserve, digitize, and web-ize the Foundation's Archive. You know, that job I was originally actually HIRED FOR six months ago. It's the first grant proposal I've ever written.

And boy-howdy was it a learning experience for the first one to be a govgt one! Before I could access the application packet, I had to apply for a DUNS number. And before I could apply for a DUNS number, there were one or two OTHER applications and passwords I had to request. Each of which took between 2 days and a week to get. And you can't skip steps.

Then, on the two days I'd set aside to write the grant, we first spent all day interviewing and meeting about our new Farm Manager (thank you god, she's on board for at least the next three months). The second day I spent doing last minute preparations for the Foundation Appreciation Dinner, and having conversations with my two team mates about the structure of our jobs so that I could, in fact, get on with my job without interference from She-Rex. Who-- I want to acknowledge-- is a vital and incredibly committed member of the team. I'm glad she's there. I just don't want her interfacing with clients. She has a tendency to make them run away.

So I set aside a day to work from home. And I did work from home all that day, but not on the grant. So I worked off the record the next day and a half-- on the grant. And I worked a full day (minus the two hours I spent meeting with the team because SR needed to make decisions about something that won't happen until next Spring) the day before the grant was due on pulling together the final application materials and the budget, and getting signatures where they were needed.

The day the application was due, my day off, I discovered that there was an ADDITIONAL APPLICATION FORM that was only available online, and that my computer operating system was too old to let me open. And then I spent the day at GB's house on HIS computer, swearing and filling out forms online. Then I discovered that the Budget Form (which is on a different website from the application form and application download site) can only be filled out online, and can't be saved once you fill it out, and has to be uploaded to the application download site, which you can only do if it's saved to your computer. AAAAAAARRRGHH!

I over came that hurdle, and got all the way to the place where you finally get to hit SUBMIT... only to discover that one must have a login and password to submit anything. WTF?

So I tried the first login and password I'd had to sign up for waaay back when I was applying for the fricken DUNS number. And was told no, that's wrong, and you have two more tries before we lock you and your application out of our system. Shit.

So I tried the second login and password I'd had to sign up for waay back when I was trying to get signed up to apply for this fricken grant. And was told, no, that's wrong, and you have one more try. Neener Neener Poopoo Head.

Okay.

So I called the govgt grant offices at 6:15pm Eastern Time for help, and SOMEONE HELPED ME!!!! She told me how to sign up for the login that lets you actually submit the grant application. And she stayed on the phone with me while I did it. And it only took two minutes instead of two weeks. And then I submitted my grant proposal, with three hours to spare before the deadline.

OMFG!!!

That was Tuesday. On Wednesday, I worked. On Thursday, I did accounts and worked and prepped for the Teacher Fair on Friday that I had a booth at, and organized a couple of new orders for our Big City Contingent of Dairy Buyers.

On Friday, I spent all day at the Teacher Fair, getting us tons of potential new Education Field-Trip Clients, and networking with other museums and historical sites in the area.

On Saturday, my one day off this weekend, I got an email that totally blew all my work with the Dairy Contingent out of the water, and basically put me in a position where the Dairy Contingent will probably not want to work with me because they don't think I know what I'm talking about. It was an email sent by my boss to me, the dairy contingent, and SR. I still don't know why SR got the email, as she's made it clear she wants nothing further to do with the dairy or the goats.

So I sent a not-happy email to my boss, explaining the effect of her email on my ability to help her with the Dairy Orders in the foreseeable future. Hard to help when nobody believes a word you say, non? And then I spent the rest of the day trying to pack and sort some of my stuff, and cleaning house, because it needs it.

Today, Sunday, I go to work again. We have a Foundation Board Meeting, and I have to arrive early so that I can prepare the materials and reports necessary for that meeting, and find out if I still have a job after the email I sent my boss.

Talk about your recipe for burn out! ...sigh... And I really love my work and this farm. So I really hope we overcome some of these challenges soon.

Well, that's all from Lake Woebegone this week, where all the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.

And-a-Half

Well, I was going to write about the Family Reunion, but that may have to wait for the weekend now. Instead, today was somewhat sidetracked by having my car side-swiped by a rather large dark green Ford F-250. The good news is he stopped and gave me his insurance number and his name. The bad news is-- well, I was kinda hoping to go for more than a year-and-a-half before my next major car accident.

In other good news, it's drivable, and I am not at fault. Also, the autobody shop was able to fix the tail light so I'm legal, and my insurance will give me a loaner until they fix everything else. Which should take about a week. So GB and I will be driving a rental car down to visit his family in Sacramento next week, which isn't exactly what we'd been planning... We've requested something with good gas mileage. And nobody was hurt. I'm really grateful for that.

However, the driver's side rear quarter-panel needs replacing, and the whole lower panel and bumper need a new paint job. And I need a new light cover on the rear tail light. Also, apparently "pannel" only has one N in it.

So yeah, that all kinda put a kink in my plans for the day. I'm really glad GB was there with me, and I'm really glad that-- unlike the LAST time a large dark green vehicle slammed into me-- my passenger was uninjured. Last time, I saw the land rover speed up and ram my car in the rearview mirror. I said "He's not going to stop." And he didn't.

This time, I saw the ford truck veer into my lane and said "Please don't hit me?" But he did anyway. Last time, my passenger turned to me and said "What?" right before we got rear ended horribly. This time, my passenger turned and watched us get side-swiped, and then knew more than I did about exactly how and where it happened. He also ran back and picked up the busted light cover for me while Ford and I exchanged info.

sigh...

Bang Bang Bang

There has been on-and-off construction on the house next door, and specifically on the roof-patio that looks into my bedroom windows, since I moved in. And apparently, for two years prior to that as well. Now that house, and the one on the other side (ten feet to the right, if you include the upstairs hallway) both have little 2-year-old boys living in them. Bang Bang Bang.

Actually, I was originally going to call this post "In With A Bang," and then I was going to talk all about the Fourth of July, and the total lack of relationship between today's fireworks parties and any sort of leftover patriogtism about the colonists's war with the British. Except, of course, for the fact that everyone was probably drunk and stogned at the signing of the Declaration of Independence (History Channel), and so were most of the fireworks partiers we encountered on Saturday. But seeing as how this is already the 6th, what happened two days and over two hundred years ago... Well it just seems like old news.

SO... to sum up... Humperdink gonna marry Buttercup in a littlelessan khalph-an-hour. And GB and I went downtown and watched the big fireworks display from the bridge, with 50,000 of our closest friends. It was very cool. Bang Bang Bang.

And then the insurance claims dude came to look at GB's bike this morning, and declared it totaled. Which shocked the hell out of everyone, because there's basically some scratching, a dent in the gas tank, and maybe the handlebars are bent crooked, and some lights and a mirror snapped off... but other than that, she was just fine! Wait... when you put it like that... there doesn't seem to be much left undamaged besides the engine. Huh.

Anyway, GB first introduced me to his motorcycle soon after we started dating. "Innt she beauuuuutiful??" So for him to think of trashing her for the insurance money... well, I suspect it feels a bit like a cold-blooded murder. So as soon as the insurance claims dude left, GB called me up, totally upset that the most logical option seems to be agreeing that his baby is totaled, and letting the cold-hearted insurance robots drag her away. Because the truth is that he was just planning to fix her up and sell her anyway. But going against all his carefully organized manly reasoning and well-thought-out acknowledgment of the financial reality, he just doesn't FEEL LOGICAL about it. And in the background, I could hear his fist on the desk... Bang Bang Bang.

There were three other serious examples of "bang bang bang" in my world today, but one was the sound of my head hitting my desk, one is the way Abbigale's sneezes keep getting louder and closer together, and the other was this new and bizarre "Rule of Three" that the nurse practitioner told me about at Planned Parenthood. Somebody should have told me that a long time ago, thank you very much. And honestly, I just don't want to talk about any of them at the moment. Sorry. Bang Bang Bang.

Chewing

Today, I sent out two majorly awesome job applications. I feel good about my qualifications for the positions, feel good about the positions themselves, and feel good about my cover letter etc in relation to applying for the positions.

However, I also notice I'm back to chewing my fingernails. Which I haven't done in nearly two months now. And I sent out two or three TOTALPANIC emails to people who I think of as mentors... in a very unprofessional way... after midnight last night, when I was still working on that awesome cover letter and freaking out about who to use as references. I'm sort of hoping they just hit delete. Because *I* don't want to go back and read what insane freaky things I wrote to them in my sudden exhausted and financially unstable need for reassurance late last night.
Sigh...

Sometimes the internet is a little TOO instantaneous.

Hide and Seek

So there's a button on blogger that lets you "hide" your blog listing. And apparently I accidentally pushed that button sometime since my last post.

I've been going crazy this morning trying to track down the access point to this blog, with very little success. It doesn't help that my connection has been getting progressively slower over the last three months, either. All that logging in and out and in and out took time. grrrrrr

Until I finally and for no reason I can fathom decided I must have "hidden" that blog. Then it took me another little while to figure out how to UNHIDE it. And that term does not appear in the google/blogger help directory. So don't bother.

The good news is that there's a little button down at the bottom of the page that says "show all blogs," and when I finally found that button, and selected it, all was again right with my world.

Why are there always prologues to my stories??

Also, apparently due to the amazing levels of unexpected and prolonged gorgeous snow in December, the gas bill was an estimate. Based on earlier times when my housemate didn't actually have the heat on. So this month, we received a bill for what didn't show up last month, and this month's expense. And I guess we have to turn the heat back off now. Because I can't afford to pay her $150 a month to have heat.

So I guess I'll be closing the bedroom door and turning on my space heater. A lot. Because I suspect that the overage I'll pay for the electricity I use is NOTHING compared to this bill. Which actually scares me. A lot.

Besides hunting around for a way to access my own blog, how did I spend the morning? So glad you asked.

I spent this morning writing about my early attempts at marriage counseling, and the last pre-deployment briefing I attended before my X left for Iraq back in 2004. Oh, Joy. That gas bill was really NOT the cap I'd have chosen for my morning of woe.

It was interesting to remember back to the hole in the bedroom door, the Argmy Chaplain who first appeared angry on my behalf, and then when he actually met my X, was angry at me for not doing a better job of supporting such a fine outstanding and upstanding soldgier. It was interesting to remember both the hope I suddenly felt to have an authority figure on my side in my attempts to get marriage counseling and salvage our relationship-- and the utter desolation and isolation that ultimately came of the attempt.

Interesting to remember how life had to keep on keeping on around all that personal pain. We went out to dinner, we said how our day went, we acted like nothing was wrong when other people were around, and I worried about his well-being as he geared up for that deplogyment. And yet, looking back, I realize how absolutely everything had already fallen apart. Long before I actually was ready or willing or able to walk away.

I'm so glad to be here, and not there, now. Even with frozen fingers and a dwindling bank account and a crick in my neck from sitting at the computer too long. I think my story is an important one to tell-- the family side of Argmy Life, but more than that. I'm also telling how-- maybe eventually even WHY-- a marriage can fall apart, and a wife can decide to stay long past all reason. And, hopefully, I can tell a little bit of how to get out of a marriage like that.

I am hopeful. Hopeful for my own life, and for the lives of other women-- argmy or civilian, happy or desperate, married or divorced-- and for the possibility for positive change in every situation. Hopefully, telling my story will make a difference, too.

So I keep writing, and forcing myself to remember those painful, fearful, uncertain times. Times when I hid, or wanted to hide. Times I really don't want to remember anymore. And, hopefully, when it's all done, the results will be worth the journey I took to get them.

In the meantime, anybody know a good (and fairly recently published) memoir I should read? I'm looking for a good editor, and a well-written book might just be the place to start.

In the Spirit of Christmas

I recently began to reminisce about Christmases past. I do that in the summer. Goes well with my habit of singing Christmas Carols in July. And that other habit I have of standing on one foot while doing the dishes. Anyway, here's what I wrote about what I remember:

Before I ever met him, he hated Christmas. Hated it for the same reason he hated his birthday-- they were too close together. They were fake. The attention wasn't really on him, and the gifts for the two were often combined into one bigger gift-- It made him bitter to be so short-changed. Isn't that strange?

It was a victory-- the buzz of war’s end and the fear-stench of D-day rolled into one-- the first time I brought a Christmas Tree into our house. Not our first year there, but our second. Such a little thing, a tree.

We negotiated back and forth, just a suggestion gently interposed here or there when he wasn't struggling with other aspects of our life together... Finally we agreed. A live tree, no more than three feet tall, no ornaments, one strand of lights-- white lights only. He'd help me carry it into the house no sooner than the 23rd of December, and it had to be planted in the back yard no later than December 29th. It had to be under $25... And I couldn't mention Christmas or trees at all for the month between now and then. Certainly not on his birthday!

But it was a TREE! Something to reflect the seasonal glory I feel every time the Earth cleans her slate to begin anew. Something to connect our home with the homes of other families throughout the community to which I so desperately wanted to belong. Something friendly and healthy and clean in our married world. Something that wasn't a secret.

I laugh now to remember how he broke out in hives wherever the needles of that feathery little aromatic desert cedar pricked him. How angry he was when he finally planted it in January, and entered the sliding glass door on our little almost-A-frame house, strangling the earth beneath his feet with every twist of those mud-glazed black boots. Arms covered in little red welts. Of course, it wasn't funny at the time-- it was my fault, this crawling pain he felt in waves across his skin. My fault that he was allergic to Christmas. To the only tree on the lot I could find that was more than a seedling and less than $25, two days before Christmas.

I guess life is full of little victories like this. I guess it's hard to admit that I was part of the problem, too, but I know now that I was. I didn't hold him accountable for his choices, didn't put up boundaries between his problems and mine. I just checked to be sure the shovel was no longer in his hands, and then went forward to apologize for the tree, and offer what comforts I could to the places where his skin was broken and angry. After all, they were only little scratches on the surface, nothing deeper than that. They could be soothed, and given time, they would mend. Right?

The F.R.G. meets once a month on post, and the women who attend speak of seemingly innocent things between items of business on the agenda. Officers to officers, enlisted to enlisted, sergeants' wives straddling the emptiness between. The Captain's wife leads the meeting, and reports back to the General's wife, who also sometimes attends. They say a wife has no rank... I understand how easy it is to lie with integrity.

"Oh, yes-- we're putting our decorations up a little closer to Christmas," I tell them. "You know, we usually get a live tree, and we want it to survive the move back outside..." I no longer remember what "truth" I told about the total dearth of Christmas spirit in our home the first winter of our married life... Probably the same thing I said about the fact that he hated roses, cats, the color pink, home improvement shows on TV, and the time I spent talking with old friends on the phone-- that there were more important things in life than what kind of flowers I got on my birthday.

Some pieces of the people you spend your energy on get stuck in your psyche... The way the trapezius muscle rested under sun-spotted skin with a certain luscious convex curve that's missing on other men, the elephant stench of the bathroom after he ate ice cream or cheese, that tightness around his nostrils that said he was hiding something again-- something that was, in his words, "easier to ask forgiveness than permission" for having done. The sweet smell of the cologne he wore before we were married.

I remember the first week we lived together in the house I found. It was November, maybe December. We'd been married for six months, engaged for three years before that, and now finally, we could be alone together in our own space. We'd bought our own home, weathered our wedding on the coast, his four months of Training in Kentucky, my car accident in St. Louis. Things were finally going to be better for both of us.

I remember looking around at the end of that first week, noting the week's worth of discarded socks, scattered like so many crumpled gold-toed snowballs around our new king-sized bed. His OD green bath towel from our wedding, still so wet from yesterday's 5am shower that it dripped as I gingerly carried it the last two feet from the carpeted floor to the hamper in the corner.

I remember the moment I finally understood that the slovenly disregard he'd shown every hotel room, every quaint B&B of our courtship-- it was how he treated all the objects in his life. That my carefully hoarded life treasures would get no better treatment from him. That one more of my "it'll be better when" dreams was not coming true as planned.

And that knowledge sits in my psyche, making me cold and withdrawn around men with similar strengths and propensities. Men with birthdays in December, and allergies to milk. Men who wear that particular cologne. Now that my life is under my direction, it is like skulking around a sanitarium after dark to return to these memories, these rules, these smells and most of all, these complex truths. I am haunted by the ghosts of Christmases past.

I am no longer willing to give up the celebrations of my life. I am uncomfortable knowing that I did give them up-- many times, and to many people. Uncomfortable knowing how easy it always was to find a reason to stay behind, helping someone else’s dreams come true. The good little Wife, supporting my husband's career, depending on him for security and friendship and even identity at times. Learning to celebrate the small things, learning what it takes to survive in a world where soldiers are treated like machines, with no control over their lives and no way to guess at their future. Learning not to plan too far ahead, as a buffer to disappointment. Living in a community where belonging and blending in is everything, and you-- the wife-- can never be a priority. You have no rank, remember?

Travel Guide

I'm told that the Answer to life, the universe, and everything is 42. And that it'll take another million years to figure out what the Question actually was. And that first book really did have some great advice for travelers. A towel really is a comforting thing to have along-- and it can be put to any number of important uses. A good towel is worth a lot of money, and the time it takes you to pack and repack until it fits into your suitcase is always well-spent, according to the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

It gives you a tangible reminder of home. It can be used to dry off, shade from the heat, wrap up from the cold, sit on, sit under, thwhack annoying teens with, brush off dirt and sand, clean your hands of any number of other undesirable substances, make you look like you know what you're doing and where you're going, etc etc etc...

But that's just not the kind of travel I'm doing. And while I'd really like to feel comfortable, well-grounded, prepared, and at home during this particular stretch of my personal journey... somehow I don't think a towel is going to cut it. I think really what I need is a compass, and a better job market. And maybe just a little more self-confidence and courage as well.

Especially if I'm really going to make Life Coaching into a full-time profession. Because my clientelle in THAT sector continues to grow little by little... and because I continue to look forward to interviewing for positions as a librarian, and even getting HIRED to WORK as a librarian... but it hasn't happened yet. It's been many months since I even had an interview in that arena.

So... what do I need to do to grow into a self-sustaining business model for life coaching? well, I need to identify the markets I want to pursue. I need to find a space to hold sessions. I need to write up a business plan, including scripting for difficult situations, for self-marketing, and so on. I need to settle on AND MAINTAIN a system for retaining data about my business finances, data about my clients, data of contact info, data for my network as it grows, data about where and how and how much I promote my services... and data about how the clients I do see find me. I need to post more regularly to my "self-help" blog-- and tell my clients about it. I need to print out a HELL of a lot more business cards and informational pamphlets, too, and join some groups where I'm the only (or the first, or SOMETHING) personal life coach in the group... And I need to locate my coaching resources and make them available to my practice-- get them out of those darn storage boxes and bins and piles on the other side of town.

Mostly, I need to clean up my personal space, and get some sort of healthy schedule to my life so that when opportunity DOES knock-- in whatever form it takes-- I'm ready. I intend to come from (and return to) a place that is clean, that is friendly and inviting, that is somewhat organized, and that I can be proud to say represents me and how I exist in the world. And that goes for both my physical home and my mental/spiritual space as well. I want to see my best self so that I can dwell on that, and put my best foot forward into the world for others to see.

Nobody prepares you for this stuff, growing up. Nobody tells you that it's probably going to be a while before you really get to where you want to be. That whatever it is you just spent a whole lot of time training for, and went into serious debt to become, is probably NOT what you'll actually get to DO in your lifetime. Nobody teaches you healthy ways to cope with and overcome all the daily and extreme situational stress that is part of an adult's decision-making process. And nobody explains WHY a sense of humor and a positive outlook are so important to finding personal happiness and success.

As my bff SLM recently said, THIS ISN'T COVERED IN THE MANUAL!!! It's true that as you get to be an adult, you gain access to a much wider variety of choices. But it's also true that the repercussions of those choices also become much bigger... and that often the choices we have in a given situation are not the ones we expect-- or even want. Hmmm... I COULD spend my free afternoon doing yardwork in the middle of a 100* heat wave... or I could stay inside where it's cool, drinking ice tea and catching up on the last three months of business news and new tech tools for my profession-- and risk getting a fine and a notice from the local HOA. Or I could just say "freck it all!" and risk both being obsolete and work AND getting into trouble at home-- to go spend the afternoon hiking around cool and beautiful waterfalls with a good friend I haven't seen in months. Hmmm...

Maybe 42 is how old you have to be for all the pieces of your life to finally start fitting together. I wouldn't know. I'm about to turn 3o. And while I have figured out what sorts of things I want to do with my life, and how I personally define "Abundance," and how a budget works, and what it means to take personal responsibility for my choices and actions... I haven't figured out how to fit all of those things together into Abundant Living-- and I'm still searching for that first job on the road to my professional career. I am still searching for financial independence.

I've just started my first Yoga class. Sure, I occasionally went to yoga with my mom, but those are HER yoga classes, and I usually ended up overdoing and being in pain and not going back. This is my first Yoga class for and about me. It's an opportunity to work on my flexibility and muscle tone, to work on my physical health and my mental focus, my balance, my range of motion, etc etc... but it's also an opportunity for me to work on grounding and centering myself. I would dearly like to feel more grounded and centered. And I know yoga will help me with that so far as mental discipline goes. ...But it has also clarified for me that being grounded in my life is yet another animal, and one that I've made great leaps of progress toward, without yet reaching. This is not a good time to be unemployed.

Acting Up

Fridays are good. And with such a positive start to them, I sometimes plan to do unpleasant things on Fridays, just because there's a greater chance of actually DOING them that way...
Today, my plan is to actually attack the growing amorphous blob of CRAP in the middle of my room. There's a sewing machine, several unfinished projects, the latest pile of "to shred" documents, some receipts I really would have liked to locate last week, a random shower curtain (no, I don't know why either), and well... STUFF.

So I planned a whole three hours of my day for getting around to fixing the pile, or at least dissecting it a bit. I've got an hour left, and I haven't started yet. This is not a good sign. ...maybe tomorrow would be an even BETTER day to tackle it... after all-- tomorrow is Saturday... hmm. O the horror of it all! The problem is that even once I know what's IN the pile, I'm not sure I'll actually have a better place to keep it. I miss my extra-tall bed frame at times like these. The WHOLE PILE would have fit under it with room to spare.

Unfortunately, that (along with all my summer clothes) is buried somewhere in my storage unit. Fortunately, this may actually force me to sort, label, and redistribute everything from the pile in an orderly and productive manner. Man, who knew "dissecting" had TWO 's's in it!!

The good news is that I've been so anti about this project that I've managed to get any number of OTHER projects that I'd previously been avoiding done. I cleared out, cleaned out, and redistributed my house mate's junk drawer in the kitchen. I still don't know what all the reddish-brown powder was all over the bottom layer of junk. I sorted and cleaned and put away this huge box of spices she bought at an estate sale. I would KISS the woman who put the purchase date of each spice on the labels if I knew where she was. Everything older than two years got thrown out-- because I know PC won't throw any of them out ever, and I want her to at least START with a quality spice collection. ... Anyway, a lot of projects got crossed off the list.

And with half an hour to go, I think it's time to get busy with THIS project. Really. ...I guess I should have called this post "cleaning up my act... sort of." Meh.

Funny, That

It's a funny thing... I had an email last week from someone I always wanted to know better in high school. I emailed back, and then spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out WHY I thought he was who I thought he was back then. And I've yet to come up with something believable.

I always thought of him as a kind and gentle person, but pretty self-contained and fairly strong. Quiet, possibly even painfully shy, and yet someone with strong ideas of how to get along in the world. What did I base this on? I have no fugcking idea. My most recent memory is of him sitting slouched in the back of a classroom in his poofy down coat, with his pimp-wannabe baseball cap on backwards and a really bored expression on his face. Yeah.

In the whole of high school, I think we had maybe six conversations. And none of them lasted more than 20 seconds-- except the one where my mom forgot to pick me up from school and it was pitch black and the school was totally deserted, and HE showed up and offered me a ride home. That time, the poor guy was stuck in his truck with me for a full 20 minutes of horror.

I think what usually happened was that I wanted so much to be liked by this guy (remember-- high school) and was so self-conscious and weird as only a pre-pubescent girl can be that about 20 seconds into the conversation, I'd say something that was either really dumb, really bizarre, or both-- and he'd get this "deer in the headlights" look, and stop talking to me. This is how I remember ALL of our interactions. I don't even know what his parents did for a living (or do now, for that matter), I don't know his brother's name or age, I don't know what this guy did after school or even what sports he played-- if any.

But anyway, I got this email last week, and thought "HEY! How cool would it be to finally find out who he actually IS-- and maybe have a whole conversation, too!" So I responded. It's been a week, and I haven't heard anything back from his end. And I have to say, I'm finding it funny. THIS time, I don't think I said anything dumb, foolish, or weird. THIS time, I simply have the inclination to laugh at how familiar the whole situation seems to me. And I'm writing him another email if I don't hear back in a few more days. I'd sort of like to know what happened to shut him up. I'm honesty curious. After all-- HE STARTED IT!

Yeah. Between not hearing from him (YET), and not hearing (YET) from any of my applied-to libraries, I'm feeling kinda lost in the sea of interweberry. There's this book of poems that I really loved in middle and high school because the writer echoed so many of my own confused feelings about my life at that point-- the title is something like "Hello World, It's Me- Margaret." I remember the title being pulled from a poem that discussed that feeling of unwanted invisibility...

Invisibility. I has it.
...Funny, That.

How about Never?

Never eat Gruyere-cheese-stuffed potatoes and asparagus just prior to throwing up. Trust me on this.

Old Hat

No shigt, there I was...
Driving home from a busy day in someone else's office. And on the way, there is the one intersection with no left turn lane, and a lot of traffic. Frustrating for everyone, I'm sure. And of course, I wanted to turn left. So I waited through one whole green light with no break in oncoming traffic-- good thing I didn't pull too far out into the intersection, because I was STUCK! And by the time the green light came around again, there were a variety of determined drivers behind me. So I pulled a little way into the intersection.

And if the guy in the blue ford right behind me hadn't been riding my bumper so close he probably couldn't even SEE my turn signal, there would have been plenty of space for them all to go AROUND me and keep on straight through that green light. But he was a minor idiot in a sea of fools at that particular moment, at that particular intersection.

And then suddenly, I SAW IT! An oncoming car lagging a bit behind the rest, with *ITS* left turn signal on, TOO! So I inched a little farther forward, and got ready to hit the gas so I could get through the darn light while it was still green-- when he made HIS left turn in front of ME! But... then I hesitated. And I'll tell you why.

I've had more than one person's share of car accidents in my lifetime, and I'm just not that old yet! And... the guy in that car with it's little left turn signal on was...

AN OLD MAN IN A HAT!!!
WITH HIS MOUTH OPEN, AND HIS LITTLE SWEET BLUE-HAIRED WIFE IN THE PASSENGER SEAT, GAZING BLINDLY OUT THE SIDE WINDOW.

So I hit my brakes, and hoped the guy in the blue ford behind me didn't just run my little grey car over and be done with it... and there... there, on the other side, away from everybody else on the other side, just where he'd have to start seriously turning, in the middle of the intersection, he realized that his turn light was on, and slowly reached around the steering wheel with his left hand, and turned it off...

And if I'd assumed that he was turning (since you know, his TURN SIGNAL was on, and he'd SLOWED DOWN WHEN ENTERING THE INTERSECTION), I'd have been the author of yet another totalled car wreck. Because that old man in that hat was going to go straight THE WHOLE TIME!!!

And that, children, is why we ignore the rude drivers behind us, and concentrate on the possibility that the guy in the oncoming lane is an idiot. Just in case. And I'm sure he was a very NICE idiot, but I'm even more sure that I really didn't want to go through another car accident. Oh, and by the way, about three cars later, there was a nice big opening, and I turned, and all the cars behind me DID make it through the poorly designed intersection before the light turned red again. Even the guy at the end of the line of cars behind me, who was ALSO planning to make a left turn.

The End.

Soggy

Whatever else is or is not going on, I usually manage to keep busy. Martha Stewart busy. Like, I've got so many irons in the fire that there doesn't seem to be any room left for the logs. That kind of busy. So right now, even though I'm basically unemployed and tending toward barely contained panic about the fact that I STILL HAVE NOT RECEIVED JOB OFFERS (or even second round interviews) from any university libraries-- AND I TURNED DOWN THE ONE JOB OFFER I DID GET (because it wasn't a university library)... I'm not really finding any of what I'd call "free time" to apply for any MORE jobs. This is a problem.

So I quit my short-term "help someone out and get paid, but don't have to take it too seriously" job because it was taking over three days a week and Sundays. And I bid my local library a fond adieu for a few weeks because I was with them on the other two days of the week. I had a week left of those commitments (I like to give plenty of warning)... when my friend's life took a left turn, and she suddenly needed some serious levels of support. And I'm really glad I have the time to give it-- I just wish I wasn't stumbling around so much in the process. I feel like I'm taking more of her time, and offering no relief except moral support or something... but maybe I'll get more efficient, and maybe that's all she needed from me in the first place.

Hold on, my cat is trying to knock over the lamp again...

And I'm going to have this booth at this festival-- THIS WEEKEND... which has taken more time to prepare for than I'd realized, and which I'm really excited about... but it still takes time. And my dad's birthday was this month, so I went and visited my folks for a few days-- which was fun, and I rediscovered the joys of making baskets with my mom and all... but no jobs were applied for in the process. Maybe I just need to win the lottery so I can continue to go from friend to friend and from place to place, sewing good intentions and running the occasional helpful errand... and still be able to pay off my credit cards from college.

Or, maybe I just need to shore up my patience and my hopeful outlook once again, and MAKE TIME to apply for more library jobs in the near future. Maybe I should just grab my calendar right now, and budget one day a week as "Get-R-Done Day"... hang on, my calendar is in the other room...

Well, "other room" is a relative term. I'm lucky to have the space I have, and it's pleasant enough, though I miss having access to direct sunlight... it's just that I've probably got less than 300sf of living space here, and most of it is filled with someone else's things. And after a while, one begins to miss having a space that is truly "her own." And yet, if I didn't have this space, I'd be in real trouble. And I love the people who have lent it to me. I know they miss having the use of the space I currently occupy, and they went out of their way to make it usable while I'm here. It's a common situation, I think, to experience multiple emotions relating to a single reality-- and to be slightly overwhelmed by the complexity of feeling that such a simple event can spark. Another great example would have been the evening I was offered the public library job, and I turned it down.

Sometimes, I still wonder if I did the right thing. If I'd accepted, I'd be employed right now. And it was a good situation, with lots of opportunities for training, innovation, and outreach. The very things I want to be doing. Instead, I chose to bet that an even better fit was waiting for me, just around the corner. That I'd have other opportunities with situations that better fit my personal desires at this point. And so I wait. And wonder if my lack of confidence feeds my lack of realization of those desires, or if the lack of action on the "better job search front" feeds my flagging confidence in my previous choice.

I see the economy nosing down, I see that in a year or a few years, anyone who is still employed will be lucky, and that our nation will have to go through some truly painful changes in order to survive at all... and I wonder if I just threw away my best bet at a secure future. But I also think that universities and colleges are more likely to continue having funding than public libraries, and there is a spark inside me that refuses to be snuffed by circumstance. If I look closely enough at that little flame, I know that I do believe I'll get a good job offer, and that I'll make it through. That I'll eventually look back and realize that this was another opportunity-- a gift from the universe to further my learning and deepen my connection with both suffering and with joy. But right now, I feel soggy.

That sensation of being damp down to my underwear, cold, uncomfortable, and unrealized. Well, I guess that means its the perfect time for a hot shower, a hairdryer, and a project to complete before dinner. I never realized before how much my enjoyment of dancing in the rain depended on the sure knowledge that I had a warm home, a hot & healthy meal, and a change of clothes waiting for me at the end of the journey.