New Ventures

So...I've started a new venture as an Examiner at Examiner.com. I am almost afraid to be excited about it, but it certainly beats being consumed with worry on my pending unemployment.

It is a strange thing: I've always wanted to write and always enjoyed the process - it's more been the lack of creative story lines etc. that have kept me from attempting much more than commentary or the odd short story or just random journal-writing. I'm psyched, but it also leaves one feeling pretty vulnerable: to have a little bit of yourself out there all exposed is terrifying.

I'm actually having fun! I don't know how long this will last and I am trying not to look too far ahead but it is a strange feeling to be enjoying what I am doing for once, even if thus far I think I've earned all of $1.97 doing it.

Still hoping for that big lottery win!

Anyway, here is my favorite picture from my article today.

The Shot I Missed

Have you ever had a critical point in your life where you know had you taken another path you might've ended up in a completely different world?

A long time ago, like, in 2001 - I had the opportunity to interview for a comedy writing job at the gaming company Jellyvision, makers of "You Don't Know Jack!". I had written an application letter as though I were doing so from prison - and I wish to God that I still had it today because I think it was actually pretty good. (It got a response at any rate!)

In any case, I had just taken a job as a recruiter when Jellyvision called and offered me the opportunity to interview. In what had to be the biggest mistake of my career, I turned down that interview, thinking it went against the ethics of interiewing for one job when you had just accepted another. Also, in all truth, I think I was a little scared.

I still think there is a certain line that you should not cross in taking a new job. You should not just jump and take "anything". You should have respect for your new company and your new position. You should make your job choices carefully and moves thoughtfully.

That said - the next time someone gives me the opportunity to interview for a dream job, well, let's just say I am, at the very least, planning on showing up - you only get to live this wacky life once (at least I'm pretty sure) !!!

Some Things Fall Apart...and Some Need To.

You get up in the morning and get the baby a bottle, dressed, etc. You find a tie for your husband. You squeeze in a shower but cannot manage to get it dried as well. You kiss baby and hubby goodbye, jump in the car, negotiate traffic and are in the office by 8am to start your work day.

Your work day ends around 7pm. You drive home, kiss husband, grab baby, try and shove as much love, attention and nurturing as you can in a 2 hr time slot. Baby goes in the crib, the laptop comes out and guess what? You are working again.

While I cannot say that this is truly living - it wasn't, I can say that working as hard as I did to try and make myself recession-proof ultimately did not provide the payoff I'd hoped. Through no fault of my own, despite the number of hours worked, I found out last week that as of August 7th I am out of a job.

There comes a time when you need to start looking at the way you are living and the prayers you are praying. It's funny - that very morning I was "Hail Mary'ing" my way to what end, I don't know. I was praying for something - some kind of respite. Then to actually have it happen on that day - well, to say the least, I am floored.

I work in HR. I know what it is like out there - each of my days is like reading another list of stories that ended poorly on resumes. I had made it through several rounds of RIF's already at my company, and was counted on to help keep the faith of our staff at large...communicating only a positive message to my hiring managers, etc. Ironically, I am now held to an agreement not to tell anyone that this time it is ME losing the job...and I can keep the job that I have for an additional few weeks in exchange for my silence.

I do have a sense of humor - I do see the irony in this. I do believe that things happen for a reason, and that this occurrence is probably some response to my prayers or lack of movement as well. Seeing Sydney and the thought of actually getting to spend some time emmersed in watching her grow is exciting, as is the prospect of a few weeks off. Heck, maybe I can actually work out or garden?!

But OH THE FEAR!!! I've looked at what is out there, I've started networking, I've already tried to start the creative juices running. I have even looked at maybe doing something different, something I love more with more creativity and freedom involved... it is a fight between my hope and my anxiety on a daily basis.

Today, hope is winning. That said - I never want to put myself in this position again. Work has gotten far too large a portion of my baby's life and taken too much of me away in the past nine months...without even the reward of stable employment. In the end - I had no control over whether or not I kept my job at all. Next time is going to be different.

Death and the Elderly

I keep thinking about this, and have concluded that I do not think it must be very fun to live to be very old.

My gram is 93, laying in a bed in a hospital with a morphine drip, no longer here in any real sense of the word except for a physical presence lying there. She cannot eat, drink, swallow or talk. She doesn't seem to know anyone is around in any true sense of the word. She is, for the most part, a shell with a few still-functioning parts.

I don't get it.

I believe in a loving God. I like and try to believe we are all here for a purpose, and for a reason, even if that reason is unbeknownst to us. I believe in miracles, and that God can and will intervene in our lives at certain points. I'm not sure at all, however, what God's stance really is on death...and at what point He intervenes, or if He lets this part up to us.

Aside from being hit by a bus, illness, and other tragedies, what or who is it that determines when we ultimately pass from this earth? Is my gram in there somewhere looking out from this tiny body? Is she a spirit that is able to somehow hoover and watch us as we come to sit, to keep her company, to pay our respects? Is it her decision - is she staying for a reason - or does she get a choice in the matter? Is it just Gram being stubborn again or has the Dear Lord, in His busy schedule, perhaps forgotten? Is she here for one of us? I know they say that God calls us home when it is our time - but if that is the case, why are there folks like Gram that would likely, were they able to verbalize such things, hanging around when they probably would have preferred a good card game in heaven to this...this slow and mindless ceasing?

I watched my mother leave yesterday to go sit by her mother's bedside, hurting for her. My aunt is there almost daily for gram. I, who have not been to see my grandmother at all yet am heading out there this evening. My cousins, I am sure, will all manage to get there as well. This is what you do when you are part of a family and I come from a particularly loving one so I am sure there will almost certainly be someone there to guard and watch over this tiny little remnant of what my grandmother once was.

I am way too human to understand this. Death is too big to try and put into a little neat box for me...I am one of those people that does a lot better when there are better explanations and reasons for things, and yet a good portion of the time we get neither. People seem to leave far before their time, and sometimes long after, and too much of either is just so very hard on the ones they leave behind. None of this makes any sense, especially when it just seems totally random.

I guess, in the end, all we can do is try to be there for one another and honor each life as best we can for as long as we can. I don't think anyone should die alone, and I am grateful that my grandmother has so many people to go through this last transition with her. I want my chance to say goodbye. That said, I pray she finally gets to go Home soon where she can eat candy again (Heaven must have it, right?) and be able to laugh and sing and dance and get rid of this old, tired body that is no longer a suitable home for a spirit as bright as hers.

Teeth, Part Due

Just as a quick follow-up to my last post - sadly, my assessment was correct. I have the beginnings of an abcess for which the only cure is a combination of antibiotics and, in a week or so, a root canal.

On the positive side...at least I got some Vicodin. :)

On Teeth

My mouth and I are not what you would call close...if it did not reside within my head I doubt we would ever spend time together. I am sure I don't appreciate its kindnesses half enough - letting me speak, giggle, sing, eat are all things that it does well. I probably do not treat it nearly as well as I should - I could do a much better job flossing and brushing, I could wear a night guard to protect it from the havoc my jaws create from their constant night grinding. I could polish them and go for ultra-white bleaching treatments for that movie-star like glow (my sister Denise is a dental rep and constantly looks like an ad for good hygeine).

That said, I am not convinced any machinations on my part would make much of a difference. My teeth are utter garbage. They break, they stain, and every time I go to the dentist it seems that he (I am sure gleefully) manages to find 2-5 other new places in my mouth to rip open.

I am in pain - quite acute, actually, at this very moment. I was up most of the night with throbbing gums and aching molars. My head is about to explode off of my shoulders. I am not totally sure, but from my experiences thus far I expect I either have an abscess or an infection or some other horrid thing. It hurts to eat or to bite down in any way. My jaw is tingling; sharp jolts of electricity are pulsing up the side of my jaw towards my ear. I am hot-sensitive, cold-sensitive, and just-sitting-there-sensitive as all hell. The Advil I've been gobbling like Chiclets isn't doing a darn thing to help.

I know what is going to happen. I am going to go into the dentist chair, and they will ask which tooth hurts. I will not know the answer - the pain is rather all over the place. I will be x-rayed, I will have my tooth banged on with some kind of hammer thing (the test is simple - when you jump high enough they know they've hit the right tooth), I will scream, and they will pull out the big drills. I will then have to pull out my wallet (not nearly as big) and pay a ridiculous fee for all of this abuse and go home looking like a chipmunk.

I admit to being a bit of a drama queen from time to time. I admit to the occasional hyperbole. But it is also the case that I view the dentist with even more dread than I view dusting (which I despise). I hate the ridiculous masks, the smell, and the outrageous outlay of capital. I hate the taste of the cherry(not) topical numbing liquid. I hate that every time I leave, I just know that I will be back again soon.

Dear mouth, you have spoken (screamed, actually) and I am listening. I am going. But I will let you know I am doing so with great protest, and under duress. I hope you take great comfort in knowing that in the 5 trips I have now made to the dentist since December, I will have managed to pay for his vacation to Maui - and likely blown away any chance for one of my own or yours. I hope you're happy.

(::sigh::)

Emotional Layer Cake of Rough

Have you ever had one of those days where every time you turned around you felt like somehow you were being hit with something else that just knocked you emotionally?

I knew that when I got up this morning that I would need to get out of the house extra early in order to conduct some interviews for my job. I'm not feeling well - I have still have this cold - and I did not sleep much last night. I rummaged through the closet trying to find something to wear that didn't look disastrous, finally managed to get my Medusa hair to lay a bit more straight, pulled my things together and only upon leaving the house realized that I still needed to get gas. I walked into the office with 3 minutes to spare. I felt ugly, fat, and ill-prepared to do what I needed to do. These days, many days, trying to feel put together and confident at my job is simply not happening.

My baby, Sydney, is ill for the first time in her short life. It is just a cold - we verified that with the doctor today, but even the sound of her raspy little breaths when I woke this morning just tore at me. I work full-time - I don't have the option of staying home with her (otherwise I would jump at the chance) - and the thought of her dealing with these strange things going on in her body, the tiny coughs, the heaving of her little chest trying to push the air through - I just hated it. She is a smiley, happy baby by all accounts, and she is handling her first illness far better than I am. The guilt - first, that I probably gave her the cold, second, that I can't be there for her to cuddle her through this - has been eating at me all day.

On top of all of these things...in speaking to my mom today, I learned that my 93 year old grandmother is starting to decline rapidly. She is a little tiny bird of a woman, not too cognizant of what is going on around her - she has lived far past that point in which the future, or even the present, matters and is lost somewhere in the reaches of her mind and in the past. She is dying. It is not this part that made me sad - I believe in my heart that it would be a blessing for her to go and be with the friends and loved ones who have gone before her. It is a combination of the guilt of not having seen her as well as my mother telling me that my grandmother had stopped singing. You see - as long as I can remember, my grandmother has always hummed a little tune. She may not know who we are, she may not know where her teeth are, and she may have flushed her hearing aid down the drain...but this tiny piece of her has remained a constant. She's not eating by herself anymore, the moments of clarity seem to have disappeared...but the thing that makes me the most sad is imagining the little bird without her song.

So - it's been a long day. I'm home from work now, home with my husband, and peering at my snuffly little smiley baby (now sleeping). I am glad to be here. That said, I am glad that this day will soon be behind me. There is only so much a heart can tolerate in a 24 hour period, and mine needs quiet and rest.