But as for the job search ...

The Corp provides all kinds of info. Links to pages and pages. Assess & Networking. Career Development. Job Search Preparation. Career Support Programs. Resume Training. Interview Training. Redeployment Training Assignments. Jobs & Development Opportunities. The list goes on. I suspect the advice would be use my resources, i.e. plow through all this stuff. But my eyes glaze over. Instead I just get overwhelmed.

A brief job interview on Friday went well -- or was it Thursday? It was Thursday, just before the work group being disbanded went out together for beer and whiskey. That was fun, so much fun I skipped work Friday. I logged in now and again but there was nothing that needed doing. I made it a sort of pre-Saturday at home instead. Took a load of junk to the dump, etc. Resolved to have a weekend and then regroup and refocus on Monday morning.

The one interview with the technical lead went well but the preceding interview with the overall manager did not. It seemed to at the time. But in hindsight I saw how lacking I was when asked about leadership. I've never displayed a whole lot of that at work. I'm a creative support person. I dgaf what other people do unless it's something I can help them with. When working, I like detail. I like things to be done well. This doesn't add up to much by way of leadership, and at this point, fifty six years old and at least thirty years late on my writing, I don't give a fuck (i.e. dgaf) anyway.

So here it is Monday morning and I need to regroup and refocus but honestly, I find the whole thing exhausting, and it's not because I'm weak, it's because I already used up all my gaffery on the weekend and just want to rest. That's no one else's doing. I fully own taking care of whatever it is I need to be successful at whatever. I went to bed early last night -- well before midnight -- while various visiting artists stayed up literally through the night building and creating outside by the pool. That was very cool and it was also very cool that I could say goodnight to it and pass out. But even so, I'm seriously dgaffing about the job search this morning. I said it wasn't because I'm weak. Maybe it is.

So what do I feel good about?

1. Yesterday morning I cut through the branches piled up on the side of the house that had been thrown down after being cut off the trees because they were too close to the roof. I went through with loppers and saw and filled the green waste can and stacked some small logs for winter. I only got halfway through because the can was filled. I'll do the rest after it's been emptied. But that was fun. Exercise. Sunshine. Gettin' shit cleaned out.

2. I've been reading Death Valley in '49 by William L. Manly, and it's enthralling for a number of reasons. It's an adventurous tale that, like most true stories, doesn't follow the dramatized paradigm of fiction but simply illuminates real life. The writer is likeable enough. Contemporaneous observations on mid-19th Century society are always fascinating to me, especially the tiny snippets you can find about women and Indians and Negroes* etc, not only in what a random educated white male chooses to say, but in the words he chooses to use. Anyway, I'm into it. Absorbing the data.

3. The Relationship. I'm reluctant to press matters of privacy. Let's just say it's a happy thing, rich, complex, yet simple too. When I look at my stressors in this context, I find they're not actually in context, but relate merely to money. With a house full of people and kids (oh, right, kids are people) you should expect these things to seem tied together. But as I peel through layers, they are not. I just need to stay employed.

Which is a reminder. I guess I should have known I'd get around to it at some point. Time to dive in.

* -- It feels impolite to say "Negroes". Why is it impolite (some say politically incorrect) to say "Negroes" while it is not to say "blacks"? The words mean the same thing: someone who's identified as "black" even though they are not black at all, but are simply a rich variety of browns as a legacy of their sub-Saharan origins. Similarly, to say "Indians", for reason similarly related to social power structures imposed through language etc. I just balk at using hyphenated-American labels in a 19th Century context. But I also balk, quite naturally, at some of the other words the writer uses. He was a man of his time; I needn't perpetuate all of it.