Recently in Working Stiffery Category

The search for work continues to plod. Nothing, nothing, nothing to even apply to - everyone wants you only if you have some qualification that's hard to come by.

I used a portion of the tax refund on some backpacking gear, so will be receiving a couple of packages - I request USPS because UPS has a way of screwing around with packages that remains unparalleled. One box did get shipped UPS and sure enough, it's barely left the seller and has already been rescheduled out a week. The sad part is, I am getting USPS packages from other states within 2-3 days and UPS has the only box sent from within the same state, and somehow, it takes a week. Perhaps they have laid off the delivery folks who were worth keeping and hired on a bunch of cheaper ones who can't figure out where California is on a map, or that they're in it.

Joining others to study for the next exam. At this rate I will be able to take it again soon. Hopefully. Being able to be my own employee might loosen up some opportunities.

Still working on fic. The thing that slows me down now is the cold. I am afraid that I tend to want to bundle up with hot chocolate or something rather than type when it gets this cold.

Have a job interview Monday - really pulling for this one. I think previous interviews were ones I didn't want, so probably changed personalities for.... The subconscious is a powerful thing.

It's interesting, people will tell me, send out resumes every week, interview for everything, you should be getting X interviews... Yeah, someone needs to tell the world that.  I've had job searches conducted while I'm working that consist of four resumes sent, one interview - bam! another job. Being unemployed has been a total drag. None of the interviews worked, and roughly .00000000002% of the resumes have even resulted in a letter of any kind let alone a call.

I have never had difficulty getting a position I want, until I became a therapist. Either I'm a crap therapist and the therapist conducting the interview can detect that, or I'm a crap therapist interviewer. Used to be the computer skills got me a job every time. Well, I don't want to do that any more.

But I might have to. Starbucks is laying of mega-scads of people, as is Verizon. A careerbuilder search of my town resulted in.... one commission only sales job.

So, interview on Monday. In a mountain town. YAY.

In other news, still writing. Completed a fic, yo. Though it's probably not the fic anyone's looking for, what with that subliminal sort of lampooning of my other fic that everyone seems to really like.... Yes, jobless depression is doing a number on me. But if you want to see what my warped sarcasm is capable of, go on over to the fic blog and check out Something Betazoid. There's a lot of little parts that will seem really sorta familiar if the Captain and Counselor series is still in memory, but then, it's -- oh, that didn't happen the way it was supposed to....

Going to keep working on reorganizing the fic pages, I think. Restore the timeline and reformat a few more. I think it was all the Harry Potter smut I've been reading that triggered the fic mentioned above, so maybe if I go back to writing the Voyager/C&C adventure and doing tedious html it'll stop and I can write the other stuff again.

As for the dreams in the title... I had some pret-ty weird dreams last night. There was this one where I was trying to fight for my life and landed this really spiffy ninja kick - and I woke up with my foot sticking out of the covers, big draft of cold air underneath, and a really mad cat who usually sleeps between my legs. Forget sleepwalking - I sleep-flying-roundhouse-kick.

In the other dream, I was driving a little red Toyota and parked it properly in one of those little coastal destination towns where all the parking is two hour max, to attend a party of some kind (my friend on the coast is having a birthday party next week, so this actually makes some weird sense) and when I came out to move it the car was gone. So I spend hours wandering around looking at other little red cars with tickets on them, panicking, realizing it's a Honda or Fiat or whatever, and going onward.

Going to hold out hope that next dream is rehearsing job interviews. Might come in handy.

One of the fantastic things about being unemployed (if there is anything at all fantastic about it) is the ability to randomly decide what you're doing is no longer important and do something else. So I'm blogging instead of going through another box.

Still working through stuff to get rid of/sell after the move a couple months back.... because I'm suddenly writing again. Not suddenly, really, because it's been in the head for a while that this or that story might be resolved this way, or that way... but actually getting down to the typing has been a slow process.

And then I discovered my oft-neglected website was missing a bunch of stuff. I found things on the archive at BLTS that weren't posted on my own site - go figure. And then Wordpress decided to not allow me to cut and paste, and given my tendency to write novels where vignettes will do...

Four days straight of formatting and things are looking pretty good on Movable Type. I can't say I'll miss Wordpress at all. I have most of the fiction formatted (still working on the shorter stuff but That Series is done). In the background as I edit and paste I've been watching DS9 and Lost.

OMG, Lost had so much potential. If only they had stopped adding craziness to it. It's like a little kid had control over the show, going "wouldn't it be cool if! and then!" - they just kept piling in one crazy explanation after another until it was just one great big ball of WTF. I keep waiting for someone to wake up in the shower and realize it was all Hurley's bad pizza induced dream.

In other news... I moved into a room rental from an apartment and my cat is now adjusting slowly to... dogs.

With the hours, that is. Two tests to take. And a job to find. Whatever shall I do? Wherever shall I go?

The divorce was a rollercoaster of the five stages of grief - anger, depression, denial, bargaining, acceptance. Round and round, angry as h#*$ one minute and crying my eyes out the next. Sometimes I'd be going through all five at once. Trying to work while all the while knowing you will be terminated at any second is very much like that. You don't get much respect when you're an intern. Interns are a dime a dozen. You're a cog in the machine, a device to generate revenue, and when your case load is dropping because people are leaving after hearing your contract wasn't renewed, the pink slip isn't far behind. It's gonna be a hard summer.

almost done with internship! Almost burnt out.... Going on multiple backpacking trips throughout the year. Single again. Tired. More verbose posts to follow at undetermined future date. zzzzz.

Is it too much to ask for people to answer the $&^@ phone? Or actually return a telephone call or at least acknowledge that they actually want to come in to see someone? Apparently it's JUST TOO HARD TO USE A PHONE. If you see people walking/driving/skating/flying around talking on their cell phones... well, they AREN'T TALKING TO ME. That would mean I'm ACTUALLY GETTING APPOINTMENTS SCHEDULED. SHEESH. Why request services if you don't intend to EVER pick up your CAPSLOCK-RIDDEN-STRING-OF-EXPLETIVES-DELETED TELEPHONE EVER AGAIN?

Not because I lurv him or anything. Just because he is made of win. Unlike my last one. SUCH a relief to be spoken to as if I am over 21!

Things to do in the next two week: 1. give stuff away 1.5. work 2. pack the rest 2.5. work some more 3. reserve: truck, phone/utilities, apartment 3.5. keep working; fill out forms 3.75. get: fingerprinted, drug tested, examined by m.d., forms to fill in 4. pack truck 5. collapse 6. drive truck 7. unload truck and turn it in 8. feed friend pizza and beer, eat pizza and beer, collapse 9. drive back to old job; work for three more days, cleaning old apartment in the evenings and camping on the floor 10. drive to new apartment; buy groceries 11. start new job I hate moving with a passion, but I've had a lot of practice.

It took far too many pills to make it through today. Migraine meds, more migraine meds, sinus meds, and plain ol' headache pills because of fear of too many migraine meds. Plus, I had to stop in and have a nail removed from my tire - it was

this close

to the sidewall and I had a bit of anxiety due to not knowing how much a new pair of tires for this car would be. But they were able to plug it for ten bucks. Therapy with my Wednesday clients tends to go well, which is good; otherwise it would have been one of those hellish twilight zone days that ends with me under my desk in little knots.