katallison

I.
Got.
The.
Job.

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EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*twirling like no one has ever TWIRLED BEFORE*

*wildly flinging smooches to you all for your good job mojo and support and fantasticness*


\o/

Shamelessly, I implore any of you lovely folks of the friendslist who have spare job mojo goin' on to send some my way tomorrow between 1 and 5 p.m. PDT, when I shall be undergoing the four-hour interview process for a job that I really, honestly, would very very much like to have. I am trying not to freak out, overprepare, stress myself into an attack, overload the cosmic luck-circuitry, or otherwise get Too Damn Heavy Here, but -- yeah. Would really like this job. And am ready, after eight months of non-job-havingness, to re-enter the world of the employed.

*gnawing nails, reviewing notes, rehearsing Q&As, re-checking wardrobe, eeeeeeeeee*

So, gals and pals, time for another round of Good News, Bad News!

Bad: Midday Saturday, while helping my roomies with a landscaping project, I tripped, fell, and (because I clearly learned nothing from Adventures In Wrist Fracture, 2007 ed.) landed hard on my outstretched hand.

Good: I didn't have the same immediate, nauseated-and-dizzy, sweat-breaking level of pain as in Adventures In Wrist Fracture, 2007 ed.

Bad: However, it still hurt like a bastard, and was swelling up oddly.

Good: This time (having, I guess, learned something from A.i.W.F.2007 after all) I was willing to let someone drive me to the ER, instead of being all "Nah, I'll do it myself!"

REALLY Good: I've been doggedly keeping up my COBRA payments the past half-year, hence (unlike many out there, sadly) actually have medical care available to me.

Bad: It was Everybody, Come On Down! day at the UW Med Ctr ER. As in, took me four and a half hours start to finish to get processed and out.

Good: Everyone I dealt with was friendly, capable, and helpful.

REALLY Good: It's not broken (or they think not at this point), just a really bad sprain.

Bad: Apparently, though, the scaphoid bone can be a subtle and tricksy creature, not revealing its fractures upon initial x-ray, so they put a huge plaster quasi-cast on the hand/arm which must stay in place for ten days, and which, by dint of immobilizing my thumb (MY BELOVED OPPOSABLE THUMB *sobs*) renders all activities of daily living infinitely more difficult.

In conclusion: PITA, major hassle, but could be (and has been) a lot worse. Now setting off to locate a big plastic bag so I can bag the cast and get a shower. (*sigh*)

Hm. Apparently Google Docs now has a functionality that allows you to publish to various blogging services, including LiveJournal, directly from Google Docs. Well, this is, as they say, a test. *tapping microphone*


ETA: Hah! It works! Granted, this doesn't have some of the handy LJ-specific shortcutting one would find in Semagic (dropdowns for user names, LJ-cut, icon selection, etc.), but a nice recourse for those occasions when one is working on a longer entry and going from home to work to home computers.

I have just reached a somewhat mortifying and yet reassuring conclusion: the coughing, hacking, wheezing, incessent damnable throat-clearing, and general sense of something thick and unpleasant gunking up my chest and bronchi, which I've been experiencing for the past few weeks, are almost certainly due to a never-previously-manifested tree pollen allergy, burgeoning forth here in the Tree-Bedecked Forest-Riddled Pacific NW. This is mortifying, because I've always (ridiculously, I know) prided myself on not being one of those people with all kinds of allergies; while, at the same time, reassuring, because (being me, which is to say, neurotic) I'd gone straight to the Ohmygod, I've got lung cancer place. After taking a nice little tab of loratadine my roomie had lying around the house, though, the coughing, chest-gunk, etc., have almost completely abated, and I don't think antihistamines do diddly for lung cancer, so there you go.

But life is not all wheezes and tree pollen; no, I am now a working woman, getting up every morning at 5, so I can be at the bloody office at 7:30, so I can spend the ensuing eight hours serving as handmaiden to an assortment of doctors and bigwig administrators, all of whom are too damned busy to maintain their own calendars or answer their own e-mail. (In the case of the doctors, I don't blame them; they are really extraordinarily busy, and regularly do cycles of 12-hour overnight on-calls, in addition to everything else.) It's been a long time since I've done admin support, or temp work of any kind, in fact, and I'd forgotten some of the more annoying aspects of the life, but the people I'm working for are, on the whole, a decent and kindly crew. I am very amused, though, to encounter yet again a familiar temp scenario: one is warned upfront that the person one is replacing is not only the linchpin of the office but is AMAZINGLY BUSY and INCREDIBLY OVERWORKED and one will be very hard-pressed to even BEGIN to keep up with a FRACTION of her staggering workload. And the first few days are a bit stressful, because, of course, all-new everything, but as one begins to learn the routines one finds that things ... are not really so busy as all that ... and that there are long lulls during the day of not very much happening at all ... and one realizes that one has, yet again, come on the scene in the wake of a wily admin who has gotten an entire office to buy into the delusion of her OMG SO OVERWORKED superhuman capacities. Heh.

This gig shouldn't last more than another few weeks--they've posted the opening and should start interviewing fairly soon--which is fine with me, because I've started getting some interviews of my own, for actual permanent jobs that would use my actual skills, such as they are, rather than requiring me to psychically discern what exactly Dr. X wants catered in as "snacks" for the Morbidity and Mortality conference (since he will not answer his goddamned e-mail). And I will be glad to discontinue the 7:30 a.m. start time, because wow, that fast loses its charm.

Um.... right, yes. So can we just pretend that the total absence of any posts here in over a month wasn't due to EPIC FAIL on my part but was rather a deliberate choice to demonstrate my solidarity with the striking writers? Yes? Nah, didn't think so...

Today I am upbeat, because--in honor, perhaps, of my six-month anniversary of leaving my former job--I have FINALLY secured paid employment, albeit of a vestigial and transitory sort. (Which is to say, I'll be temping at a local company doing low-level admin support stuff, making $16 an hour and cherishing every frackin' penny of it, for lo, six months without a paycheck will play merry hell with one's savings.) I also have an interview lined up for an actual job which would be more or less in my professional field, although several steps down the ladder from where I've spent the past few years, but what-the-hell-ever. I am willing to trade off a lot of ladder-position for the prospect of having (a) a steady income, (b) my own apartment, and (c) health insurance. (Oh, god, how bourgie am I...) We'll see what happens with it, though; my utter inability to actually GET any of the jobs for which I've interviewed out here is something about which I'm trying to maintain a sense of humor, composure, and proportion, reflecting that it is salutary to learn to deal graciously with rejection. (I think I've learned it now, though, cosmos! Honest!)

I am also upbeat because of all the Valentine-y good cheer and promiscuous affection, fannish and otherwise, swirling gaily around the f-list today. I've been feeling some disconnect from my community here, which is entirely due to my own hermit-ing behavior; I haven't been depressed, just sort of reclusive and retracted and lying very low. But I've missed you all; you're lovely people, and I clasp you all to my virtual bosom, with a big sentimental V-Day hug.

In an idle moment, I did that "Use random stuff from Wikipedia/Quotes/Flickr to design your CD cover" meme (example here) and, while I ended up not liking the quote and graphic that resulted, I really like what I got for the band name: Tungsten Airport, which is actually a very small airport in the Northwest Territories.

Now I think that ought to be the title of a due South story. Tungsten Airport. Yeah.

My Christmas present to myself this year (aided significantly by a gift certificate from a lovely and wonderful friend [she knows who she is *smoootch*]) was to DEAR GOD AT LAST throw some more memory into my computer, which has been gimping along with 512 MB for the past few years. I put in the order to Amazon (on account of that was where the gift cert. was from), and in the fullness of time saw that my delivery was on its way, with an arrival date of 1/8. I was thrilled, of course, when I checked the tracking this morning to discover an entry of "Status: Delivered; Location: Front Door." Thrilled, that is, until I went to the front door, threw it open, and saw . . . nothing.

Normally I don't freak about stuff like this, but the friends with whom I'm staying had some UPS-delivered packages stolen off their porch last Christmas, so I immediately began stomping around and yelling about the BASTARDS who take other people's stuff, and even more about the STINKING INEPT BRAINDEAD BASTARDS of UPS who do not even KNOCK OR RING THE DOORBELL (I knew they hadn't because M. was sitting in the living room the entire morning, including at 10:35 when UPS alleged that the delivery had occurred).

After I cooled down a bit I got on the horn to UPS, while also madly Googling for "UPS stolen package" and posting a query on AskMetafilter for what to do in such situations. UPS said they'd have someone call me back (Yeah, sure, right, I thought)--and then much to my surprise not only did someone call me back, but it was (a) a live human being, who was (b) right here in town, and (c) in telephonic communication with the driver. He said he'd check with the driver and get back to me, which ended up with my getting some ambiguous message along the lines of "Yeah, well, he's gonna check the houses around there, maybe he left it at the wrong place." Meanwhile, I did my deep breathing and prepared to phone Amazon about getting a replacement (the advice I got from people at AskMe was that Amazon is very good about just replacing items in such circumstances, which is good to know).

And then around 4 there was a banging at the door; I went over and opened it to see (a) my package, sitting on the doormat; and (b) the driver, sprinting back toward his van. Cue the trombone wah-waahhhh of irony...

So, happy ending, although god damn UPS for being such knuckleheads anyway. Now all I have to do is get the new RAM successfully inserted into my machine, which I haven't done before but I gather is not a huge hassle. (Of course, having said that, I've probably guaranteed you'll see a post here tomorrow with the wailing and gnashing of teeth.)

Wow, have I been out of touch with the world. I haven't been posting, though I've tried to at least skim LJ; I haven't sniffed around in Yuletide yet, or in DSSS, or any of the other holiday challenges, though I am looking forward to dipping into them, as though they were the world's biggest box of assorted mixed chocolates. Nor have I written my Grand Summative Post Of Summing Up The Whole Year And Smashing The Heel Of My Hand Into My Brow, which will be forthcoming in the next week or so (teaser: Nietzsche was on to something with the killing and stronger-making stuff; or, Hi, 2007, big hugs and please let me not have another year like you in the immediate future kthxbye).

But my first Christmas in Seattle was unexpectedly warm and festive, considering that I am still (a) unemployed and (b) technically, homeless. The "technically" is because I am still making my home with my dear and beloved friends M and J, and the "warm and festive" part has a lot to do with the fact that (despite being total atheists) they pull out the stops when it comes to Christmas, and so the month has been a whirl of putting up lights, and buying presents, and baking cookies. On Monday we began the two-day marathon, which included:
--a Christmas-Eve supper of oyster stew and Swedish potato sausage, along with salad and lots of wine, followed by Figgy Pudding (a new tradition, started because M always bitches about how when he sings "Now bring me some figgy pudding" no one ever DOES, but now he can no longer thus bitch; I made it per this recipe and it was excellent, an instant smash hit), accompanied by some lush and decadent Chocolate Port, and a viewing of the MST3K version of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians;
--a Christmas-morning breakfast of ricotta pancakes and leftover Swedish sausage, plus champagne;
--the opening of presents (of which M and J had bought me many more than they ought to have), which ran from 10 until 3, with frequent interruptions for nibbling on cheese and crackers, swilling champagne, phoning friends and family members, and looking out at the snow, which was most amazingly and in-the-manner-of-a-sappy-holiday-movie falling upon Seattle in great thick picturesque flurries (I took a photo and sent it in to the excellent West Seattle Blog, who posted it! [second from top], and yay for having a White Christmas, given that I knew the snow would all be melted by morning and would not need to be shovelled);
--and then a glorious dinner of roast goose, stuffing, squash, lemony green beans, and lots of wine, followed by more figgy pudding, consumed while viewing A Christmas Story.

I hope everyone has had as happy and peaceful a time of it as can be expected in each of your various and respective life circumstances, and I send out love and best wishes in all directions. More later...

OK, the dS Match reveals are now up, and on Monday I'll post on my website a copy of my story, hopefully with the goddamned typos fixed (apologies to all readers for not leaving myself enough time to get the frickin' thing beta'd). Just to reiterate the prefatory note, this story is a present for pearl_o, with big love and admiration. She'd requested it over a year ago, and when the Team Angst opportunity I came up, I knew that that was the perfect occasion for getting myself to finish and post this upbeat, heartwarming little bit o' fluff. (*g*)

When I'd finished the story, I put up a rather overwrought LJ post about how unhappy I was with it; in the fullness of time, I've gotten a better grip on what my distress was all about, and though I don't think any of this is necessarily of general interest, I thought I'd type up a few thoughts. ( My issues. Let me show you them. )

And many, many bows of admiration and gratitude to the fabulous organizers, china_shop and sageness; to nos4a2no9, our indefatigable Team Angst captain; and to all the writers for both teams. *Wow,* did this challenge produce some fantastic stories, which I now need to go comment on.