The same boat.

So, I've been hanging out at Karma Cafe this week (as evidenced here) working on job-hunting, resume-updating and the like.

I also bought a domain name for my own website, which has no content yet. If you want to see the digital nakedness, it's here. Want to help me with the website? Get in touch with me. I'll welcome the input.

In my attempts to finish the resume today, I hit a formatting hiccup that had me frustrated. I emailed several friends, and one of them was able to help, thank goodness.

Another of my friends wasn't able to solve the issue, but she provided me with the following email exchange, which I found encouraging and enjoyable. Names and some details have been changed or omitted--sometimes anonymity helps.

I feel like I am in the same spot with what you said about goals and passions for my life. So you are truly not alone if that helps at all. 

Someone told me the other day they thought that my life went off course when I went to Seminary.

Now I answer phones.

So trust me, you are not alone and this may be terrible of me but it makes me feel a bit better that although most people cannot really empathize with what I'm feeling; you can.

I think that you need to either write humorist essays (which I have recently decided is my dream career) or host your own radio show. Perhaps both.  I would be a sponsor.


I replied: 

Write me a check, sister. I'll go on the air tomorrow. 

This will be my opening song (on the radio at this very moment, and I feel like the very sound of it--not even the words--is my life right now. A little hopeful, a little urgent, a little desperate, a little driven, a little aimless. 

I included a link to my favorite song of the moment--it's Young the Giant's "Cough Syrup". Pretty much encapsulates things. Enjoy:

 

 In the meantime, I'm accepting donations for my new radio show/first essay collection.

To everything there is a season...

I remarked to a friend several months back that I felt like big changes were on the way in my life, but I didn't know what they would look like. And now I have a slightly better idea.

It's time for me to look for some new opportunities to serve. and for chances to bring my skills into a new position. I'm officially placing myself back on the market, so to speak.


Am I excited? Extremely.
 I don't know what's next, but I believe it will be good.

Am I scared? Absolutely.
Change is scary, period. But I've been reminded lately of something I wrote when I was at the coast--it was in the previous post:



Why settle for a river when the ocean is right next door? 



So this is me, stretching for the ocean. I am ready and open to accept any tips, help, suggestions. I'm happy to share my resume, glad to sit and chat over coffee about what motivates me, or what motivates you.

Expect more updates from this space, but please don't hesitate to reach out to me if you have questions or updates. I'll be here, and I'll be ready.

I have good news!

i am employed. 


For the first time in the past 13 months, I am employed.

And the job is a good one. The interview process started back in April (!), and they extended an offer to me today.

I'm not used to the idea of being employed. I keep forgetting for a moment, and then remembering, "Hey, you know that pit in your stomach over not having a job? You don't need that anymore."

And that pit is well-seated. When I was on the phone with the woman who offered me the job today, before she made the offer, I actually pictured myself getting out of the car and throwing up if I heard a no.

I am out of antacids.

I almost feel like I don't know how to take good news, how not to worry incessantly. The offer is pending the results of the background check, and even though there's nothing in my history, I'm still paranoid. What if they don't like your credit score?, the little voice of negativity in my head says.

But, in less than two weeks, I will be working at a good job. I will have much less time on my hands, and will remain grateful for all those friends and family who supported me over the last 13 months, during many of which I know I was less than a joy to be around.

I don't know what will happen with this blog. Largely because of the interview process, a short "blog vacation" turned long, and I know I won't post as regularly as I have. I can promise one thing: this blog will not become a space for me to complain about my job. I think I'll love it, in fact, but there will always be little things that you wish were different. I won't air dirty laundry or bemoan my employed fate here.

For now, I have to try to develop a normal sleep schedule, and I have to start remembering that words like "weekend" and "weekday" have actual meanings.

Because, hey, I've got a job.

Sangria + Frozen yogurt + the future...

My friend Liz is moving to Chicago in less than a month, and I discovered today that she had never been to Pambiche. Portlanders, if you haven't been here, go. It's a fantastic Cuban restaurant, and literally everything is delicious.

After finishing up at Pambiche, we headed over to Swirl on Hawthorne. We talked, in both places, about a number of things, but I started to tell her that last night I woke up panicked about the prospect that I may not get this super job I so desperately want.

And so we started discussing options. Maybe, as my parents have said, I should go back to school again, and become an LPC (licensed professional counselor). It was something I had in mind for the future, years down the line (after seeing the requirements, I understand why most counselors are older!). But I have seen many, many jobs requiring this or an LMHC (mental health counselor), so maybe it's time.

Maybe, Liz suggested, this is meant to push you to commit to your writing, and do it full time. I have to be honest, the prospect of this filled me... with fear. I love writing, don't get me wrong. And I've mentioned here that when it works, it can make me feel more awake and more alive than almost anything else. But the idea of committing to it and making writing my official career choice, with nothing else behind it, is frightening.

For one, I don't know what kind of writer I would be. Would I freelance, scraping up what I could, at least to start? I have one freelance project now, and that hasn't even finished.

For two, I don't know that I'm actually good. I think that I am, and believe that I am, and I know that people who love me and care about me have said that I am very good. But millions of people in this world are fully supported into doing something they, in fact, cannot do well. Who's to say I'm not one of those millions? I know I'm biased; chances are you are too.

For three, melancholy stretches aside, I'm extroverted and highly distractable. I still don't understand how I began to write in the first place. Even with collaborative projects, writing is a deeply lonely practice. It's shared once it goes , but the actual work of writing requires you, and something to write with. That's it. I don't know if I have that in me.

Maybe you need to go somewhere else, Liz said. And this is when the conversation really got depressing. I love Portland. I love living here, and I feel more at home here than I ever have anywhere else. I feel more at home here than I did when I lived in Ireland, and at the time, I claimed that I would live there forever if I could. I would still go back... I just don't know about forever.

Aside from the job market, Portland has treated me extremely well. I have an excellent community of friends here. The city is accessible and welcoming, in its cynical Portland way. I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be. I'm practically an evangelist for Portland. Maybe that's the problem.

Still, maybe this super job will call me, tell me they loved me, and when can I start? But if they don't, I am certainly at a crossroads. Here's hoping the second half of 2010 will provide more answers than the first.

Yesterday, I failed.

Technically.

I didn't post, for the first time (technically) in 2010 Blogathon history. And you know what? I'm a tiny bit bummed, but I'm mostly ok with it. Because yesterday was nuts, but in a good way.

I had a second-round job interview with a local(ish) company that shall for now go unnamed. This company is amazing--employees have a great energy, the work they're doing is important, and the office has nice views. Different levels of importance, to be sure, but all reasons why I want to work for this company.

I sat down with several people in the course of the interview, and each time, made no small thing of saying, "I want this job, specifically, passionately, this job, I want it."

We'll see if that worked. I felt good about the interview.

I've applied for a LOT of jobs over the past year. I've tried to apply mostly at organizations and companies where I have connected in some way with the work they're doing, but there have also been a fair amount of "Yes, I can run your front desk" kind of applications.

Want to know what the funny thing is? Every single time I have gotten called in for an interview, it has been for a position with an organization I'm passionate about, and usually, in some sense, I'm already invested in the type of work they do or the community they work with. Every time. So much for worrying about taking the wrong job, huh?

So, yes, I need a job. But I really, really want this one. Watch this space for updates.

"Maybe you should have a beer beforehand."

Here's a two-part confession: I am terrible at doing a whole lot of stuff. This probably doesn't surprise anyone. Everybody's terrible at something. I know people who are terrible at being musical, people who are terrible at performing household repairs, people who are terrible at being even slightly normal around other humans.

I'm really terrible at lots of things, but one thing I'm especially bad at is self-promotion. It might seem counterintuitive, being that I have this blog and all. A friend told me the other day that blogs are largely narcissistic, which sort of made the compliments on my talents as a blogger from others sting in retrospect. And while I see my friend's point, I am choosing to disagree, for my own sake. I don't think he was talking about this blog specifically, but more the ugly view of blogger culture, the idea that simple people sitting at home can decide that people are expectantly for the next morsel of brilliance that will fall from their table.

One of the things that I'm discovering in new ways consistently is that (confession part two) I'm really very good at a lot of things. It doesn't even have to do with talent--there are just some things I can do very well. This is hard for me to admit, because I am used to downplaying things so much. It's hardly as if I am positioning myself as a wallflower, seldom seen and never heard. But I don't talk about my skills or abilities as anything unique.

This came into sharp focus last night, when a friend offered to go over my resume (two friends, actually). Having read my resume, my friend then asked me to talk about each position listed. And in each case, what I spoke was more detailed and more impactful than what I had listed and sent out to who even knows how many employers.

Obviously, you can't ramble on aimlessly on a resume, and so I am in the process of trying to rework our discussion last night into some kind of appropriate and proactive language. But here's the ridiculous part: sitting in this coffeeshop, when I retype lines on the resume with this new, stronger language, I can actually feel myself blushing as I type. That's pretty bad, right? I mean, wow.

I don't really know how to break out of this. I'm a pretty bold and confident woman in person, and even in my writing. But this whole idea of trying to tell someone, "Your organization needs me, and here's why," makes me feel like I have been dropped into a foreign country without so much as a name.

On the other hand, writing rarely makes me blush. It has at times, but not often. That might mean, as some have said, that I'm not being honest enough. But I don't feel that this blog is narcissistic, and I hope it never becomes anything close. I hope that it's clear that I'm just trying to figure things out the best I know how, and the best way I know how is by writing. I hope it's clear that writing make me feel more awake and somehow lighter, even when the topic is heavy. And I know that I'm no good in isolation. Too much time on my own just makes me smaller and more confused.

But I know people manage this every day. They present themselves as the talented, useful, amazing people that they are, they stay honest, and no one looks at them and thinks that they live on some kind of pedestal. So how do you all do it? What works for you? Psyching yourself out in the mirror? Pretending that you're Rocky going into a fight? Managing somehow, without blushing or cracking a smile, to tell someone their house is on fire and you're the only one with water? Please share, really. I'm interested.

"Your hands! They're like biscuits with sticks jammed in 'em!"

I haven't posted in over a week (Apologies, as I'm sure you are all sitting around waiting for me). It's been a strange week or so; I've been intermittently grumpy, and who wants to read the grumblings of a grumpy me? I don't even want to write them.

That doesn't mean the week was terrible--there were plenty of good times, lots of friends, and countless things I wish I had written down but didn't. So, here's a couple highlights, if they can be called that:

Ben came and hung out this weekend, and we were at Powell's at Hawthorne, and I was searching for a book (there's a story there, but first...). Ben was talking to me, and this guy came up behind him, trying to go down the aisle. He was probably in his early 20's. But here's the thing. The guy was wearing a bowler hat. Like a proper, It's-1901-and-it's-time-to-hitch-my-horse-in-town-or-whatever-guys-in-bowler-hats-did-back-then hat. And then, when Ben moved aside to let him pass, the guy gave us the tiniest of bows, complete with one of those weird rolly-hand waves, and said, "Pardon me," in a voice that I honestly couldn't tell if it was silly, or just his normal voice.

It was my favorite moment of that day.

Here's the thing about the books: Eric's books hate me. I think they've all talked to one another, and signed a suicide pact. If they get sent to my house, they know the kamikaze mission is on. Last summer, I sent him a text that said, "I have to buy you a new copy of Cloud Atlas because I just smashed a bug in it."

Seriously. I was minding my own business, reading, and a GIANT bug of unknown origin landed on the page. I shrieked, slammed the book shut, and then...blech. Bug guts all over the page, luckily on a paragraph I had finished. So I own that copy now, and I'm pretty sure there's still some kind of brown spot somewhere around the middle.

I don't think these things happen to normal people. Case in point, the death wish that had me in Powell's in the first place:

I've been reading his copy of Love in the Time of Cholera. The other day. I set the book down on my bed, and when I sat down, I bumped it, and it fell. Could have happened to anyone, except that this book is clearly part of the suicidal insurgency. So rather than falling gracefully to the floor, it tumbled partway, and then allowed pages 41-51 (and only those pages. I smell a plot afoot) to catch on my bedframe, ripping them three-quarters of the way down the page. I am pretty sure I said, "You're kidding me," out loud. So that copy's mine now. Eric gets a new one.

I'll probably, hopefully be blogging more regularly from here on out. At the moment, I have had too much coffee, and it's making me jittery and I kind of feel like my brain is clicking too fast. Please tell me someone else has felt that way. :)

And before I go, a friend of a friend saw these restroom signs in Vermont. I think they should be universal:

and then...

Let's try this.

Fair warning to anyone who stumbles upon this one: I haven't slept, and so when my brain is less sleep deprived, I may think wiser of it & take it down, but for now...

I haven't slept because I don't have a job & it's really stressing me out right now. So, I thought, even though (I think) everyone knows I am looking for something, let's see what a reminder might do. And for the record, many of you have been very helpful & have given me a lot of good suggestions. However, given the fact that I have a disability, I have to narrow my job search considerably. I cannot do any type of work that requires that I handle:

• food.
• live animals.
• infants or small children.
• any people who may become either violent or physically unsteady (so nothing where I may potentially be required to wrestle someone to the ground or hold someone up.).

This might seem like I'm kidding around, but virtually every job that has been suggested to me so far has included one of those four categories. And I understand, it's what's out there right now.

What I need is a desk, somewhere in the Portland Metro Area. Does anyone know of such a thing? A job in a ten-mile radius that has a desk? It doesn't seem like it should be hard to find, but I sure don't seem to be having any luck. I figure this can't hurt.

"Jeanie? Jeanie! JEANIE!"

I've had another couple lovely days...Molly threw a toga party in honor of her birthday Saturday night. Because I was driving, and I am "responsible", I had one beer and nothing else, and if life has taught any of us anything at all, it's that being the only sober person at a drunken party can either be the sixth layer of hell (or so), or it can be fantastic. I chose fantastic.

This morning, I went with Eric to Screen Door for breakfast, and I wish I had thought to take a picture of it, because it was, if nothing else, imposing. Goaded by someone else's Facebook bragging, I decided I needed to try the chicken and waffles, which is apparently their breakfast signature.

What I GOT was a giant sweet potato waffle with four huge pieces of chicken-fried chicken piled on top. The whole thing was held together by a giant knife. Yeah, that's right. And you know what? My body probably hates me, but it was so delicious. Most of it is in my fridge right now, which means tomorrow is destined for equal deliciousness.

Today was also the big relaunch of Emmaus church, and I have never seen that many people in that building on a Sunday night. The message was great (and will be posted here tomorrow for those of you who are interested), the mood was great, and my parents finally got to come down and see what the church was about, which meant a lot for me.

Tomorrow is another launch into the finding-a-job foray. To be perfectly honest, I kind of gave up last week, and am really hoping to knock out some good work starting tomorrow. In the morning I'll see if the house or the coffeeshop is the best place to do that. If I can manage to not have an interruption of someone wonderful (which of course, I always welcome) maybe I can actually do myself some good. As always, prayers, positive thoughts, tips, and good words with YOUR boss are always appreciated. :)

Before I go, I have to share this, courtesy of the Willamette Week, and spotted by Beth, under "Musicians Available":

"Crappy bass seeks crappy band to play crappy music for skanky ho's...Serious about improving, having a good time."

So, who wants to hire Jeremy? Oh, Portland, I love you.

"I like the one with the flat hair. He's my favorite."

My lofty goal of posting once per day kind of fell off this weekend, and since I know you were all sitting on pins and needles, I apologize. I do hope you all had a lovely long weekend.

Laura came for a visit Saturday, and breakfast (at 11:30 am) with her at Utopia Cafe was lovely and wonderful. She was one of my best friends at the seminary, and when she graduated, I had no idea when I would see her again. What a blessing! Add to that the fact that I get to see fellow graduates Beth and Gabriele in the next two weeks, and you have yourself a seminary girl party. And trust me, it doesn't sound like it, but they are the best ones...

Sunday I got to see Laura one more time before she left, when I met up with her and (yet another) fellow grad Crystal at Cooper's. Crystal and the owners are buddies, and so we got a tour of the new bakery space in the basement. They were making individual quiches that looked delicious.

Sunday was also the first time Emmaus Church gathered for a service in a long time. Our official relaunch isn't until this Sunday (and the beginning of the series "Jesus Hates Religion and You Should, Too"), but it was really good to see everyone together again. I am honestly stoked for next Sunday.

Tomorrow, aside from meeting with some of the Emmaus girls in the morning, the plan is to re-attack the job market, hopefully with a renewed energy. My parents had a barbecue tonight with me and some family friends, and of course everyone had some advice... at this point I really am trying to explore every avenue, but it's frustrating when people are offering advice that you really don't think will work, but there's no way (and honestly no need) to tell them so.

So, the job hunt once again. Prayers, positive thoughts, a good word to your friendly neighborhood employer will all be deeply appreciated. I'll do my best to be here tomorrow night again.

Unfashionably late

So, as usual, I am hopping onto a train long after everyone else has boarded, and half the travelers have disembarked. But the idea of starting a proper blog gripped me the other night, somewhere around 2 a.m., and it has been dancing around the back of my brain ever since.

On one hand, there's no reason for me to start a blog. My life is in a place of utter uncertainty right now. I am broke, I don't have a job, don't have a significant other to wax lyrical about, and am living in a house with several other women who I barely know. This may not be grounds for the most captivating of stories.

On the other hand, there's nothing keeping me from starting a blog, either. Eventually, yes, a job will be found, I will not be quite as broke, and I may even bond with my housemates and discover some amazing man worth rambling giddily about. And those things may change the nature of my time and my availability. But I figure that leaves me with two options. I can wait for those things all to happen, for my life to finally fall into place, or I can write about them as they happen, choosing to see the day-to-day as my current adventure rather than my present misfortune.

I might even hide this--I tend to claim to want to write and claim to be full of things to say, but when push comes to shove, I hide my work away. More often than not, I run away from the work itself.

So maybe this is an attempt to stop running. That might be too lofty... the truth may be that job hunting is demoralizing and exhausting and I would like something that makes me look busy instead. Both things are probably true.

I don't know who will read this other than me, but that's not important yet. Still, if you did read it, hi and welcome. I can't promise what kind of adventure this will be. I can only promise that it will be one.