i hate waiting.

yesterday i got an email from a company that i had sent my resume to roughly a week ago.

i cannot express how ecstatic i was just getting a callback after the last year. there has been so little interest in hiring people across the industry. it doesn't seem to matter where i was looking for work. everything and everyone was waiting and holding their breath.

the couple jobs i have been able to pick up over the last 14-months have been due to having a friend championing me. i have been both believing in and counting on my network of professional associates and friends to help me through.

when i got the email yesterday, it was a lift i hadn't expected. someone was actually looking at my resume and interested in what they saw, rather than my network putting me in their sights. considering i hadn't really had any interest in the last four or five months i'm surprised i didn't start turning cartwheels.

i responded to the email and now we wait. and wait. and wait.

...

I'm sitting in the living room trying to read and my daugter decided to join me.

This weekend she has a stuffy nose. I think she is coming down with what L had last week.

She brought one new book to read and Through the Looking Glass to ask me a question about.

Once the question was answered she began to read, aloud, the Jabberwalky. This was rather funny the poem is filled with so many unusual words anyway and then N is talking all muffled and nasally.

If you are looking for a little amusement grab a copy of Through the Looking Glass and read this poem while holding your nose, I dare you...


- s.

We are trying to be of a more healthy mindset. L and I are attemping to workout. And as a family we are trying to cook things that are healthier and of more appropriate serving sizes. As we started laying out our plans for this renaissance of food our daughter nearly revolted. She heard that we needed to reduce our pasta-intake and immediately voted to seccede from our little family.

A short discussion led to an agreement that we would still try to include pasta once a week.

Last night N stepped up and cooked, filling in our pasta for the week. She made rigatoni in gorgonzola sauce with vegetables. It was wonderful. But then again I think anything with gorgonzola is wonderful.

I'm thinking that if I can get N to cook like that once a week we will be able to not only cover our one pasta with a very tasty version, but I'll have to cook one less thing a week!

over the past year, as i've been looking for a job and trying to figure out what to do with my very expensive yet useless degree, i've also been trying to find something that would be enjoyable and take into account the knowledge and skills i've accumulated from school and work and life.

i don't think i will find a new career in this search, but i am trying to recapture something of the enjoyment that creation used to bring me. my loving wife has been very supportive in this. we have talked about getting back to painting, or perhaps drawing, i've tried to set aside time on my potting-wheel and i scribble ideas for furniture when they come to me.

this last fall, i found a book that excited me. the content was neither here nor there, but the book itself got me thinking. they unusual manner in which it was bound got me thinking about how books are bound. in school i had made a couple small sketch pads. they are laying around still if i were to look for them.

when i started talking about book binding, L was immediately on board. and then i got a job for a while. working kind of put a damper on doing anything. i sketched a bit, but there wasn't the ability to keep my supplies for anything else with me.

for christmas, as a kick-in-the-ass my wife very lovingly gifted a paper-folder and starter silk-screening kit to me. i'm taking the hint and as i'm looking for work, i've started looking at pottery and book-binding again. both are very tactile endeavors. just touching paper, with the intent of creating something from it, has me a little excited.

today L and i went on an adventure looking for paper. trying to find the type of paper that would make an exquisite journal or sketchpad. nothing has jumped out at me, but then there aren't many paper stores in the immediate vicinity.

i bought some watercolor paper to make into something. we'll have to see what comes out of this.

Not so good at keeping this blog. How many times I've said that, I don't know. I suppose I am not the only one that says such things. I was reminded that I even have this blog the other day when I had to pay for it's address.

Today my wife began documenting resolutions. And though I am not really given to resolutions I feel I might need to resolve a few things in my life, or would that be, become resolute in a few things. Either way I too will succumb to the pressure and resolve, among other things of less clear nature, to blog more faithfully.

I'm a very faithful man. I don't see why if it is so easy to be faithful to my wife, I cannot seem to be faithful in blogging or other such habits.

- s.

don't overreact. i'm still kicking it as a consultant. there is not, at the moment, something happening.

however, i have realized over the last three months that this life is not for me. i want to work near where i live and sleep in the same bed as my wife. so i am breaking out the resumé and dusting it off. well, i'm intending to. the act itself is something i don't seem to want to do. so i keep opening the file on the computer and then just looking at it.

i'm procrastinating. i'm afraid of more rejection. i'm...

i still love listening to the layering of Frank Black (Black Francis) and Kim Deal's voices. i don't think it completely ports me to being a 14 year old, but it gets close.

a few years back, the Pixies took themselves out of the cedar chest, blew the dust off, shook their act out and took to the road. we were living in Bozeman at the time. not exactly the music capital of the world.

i was however able to catch them on Austin City Limits. it was good to see them as older. reminded me that i am not the only one aging. they were wonderful, potentially a side-effect of aging in fact, having years more experience at their craft. from a critics view-point, there was something lost from Black Francis' antics; the energy of a younger man.

the point, i think, is that i will never see Kurt Cobain as an aged rocker. i will never have to see him overweight in polyester and rhinestones. he is immortal and he is limited. the Pixies though, have grown, have matured?, have moved on. when i listen to them i can remember adolescent angst, but i can also sit with my grade-schooler and happily introduce her to them even now, encouraging her to listen to the sound of a band in its middle-age.

...

Fridays are for me, as for most anyone, an exercise in clockwatching. I have four hours of work ahead of me followed by 6 hours of transit.

This morning as I am facing the beginning of official clockwatching season, I looked up to find the time and found not one but three huge urban clocks on buildings that I can see easily from my breakfast-plate.

Needing to find the time in this town is not actually ever a problem.

...oops, there's a fourth!


- s.

The last few weeks I have been traveling a lot. Each weekend I commute to and from Colorado to be with my family. I start each week exhausted and spend the next four days playing catch up. All this is not a challenge. It means I get to see my wife and daughter and it means I get to have a job.

It is regardless of the payoff, wearing. I will continue in this practice until I find a better way for things to go. Mostly that means until a job is found that supports my family.

Thus last weekend L and N spared me the travel and brought home to me. This was a true blessing. We were able to spend the weekend playing, catching up with one another and friends too long neglected, and breathing.

It is amazing how a small reversal can so greatly effect a dynamic. I feel recharged. There is no bus in my immediate future.


- s.

I have to fess up that I am an old fuddy-duddy. My earlier statement that Anadyn was dying was only my elderly bedtime was just keeping me from realizing that the party only gets started after 11pm or so.

I drank and played pool for a little while by myself and then played against Hesh for a couple games. During that time the bar really filled up. All the table, all the bar stools, and 90% of the felt.

What have I learned? I'm getting old and forget that the single-set doesn't go down till someone does or the sun comes up.


- s.