In which I drop by briefly on my way to a gig.
The co-op finally emailed Friday afternoon: they thanked me but declined, deciding instead to hire from within.
I am having a full-on romance, complete with poetry and chocolates and necking and stuff. It’s awesome. We’re apart this weekend, though, because we’re both gigging in different towns.
The only work interest I’ve gotten appears to be a recruiter for a 3rd tier support gig. The pay sounds too high to be legit, though, so I suspect it’s crap.
Windows Update killed my netbook; a system restore seems to have solved the problem.
Played the Parkade in Kennewick last night; fun little bar. Tonight we’re at Dax’s in Richland.
Oh, I really need to be in the shower about five minutes ago! Ciao!
In which there’s no new job, but there is a new beau.
The co-op hasn’t called.
My last contact with them was on January 19th; it’s been nearly three weeks. If they were going to hire me, they’d have done so by now.
I’ve been applying for three jobs every week just like I’m supposed to, and I haven’t even gotten a call back. The most encouragement I’ve gotten is the occasional automated “Thank you for your interest” email.
There’s no work in my industry. I’m either going to have to get a secretarial job or move away. Period.
There is some work in the Tricities, but I am not driving two hours a day for work; I utterly and unashamedly lack the commute gene. I’m not interested in moving to the Tricities, either, because the whole point of living around here is family and free rent while I finish paying off my debt settlement program. Living in Pasco would be not only silly, but counter-productive.
I don’t want a bookkeeping job, I don’t want to make nine bucks an hour, and I literally have no office-appropriate clothes. None.
So, yeah: this is beginning to suck.
~+~+~
But then there’s the bass player. (He’s actually more of a guitar player/songwriter, apparently, but I usually see him playing bass.) He’s six feet and change, has long black hair, and wears an AC/DC hat most of the time. I can’t remember how to spell the name of his tribe, but he’s Native (yes, this means virtually no body hair!) and he’s more or less from Alaska though he hasn’t been there in years.
I’ve known him socially for a couple of years, sat in with his band a few times. His number’s been in my phone for the past year; he texts when they’re playing somewhere.
Not too long ago we started texting each other a lot. I don’t remember why; it just happened. Thank yous, jokes, anything-happening-tonight questions, that sort of thing. Then I went to one of his gigs with Curt & Shelley, and he and I talked between sets. Then there was more texting, and a week or two later we ended up in the same room and started talking again. We went to the Green; he kissed me apropos of nothing. Then there was an after hours and he caught a ride with me in the truck…
In the past six days, we’ve spent about seventeen hours making out while parked in his driveway. (For various reasons neither of us can bring people home, so we’re just parking like teenagers.) It’s been epic and awesome and consuming and fantastic, and since I’ve been so busy staying up all night and sleeping all day I’ve been in total denial about the fact that the co-op hasn’t been calling. Yay!
The other morning, moments before dawn, we unclinched to smoke. The windows were fogged. My Zippo wouldn’t light. His Zippos wouldn’t light, and neither would the Bic until we opened a window. Suddenly they all worked. (I have no idea why we had five lighters between us, but it made for excellent testing.) Science! I’m still trying to determine why, if there wasn’t enough oxygen to light a lighter, I didn’t just go ahead and pass out. Maybe it was a pressure or humidity thing? Either way, it was profoundly amusing at the time. “We broke fire! The entire concept of fire, we’ve BROKEN it! NO ONE MAKES OUT LIKE WE DO!”
He explained about his last breakup. I explained that I just don’t want anybody to want anything from me. He said he wasn’t even remotely interested in meeting anybody. I told him I wanted a relationship like I want an ice pick in my eye socket. He told me how his relationships end. I told him how mine end. He squinted at me and asked me if I was going to dump him. I squinted back and said I had no way of knowing that. He hugged me and told me that he’d teach me to play Russian backgammon. I said Russian backgammon could very easily be the secret to longevity.
He introduced me to most of his friends and the entire Feedback entourage. I told my friends about him. He came to my gig last Saturday. I met his mom. We’ve been holding hands in public.
Which means I have a fucking BOYFRIEND, people. Me. The one who totally did not want a boyfriend? Yeah.
I’d probably be pissed off about it if it weren’t so freakin’ awesome.
In which I share a brief list of my recent activities.
Sunday night I set my alarm for 8 o’clock because I believe that I need to start getting my sleep cycle back to normal grown-up hours. Monday I got up at 8:30, which is much better than 2 o’clock, and drank a very large cup of coffee to keep myself that way.
With all that daylight I accomplished bathing, walking, visiting the post office, returning social phone calls, and filing my taxes. I read the NYT, finished a book, and started two more.
I bought tofu at the store and made an awesome Japanese curry and ate it over noodles, then I did the dishes.
I installed Python 2.6 and IDLE and worked through several pages of an online Python tutorial.
In the evening, The Three Js blew up my phone with texts so I caved to peer pressure and went and played Wii bowling with them at the PnE (Jules has decided we must henceforth call it “the Peony”). My Wii bowling is exactly like my IRL bowling, which is sort of disturbing, really.
The Three J’s took off around eleven and I ended up hanging out with some musicians I know. We went to The Green, and then to three different after-hours parties (only one of which existed), and after that, well, I may have unexpectedly spent three entire hours making out while parked in a driveway like a sixteen-year-old and not gotten home until dawn. Oops.
It was freakin’ awesome, btw.
I slept from 7 until about noon. I’m so tired my brain is literally buzzing.
There may or may not be a dinner party with The Three Js this evening. If not, there’s a birthday party at the PnE, or I might just pass out, except I really want to be on a normal schedule.
Unemployment is kicking my arse.
In which publishers and sellers alike seem to be on the verge of losing their minds.
First off, let me just say that I’ve been reading ebooks since 1994. They’re not new. This whole ebook thing has been coming for a long, long time, and I can’t figure out why the big book publishers can’t figure out how to monetize ebooks without acting like morons.
Second off, I’ve been buying ebooks for a long time too, and I’ve read a lot of ebooks on a lot of platforms. Those are my creds as an ebook reader, so I kinda know what I’m talking about here, from a customer’s point of view. Seriously, I only know one person who has been reading ebooks as long as I have (this means you, NLW).
Third off, what the fuck is going on over at Amazon? They’ve pulled literally every Macmillan title due to some kind of “pricing dispute.” Apparently, Macmillan, after learning that the Apple ebook store will let them charge more than $9.99 per title, has decided that Amazon should do the same. Since Amazon sells virtually all of its ebooks at the $9.99 pricepoint, they pulled the Macmillan titles! (My beloved Tor is a Macmillan imprint, BTW.) It’s a freakin’ mess, and you know who’s getting hurt?
The authors. Because their BOOKS AREN’T SELLING.
A lot of treeware publishers are doing a terrible job embracing the ebook format. They’re running around carrying on about DRM and sounding like idiot RIAA executives from the 90’s. It’s a mess. They should all go read Eric Flint’s brilliant argument for loss leaders and against DRM, written a decade ago, posted at the Baen Free Library.
Here are some truths:
1. DRM DOES NOT PROTECT YOUR CONTENT! EVER!
2. PIRACY IS NOT THAT BIG OF A GODDAMNED PROBLEM!
3. THE BIGGEST PROBLEM FOR AUTHORS IS EXPOSURE!
1. I have never given anyone an ebook that I have purchased. NEVER. Not once. (Well, maybe once or twice, but if so I don’t remember it.) But if I wanted to give someone an ebook, the file format wouldn’t matter – any secure format can be broken. Back when the iTunes store was still selling music with DRM, all you had to do to break it was burn your songs to disc and then rip them back into your library! Duh! I have software on my computer right now that will break DRM on music, video, and certain ebook formats. Why? Because sometimes I want to use my content on hardware other than the hardware the seller wants me to use it on. Since I PAID FOR IT, I feel completely fine about breaking the DRM for my own ends, just as I feel fine tearing a blank page out of a treeware book to write a note on.
2. I’ve read absurd projections by some publishers; they claim they would lose a huge amount of money if they distributed new book releases in non-secure ebook format. WTF, over? They sound just like the record companies. I can’t believe these people didn’t pay attention to electronic formats in the music industry! Where the hell were they? Yes, some content gets pirated, but so what? It’s free advertisement! A truly heartening percentage of the ebook reading public is made up of moral people who will, if they can, pay for things they’ve enjoyed. Piracy does not “lose” you money. You can’t lose money you never had in the first place.
3. And, as they say so well over at Baen, loss leaders WORK. If you have a trilogy, give the first book away for free in ebook format. It’s cheap because all you have to do is format it once and host it; there are no manufacturing costs involved. You’ll find (if the book doesn’t suck) that the entire trilogy’s sales will increase: win/win for publisher and author.
Hey big publishers, the electronics are coming! You gotta get ready! It used to be a sub-market of weirdos like me with rare hardware, but now we’ve got the Kindle and the iPad and by the end of this decade the ebook format is going to be ubiquitous. You need to figure this out tout de suite. You are going to have to embrace the ebook format. You are going to have to take a smaller cut on electronic books, and you are going to have to change your product release cycle to quit holding ebook versions for ten months and then overcharging for them.
We, your audience, know perfectly well that the cost of producing a treeware book is SIGNIFICANTLY LARGER than the cost of releasing an ebook, and it pisses us off when you set ebook price points at hardcover levels. (I didn’t buy the a particular Guy Gavriel Kay book for over five years because it was nearly thirty bucks. THIRTY BUCKS FOR AN EBOOK? I waited until it came down to proper ebook range before I bought it.) It also pisses us off when we learn that between you and the ebook vendor, authors are making pennies off of ebooks – that’s why we buy them, when we can, directly from the author’s website, or from ebook sellers who are known to pay higher percentages.
With the paper, printing, and shipping out of the equation, all a publisher does is select, edit, and promote. That pretty much makes you an agent, which lowers your take pretty significantly. Which is okay, because the book market is huge. Readers tend to read a lot, and ebook readers will continue to make it easier and easier to read (and buy) a lot of content.
You have got to change.
Please, do it more gracefully than the music industry did, mmm’kay? You need to get ebooks to market alongside the treeware versions, and yes, you have to charge less for them. You have to select industry-standard formats; don’t bring yet another format to the table because there are already dozens. Forget about stupid DRM, too, because it DOESN’T DO ANYTHING BUT ANNOY EVERYONE. Design and implement appropriate sales tracking, so that you can see for yourself that ebooks can actually increase treeware sales. (Look at Cory Doctorow! He releases all his books in ebook format… for free! And he’s a success. Go figure!)
Believe me. This doesn’t have to be scary, and you don’t have to look stupid. Mellow out, there, big fellas. It’ll be okay.
In which I am the embodiment of laziness.
Okay, so I totally need to upgrade to the latest version of WordPress (like two weeks ago) but I’m TOO LAZY TO GET IT ACCOMPLISHED, which is ineffably lame since I have nothing but time, time, time.
This is what I’ve accomplished this week:
1. I let Skype import my Gmail address book.
2. I knitted half of a hat.
3. Um…
Yeah. In other words, I have accomplished NOTHING. I have not done my laundry, I have not gotten the new wheel on the 10-speed, I have not gone to yoga (I decided I couldn’t really afford it after paying the cell phone bill). I have not finished reading my ICND1 manual, I have not swept the leaves out of the bed of the truck, I have not made plans to go to Portland for Hal’s wake this weekend.
I have not designed a new template for my website, I have not taken the old clothes to Goodwill, I have not gotten the electronics out of the attic. I have not done any sewing, I have not hung out with Lannie, I have not returned the few calls and texts I’ve received from friends.
I have not made enchiladas. I have not gotten my latest DVD from Netflix – the one I’ve had for at least two weeks – into the mail. I have not gone to check my post office box to see if I’ve gotten that second W-2 so I can file my taxes. I have not written the next installment in the Favorite Things series.
I’ve turned into a freakin’ sloth! I have zero motivation! I’m sleeping in until noon and staying up half the night reading crap and watching episodes of 30 Rock! I’ve been drunk twice in the past six days!
None of this is particularly significant, really, but I feel guilty. Like, really guilty. Like I’m-in-high-school-and-I-slept-through-the-bus guilty. When I get a job, I’m going to think back on all this free time WITH WHICH I DID NOTHING and totally hate my own guts.
Today I found this awesome Kindle cover. I want one in the very worst way… but I don’t feel like making one. HOW LAZY IS THAT?
In other news, The Curse™ just arrived (and it’s been a rough month, hormonally), so I’ll be even useless-er over the weekend. If that’s even POSSIBLE.
In which I go on about my ex-husband and how batshit crazy I am.
As y’all know, sometimes I troll my own archives. Today I found this post from May of 2007:
I don’t know what you did last night, but I went to my divorce party.
Wow. I sure was nice about The Ex back then.
Today I’m smokin’ pissed off at the man. How fucking hard would it have been for him to do the very little I asked BEFORE it was too late? Huh? How fucking hard?
Too hard, obviously.
I’d forgotten about his little rally there at the end. What utter crap. Who does that? Who waits until their spouse is all but gone to even start to try to fix things? I literally cried, begging him to help me with some of our shared work, and he never did… until he felt that I was done with him. Then he started doing little things like calling from town to see if I needed him to grab some milk or dog food on his way home, or tossing the clothes into the dryer if I was busy elsewhere, or putting away the dishes.
I worked my ass off, and he told me I was lazy. Then he’d ask me to help him when he decided to do some work, and got pissy when I refused.
I’m damaged goods. I get all weird whenever I meet a male that might decide to hit on me, even though my last relationship was really good. I still can’t stomach the idea of Being In A Relationship. I honestly do believe in my gut that relationships cost more than they’re worth, and that belief is entirely The Ex’s fault. Because of him, I truly believe that when you’re with someone, you owe them things: attention, compassion, patience, access. I can’t even dredge up a concept of sharing that isn’t somehow damaging.
The idea of being required to provide things to someone gives me the shakes. I don’t even want the benefits of being with someone, because they cost so much. I’d rather not cuddle, thank you, if it means I’m ever required to provide you with anything I don’t want to give.
I tried giving for eight years. I cooked and cleaned and let him overspend and talk me into quitting my own job. I listened to him tell me I was lazy, when he himself spent every night and every weekend on the couch getting stoned. I’m a vegetarian who made steaks and meatloaves because after three years, he decided he didn’t like the way I normally cooked. I washed a million dirty socks, and burned my own fucking garbage because he couldn’t be arsed to do it. I gave up music and theatre and satsang to stay home and garden and cook, but he wanted kudos for “letting” me go see Amma once a year. He routinely slept through parties he’d promised to take me to. I never once got flowers or chocolates, and we’d been living together for seven years the first time he ever cleaned his own nasty fucking toilet.
No, he never cheated and he was never violent and he always checked in so I’d know where he was. But I ended up with thousands of dollars worth of bills, I can’t open a checking account, and I freak out whenever guys act interested in me because I think they might want something.
The Ex gave me his word that he’d pay the Cingular bill and never has. The Ex swore he’d send me my Brownie camera TWO YEARS AGO and still hasn’t done it. Who in the holy fuck acts like that?
And more importantly, what the hell was wrong with me that I decided to marry someone like that? Was I really that smitten with having finally been asked to marry? What the hell was wrong with me? And what the hell was wrong with my friends at the time? Why didn’t anybody say anything? Like, “Hey, Mush, that guy is an addict and he doesn’t work very much. Historically he prefers to fuck off and party.”
I’m mad. I’m really mad. I’m pissed off at the all the times I got my feelings hurt and all the times I bit my tongue and all the times I took the high road. I’m pissed off that he had the audacity to be hurt when I dumped his useless ass. I’m pissed off that he still has not done the few small, trivial things he said he’d do since we split. I’m pissed off that I still have to sign credit card slips with his stupid last name.
I’m pissed off that I put so much time and energy into the marriage only to end up with nothing. I’m pissed about the few pieces of furniture I liked that I abandoned out at the farm because I had no where to put them. I’m pissed about the two leather coats that were covered in mold and utterly beyond recovery when I went back to get them. (Dehumidifier, you stupid dolt? Heard of them? WHO LIVES IN A HOUSE WITH ROTTING CLOTHES IN THE CLOSETS?!) I’m pissed about all the money I’m paying out on bills that are in my name because he had no credit and I’m pissed that he’s never even offered to help pay off these bills. I’m pissed off that (according to the grapevine) he works very little, and isn’t even paying his lousy property tax so I couldn’t even get money out of him if I wanted to.
I’m pissed that he’s lazy and selfish and that he hurt me, and I’m pissed that I’m still pissed. It’s been nearly four years, and I’m still angry.
I can’t even remember what his voice sounds like, so it’s not about him. I’m just pissed that I’m pissed.
In which I recap yesterday’s interview at the co-op.
Usually when I walk out of an interview, especially a third interview, I know if I’m going to get the job or not.
This time I have no idea.
I got a business very-casual vibe the first time I interviewed for this job, plus I’m a geek interviewing for a geek job, so yesterday I went wearing a long sleeved brown sweater and gray pants and my closed-toed Birks. I had make-up and jewelry on, but I certainly wasn’t wearing slacks and pumps. I had gotten my nails done so they were short and had a simple French tip this time: not the gold-and-red thing I’d tried the last time and which had turned out looking pretty fugly.
I arrived early and was asked to wait in the lobby. A few minutes later, my interviewers – the HR chick and the head of the Internet department – called me back to the little conference room we’d used before, and we all sat in the same chairs we used last time.
She was dressed a little more business-y than she had been before and was wearing a skirt and heels. He was wearing standard tech-who-deals-with-customers clothes: jeans and a button-down with the company logo.
There were no new questions; they repeated the same stuff from the first interview. Do I have a valid driver’s license? Do I understand the job description? Why do I think I would be the right candidate? I learned that they were looking for the right fit, someone who would stay with the company for awhile. I learned that benefits start immediately, that there’s a clothing budget (employees get to pick out shirts at LL Bean, and have the company logo embroidered on), and that reviews are annual every August.
I learned that there’s a pre-employment physical and drug test, that they check with the state every year to verify that one’s driver’s license is still valid (employees drive fleet vehicles), and that – and this surprised me – per the company’s dress code, facial jewelry is not permitted. “Including my nose pin?!” I blurted out. The HR chick nodded. “You’re kidding me.” She shook her head. “Hmm,” I said. “I really don’t like that. I’ve had this thing in my face for practically twenty years.”
The department head is Indian. I doubt he even noticed it.
The job includes driving, network monitoring, and on-call time. “Do you have issues with being on call?” he asked.
“Nope, but I do have a hobby that is very important to me. I’m in a band. I will want to have some Saturday evenings off call so that I can gig.” I explained that I usually knew weeks in advance of those dates, and he seemed to think it would be no problem to shuffle the on-call schedule to accommodate me.
The HR chick stared at my nails again. She did it during the first interview, too, but at the time I figured it was because they were very long and very tacky. This time I couldn’t figure it out. I also felt like a jackass showing up in a plain, brown sweater when she was reading the dress code standard. After she explained about the clothing stipend, I said, “The great thing about uniforms is that you don’t have to decide what to wear in the morning!” She nodded at me and smiled, but I got the impression she didn’t really like me for the job and she especially didn’t approve of the way I looked.
She’s originally from the banking industry, though, while I’m applying at my fifth ISP. The dress standards are different. They just are. It’s a lot of why I work in the Internet industry in the first place: I don’t have to wear arch-dropping shoes, or yeast infection-inducing undergarments, or take out my freakin’ nose pin.
The department head, though, never once spoke of the job duties in the abstract. Instead of saying, “The position will require the applicant to be on call,” for instance, he said, “We’ve decided that you’ll be on call every other week, and [the other guy in the department] and I will rotate the other weeks,” and, “Sometimes he and I will be out adjusting radios, and you’ll be in the office checking signal strength. Or you could be out adjusting the radios, whichever you like best.”
He asked if it would be a problem if they decided to require a CCNA. “Not at all,” I said. “I’m studying for mine now!” Then we spent a few minutes using a bunch of Cisco acronyms. I admitted that I’d been really gung ho to study when I got laid off, but that my discipline was now flagging and being required to sit for the test would probably help me get motivated.
There was some off-topic chatting, some laughter, and we very nearly went over to see “the hut,” where the successful applicant will be working, but didn’t. The interview lasted about forty minutes.
I walked out of there utterly unsure about my chances. I think they like me, and I also think they don’t. I honestly cannot tell.
It sounds like a great job. The work is perfect. I’d get to learn about point-to-point wireless, a delivery modality I know virtually nothing about! The department head seems really easy going. I honestly don’t mind wearing LL Bean shirts with logos on them, and I can easily buy some jeans. (I don’t own any jeans. Can you believe that? It’s like I’m a space alien or something. Who doesn’t own any jeans?)
The nose pin thing is an issue for me, of course, but not a deal breaker. If I fight a mild battle and lose, I can easily take it out… it’s just that there will be a gross and unsightly hole in my face. (My nose pin is Indian, so it’s a huge gauge compared to the tiny little pins most Americans wear.) The Internet department is actually a separate entity for various legal reasons; my nascent theory is that I may be able to find some sort of loophole that lets me keep my jewelry in. I really don’t think nose pins are on par with, say, eyebrow or lip rings, and I also don’t think anyone’s ever gonna see me in the hut. Maybe I could just take it out during truck rolls.
Ugh. I feel like I’m seventeen, dealing with this ridiculous ‘facial jewelry’ issue. I really don’t wanna have to take my fucking nose ring out for work.
But the pay is good, benefits start immediately, and I’d get to learn new stuff. I still have two more companies to pay off before I get out of debt settlement, and I just don’t know that I’m ready to move away yet. Some time working at this co-op would be really great in terms of fattening my resume and getting some certs. It sounds like a dream job (except for the stupid dress code OMGWTFBBQ!!!1! I feel all funny every time I think about it) and though it’s not within walking distance it is close enough that I could ride my bike (if I ever get the new back tire put on it).
Long story short, I don’t know if they’ll make me an offer but I sincerely hope they do.
In which I share with you some of my prized possessions.
Part Three: The Apple coaster
This is a coaster I cut out of a mouse pad:
I worked for a company called Telegroup in Iowa a long time ago. It was an Apple shop, and I ended up with this old school Apple mousepad which I eventually turned into a coaster.
This coaster has been next to my computer for over a decade. I have a mug of tea sitting on it right this very minute.
I have no idea why I’ve kept it this long, except I think it rather adds to my geek cred.
—
In the early 90’s, I deserted my life in Oregon and went to Iowa “for a year.” I left the vast majority of my stuff with my roommate, including but not limited to an antique dining room set and all of my vinyl. But because I stayed in Iowa for five years, I never got any of that stuff back: I went from having a home full of stuff to pretty much being able to carry all my worldly possessions.
In the late 90’s I moved again. I ended up trapped in Albuquerque with no way to transport what little stuff I had, so I threw most of it into a dorm incinerator. When I was done, everything I owned in the entire world amounted to about six boxes of stuff. (I’d left the rest of my stuff back in Fairfield, had given most of it away.)
Two and a half years later, I drove I-80 from San Francisco back to Fairfield. Everything I owned fit in my little Toyota pickup. I’d gotten rid of yet another sofa, set of kitchen implements, and bevy of houseplants, and owned only clothes, a few small items of furniture (a futon and a wooden asana), and other random knickknacks like books, my cat, my computer, my altar, and heirloom items like photographs.
When I arrived back in Iowa, I got an apartment within the month and was immediately given a household full of furniture. Eventually I got married and bought a farm house and ended up with 3,000 square feet worth of stuff. Sewing machine, desk, shelves. Books. Sheets, blankets, towels. Laundry baskets, Windex, bread machine, candles. Dog bowls, recliners, end tables, chrome citrus juicers. Blender, futon, Christmas decorations. Bowling ball, framed prints, entertainment center, flatware.
In 2007, I drove from Fairfield out to Washington state. Everything I owned fit in my jeep. I’d abandoned all my stuff once again.
There are a few items I’ve kept through several downsizing phases, and I’ve decided, since I’m unemployed and have the time, to share them with you.
In which week 5 of my unemployment marks the beginning of the ass kicking.
It’s 4:33 on Friday. It’s been a week since the killer interview, and I haven’t heard anything back. This probably means that they’re not going to hire me.
In order to (legally) receive UI benefits, I must apply for three jobs each week. I ran out of local jobs I’m actually interested in and/or qualified for the week before last. There is literally nothing left in my field in the area for me to apply for.
This week I’m applying for a P/T hardware job installing fans and RAM and crap, and a full time job at Staples selling electronics and installing fans and RAM and crap, and I’ve also applied for something remote in order to fill my quota.
Serves me right, admitting to the universe that I was being passive. Now it’s gonna kick my ass and make me decide what I actually want to be doing.
In which unemployment is beginning to take its toll.
I stayed up well past two, watching Torchwood on Netflix. (I still love you, Ianto!) Then I slept for about twelve hours.
Not straight through, though. I actually woke up at ten and thought about getting up, but I didn’t. I just laid there until I went back to sleep. About three times.
Why? Because I don’t really have anything to do. A girl can only consume so much media, and it hardly seems imperative to get up and watch TV shows or read a book or study when there’s simply no deadline for anything.
There are things I can do, of course. I could get crackin’ on the Clean The Junk Out Of The Attic project (I bagged up an assload of old clothes but have as yet not figured out where to take them, and there’s always the old computer equipment to dispose of) or do laundry or study for my CCNA or meditate or work out or get drunk.
But I don’t have to, so I don’t.
This morning (where ‘morning’ equals late afternoon) I rolled out of bed onto the floor, did some gentle stretching yoga, and listened to some Eastern house (DJ Cheb i Sabbah‘s Krishna Lila, actually) for awhile. Then I went downstairs and had a cardamom latte while I made a batch of black olive hummus. A bit later, my brother came over and he and I nommed some Falafel Madness together while chatting with G’ma.
Now it’s dark again already and I’ve barely finished my coffee. I’d like to do something other than sit around in my (very comfortable, tricked out, OMG I pretty much never have to leave this room) bedroom, but I’m unemployed and feel guilty about spending money on things like cocktails or meals out even though I’m getting unemployment benefits and it’s not like I don’t have any money.
~+~+~
I had an interview on Thursday afternoon. It lasted nearly an hour, the people (cute HR girl and cute geek guy) were great, and I feel perfectly qualified for the position in a rural power co-op’s small Internet division.
The position is a typical ISP mix of support, dispatch, billing, sales, and on-call time. Their delivery modality is wireless, which I don’t know a bunch about but I can certainly learn it. I’d have to climb the occasional ladder and be on the occasional roof, but dispatch time would only be about 20% of the job. The fun stuff like email and web hosting is outsourced, which is a little sad, and I’d have to lose the frivolous manicure in order to make cable and haul equipment, but I’d have actual responsibility and I’d get to learn a whole new technology and its equipment and I think it would be a nearly ideal fit for my experience.
Which doesn’t explain why I’m so utterly freaked about it.
I am, in equal parts, afraid they’ll offer me the job, and afraid they won’t.
I’ve gotten lazy and soft. My last few thousand hours of employment have required me to do little more than show up (and when I was very lucky I got to think real hard for a few minutes). I’ve gotten used to sitting on my ass at a desk. I haven’t been on call or done an actual customer premise dispatch in years. I haven’t put a plug end on a CAT-5 cable for a long time. I mean, although it’s been awhile I’ve done all this stuff and I’m a perfect match for their job description.
I just don’t know if I want it, and that just makes me question the whole inside of my silly head. Why wouldn’t I want a perfect job?
If they don’t offer me the job, I’ll freak that it’s because I’m a girl who showed up for a job she knew entailed actual non-desk work with a crazy manicure (my nails are currently gold with red airbrushed designs on them) or because I’m too old (!!!) to be climbing ladders in rural areas or because I unwittingly fucked up in the interview or because I’m actually not as hireable as I believe I am.
I know the Universe prefers that I decide what I want, but I honestly can’t figure out if I want this job or not. It’s here in Walla Walla (not in Dayton, where the rest of the company is), it’s a small department (which keeps politics to a minimum), I wouldn’t have to do first tier tech support (they outsource that), and I’d get to learn a whole new delivery technology! It’s true I’m not stoked about the sales and billing aspects, but every ISP job I’ve ever had – ten years’ worth – entailed a little of both, it’s just the nature of the beast and it’s hardly onerous. Of course I have some nervousness about having to drive around an area I don’t know, but it’s not like it’s hard to drive somewhere. It’s not like I don’t have GPS on my fucking phone, either, and while I don’t love driving it’s hardly a deal breaker.
I must be being lazy, which tells me I need to get my ass kicked a little, which tells me this job would probably be great for me because I don’t even have it yet and it’s challenging me already. I can’t remember the last time I had a really good brain stretch at work! And autonomy! Responsibility! Root on actual deployed, mission-critical boxen!
I think this is where my weirdness lies: I think I’m having a location crisis. If they offer me the job, I’ll need to commit to a life in Walla Walla. If they don’t, I’ll have to move because I have already applied for literally every single job I’m qualified for around here, and I’ll have to do it doubting my hireability because when you don’t get hired for a job you’re perfectly suited for, you freak out. You just do.
I’ve been weird about living in Walla Walla for awhile now (I intended it to be a temporary move when I came here), but here’s the kicker: I didn’t immediately gear up to leave when I became unemployed. I had daydreams about moving away, but I don’t actually want to live anywhere but right here or New York City. And moving to New York is a non-trivial undertaking: I’d need a bunch of money and a place to land, and what about my dog? I could move to Portland or Seattle, or a few places in California where I have relatives, or even Colorado where there appears to be a lot of tech work, but I don’t really like any of those places. (Not like I like New York.) And I’m actually starting to have a life here, and friends, and the band’s already got some festivals booked for next summer, and c’mon – my rent and utilities are $150 a month. Which, in my tax bracket, is the only reason I get to take such awesome vacations every year.
I think I was expecting that there’d be no work here; that Walla Walla was going to kick me out like it did the last time; that the decision was going to be made for me. I think I thought I was going to lie around collecting unemployment for a few months and then have go somewhere else. The big push! Sort through your shit, make plans, scramble, freak out! Change! Stress! Excitement! And look, I have to do this, I’m reacting – not acting! Nothing’s my fault if it doesn’t turn out! Whee!
But, while I am a total weirdo, at least I’m not dishonest about it: I haven’t taken a single step toward moving away. The only remote job I applied for was in Seattle, and I was terrifically overqualified for it. I was waiting to have to move away. Which must be a case of the grass is always greener, right?
The existence of a job I didn’t expect has broken my brain. Tell me what I dork I am, please, mmm’kay?
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4 random books from my Library!
