Once and future

November.  November?!?!

OK, I see I actually did already do a blog post in November (I'm more surprised than anyone else might be at that) - but still, how is it November?  How has this year flown by even though I spent most of it floundering around in a state of indecision and unemployment?  By now I feel like I should never (ever, ever) announce an intention to do anything, because the way things have been going since Jerry died, I'm bound to change my mind entirely after making such a declarative statement and announce the polar opposite of whatever it was I just said I was going to do.  As this year has demonstrated, over and over again.

Soooo... yes.  News.  As of December 12th, I will be employed.  At the same place I worked last year. Yes, it's true.  See my previous post, as I just did (I was about to rehash the entire story).  I have no idea how the interview at the other place went from their point of view, but my gut told me it was just not a good fit for me (so did my mind, which wandered all over the place while the woman there was telling me about the job, the kind of thing where you realize a minute or two later that she's been talking the entire time you've been wondering about how you'd get from the interview site to the nearby shopping mall and she's still talking and you have no clue what she's talking about) (then you remember you're not employed yet, so you actually make the more sane choice and do not go to the mall).  I emailed them after accepting the job at the once and future employer and told them I had taken a job and was no longer available, thereby avoiding the knowledge of whether or not they were going to say yes or no or even get back to me at all.  I suspect they wouldn't have gotten back to me.

So now I have a month of what a friend called "funemployment," which is a great term and very apt, and will include a trip to NYC.  That trip is scaring me a bit, because, hey, I have to worry about something, and I'm worried that I'll get to New York and feel desperately that I don't want to leave it, which is pretty much what I always feel in New York.  And I probably will feel that, but I still also feel that what I'm doing - staying put, focusing on getting a job, focusing on what makes me feel less stressed in the moment, is the right way to go.  If someone could teleport me into a place to live and a place to work in a city somewhere and take care of all the logistics involved in that, I wouldn't object.  But for now... this is what is working for me.

ETA:

P.S. I finished the copy editing certificate program.  I'm certified (certifiable, anyway).

Turmeric milk

I've found myself thinking, lately, that the "optimistic" prognosis Jerry was given when he was diagnosed with cancer was two to three years... and that chances are, if he hadn't died so soon after the diagnosis, he would probably be dead now.  It doesn't mean anything in particular, obviously, since he did die when he did - but it feels somehow more final, if that's even possible, to realize that.  And I find myself thinking, Well, at least I'm not having to begin this hideous process now - and then feeling absolutely riven by guilt and pain at the slightest scintilla of a suggestion that I'm glad Jerry died when he did and didn't have more time because then I'd be dealing with that first stage of grief and mourning now, and not be 29 months "out," at a more endurable stage of it all, at a stage where happiness can actually happen, where enjoyment can be had, and where I'm a more functioning human being.  And continuing to wonder what these past two years would have been like if he'd been alive, if he'd have spent all this time suffering through cancer treatments and hospitalizations and all that torture - or perhaps somehow the cancer could have been beaten back, and he would have had a good few years?  That does me no good at all.  Mostly I don't go around thinking about it.  Occasionally I do.

I'm a slightly less functioning human being at the moment, though, due to a cold that I've been fighting off for a couple of weeks now.  It's not as bad as it might be, but it's got me tired out and phlegmy - and please pronounce that word "fleg-mee," as Jerry would have.  I'm consuming a lot of turmeric milk, an Ayurvedic remedy my endocrinologist recommended when I saw her for my regular checkup this week: my version uses almond milk, and I'm also adding in ginger, pumpkin pie spice, vanilla syrup and sometimes other things along with the turmeric (a bit of unsweetened cocoa powder just now). I have no idea if it's doing anything specific to help, but it does make my throat feel better while I'm drinking it.

So, buried the lede a bit: to my utter surprise, there is a very good possibility I might go back to working at the place I worked last year.  There's been a change of management since I fled, and things have changed a great deal there, and for the better.  And they asked me to come in and talk about the possibility of coming back (can't help but be flattered by that), and I did that this past week.  I was very impressed by the new boss, the new offices they've moved into, the new attitudes (and the new ideas for employee compensation).  I have an interview somewhere else Wednesday morning, and we'll have to see how that turns out, but right now I'm feeling very optimistic about my employment prospects.  The only drawback is that commute that would have me back to getting up at 5:30 every morning and driving 70 miles a day, but in this economy, with so many people struggling to get by and dealing with unemployment, I can't complain (I can, and will, but I have no real grounds for serious complaining).

The other job I'd mentioned before, they never got back to me about the copy editing test, so I have no idea if it was my copy editing they didn't like, something else about me, or nothing to do with me.  But it's for the best, I'm thinking. This will all work out.  Eventually.

My parents survived Hurricane Sandy unscathed: they only lost Internet, TV and landline phone service, but not power or water - they're among the luckier ones.  I'm entirely leery about the Red Cross ever since I donated a fairly large amount to them after some disaster - 9/11? The tsunami?  Katrina?  Haiti?  All of the above? - and then read about corruption and embezzlement and misuse of funds.  But they're the ones supposedly doing the heavy lifting now, and they've supposedly improved, so I did donate this time.  Hoping for the best.  Go here to donate.