Closing up shop...at least for a while.

Waiting for a call about an interview I had Friday. Seemed to go well, and I know I've said that before, but this could actually be an actual fit. Should hear this evening.

It's at least through busy season and might continue at least part time. The only thing I'm really qualified to do right now is tax work, so I'm just resigned to that. What I'm hoping is that I can eventually move someplace with companies that are large enough to have in-house tax people, and that would allow me to make a move outside of public.


It will be very strange to be back to work, assuming that's what happens.

I've decided to begin a new blog mainly about what I'm watching and reading. I think it's probably time to close this one out or at least put it on hiatus.

Reading....

I don't have a lot to say these days. Trying to write poetry sometimes....I don't have the focus to write anything else. It's not that poetry doesn't require focus; it's just that it's easy to focus on coming up with a line, image, or just a word choice than it is writing a story. I just finished a draft of one that I think might have potential, I plan to send it to a journal as soon as I have time to go over it some more. Revision is key.

There's something that just appeals to me about using as few words as possible to say something. Guess it's a sort of autism.

Reading a lot of books. 1Q84, which I can't say I really *like* but find it easy to get into even if I'm not that engaged by it. Never read Murakami before, and I feel like I'm not getting all of it. I still hope to finish it even though I'm only about 70 pages in and it's due in a couple of weeks.

Have a couple of lighter things to read and some non-fiction. Gotta prioritize by library due date.

Hoping to hear about a job. I can say that I thought I had one of my better interviews, but a lot of the time it comes down to someone else being better. Allegedly there was only one other person up for it, but it was through a temp agency so they might be dealing with other agencies.

We have one property that doesn't seem to be selling, and another that needs to be prepared for sale that we have trouble finding the time and energy to fix up so I'm afraid we are stuck here. I had hopes that we could leave the state next year, now it's not looking so good. This is how people get stuck here.

This has been a very bad year. We lost someone very close to us and we are still dealing with the emotional and other fallout from that. I don't think you ever get over it.

Stuff just hasn't worked out the way I had wanted it to. I am not where I wanted to be at this stage in my life. Just not happy.

I live....

Much is the same, but I'm doing more reading and trying to find fulfillment in that. Just finished two books that are very much alike, both about something that I generally don't have much use for---video games, especially MMORGs or whatever they're called such as World of Warcraft.

REAMDE [named after a possibly typo'd virus file] by Neal Stephenson was over 1000 pages, but was a fast paced read. I've always thought Stephenson was like an Asperger author, slamming you with information. But this book is mainly long because of the many characters and arcs, and the time it takes for them to intersect. It's much like his earlier work, but I'm now giving ANATHEM [his previous book] another whirl. I actually own that book, but am checking it out of the library because I don't feel like looking for it.

Anyway, REAMDE involves intrigue in a Warcraft-like game, with the difference being the game was created mainly to try to profit from the practice of exchanging real world money for in-game items and activities. There are Russian mercenaries, Taliban, Chinese hackers, all playing a role.

It's very much a thriller, and I wonder if some of Stephenson's devotees might be disappointed, but the characters are all interesting and over the week and a half I was always wanting to get back to the book to see what happened next, and that's about as good as you can get.

READY PLAYER ONE is a fantasy of sorts, a love letter to 80s geek culture. It's in a distant future, a dystopia where most people live in squalor but spend the bulk of their time in a virtual environment. The creator of the environment, the richest man on earth, dies but creates a competition where the winner receives his fortune. It's a series of riddles and tests all based in 80s videogames, role playing games, television, movies and music. One kid living in poverty manages to be the first person to solve one of the riddles years afterward, and the race is on from there.

I am a selective geek---I like horror and not so much fantasy/science fiction, and have a healthy appreciation for other non-geeky things too--and unfortunately I am not talented in computers or in anything else where my geek interests could become a career. Anyway, I enjoyed this a lot.

So now I'm reading THE ART OF FIELDING, THE MARRIAGE PLOT [new Eugenidies that I'm wondering how anyone can appreciate who wasn't an English major] and a few others.

Also soldiering through the George RR Martin books when I want to read something right away and don't feel like going to get one of the library books. Some books you have to be in the mood to read, which is why I always like having several books around. The Martin books I can read anytime, even if I walk away from them for weeks.

I'm still applying for jobs, but our main focus is getting out of here sometime next year. We're both worried that this extended period of unemployment may make it hard for me to get back into the swing of things--I will likely be over three years unemployed by the time we get out of here, barring some kind of seasonal job or something else happening. I no longer get call backs very often, even for jobs that I would seem well-qualified for---last interview was last month at another firm. I was interviewed by people who had graduated the same year I did, and that is a sad indicator of where things sit with me these days.

Been a while....

Been reading a lot, not looking for work as much [have hopes for a seasonal job now with the Agency Everybody Hates that might start in a couple of months.]

Finished ONCE UPON A RIVER by Bonnie Jo Campbell. I was turned off at first because she adapted two of her short stories as part of this novel, and one was right at the beginning so I got this feeling of "Is this some kind of retread?" but it ended up being pretty good. It must have been, I ended up reading almost the entire thing yesterday morning. Still, her two novels have basically dealt with the same type of story, and I'd like to see a branching out of some kind. Some people do end up telling the same story, though. I guess it's what they call an idea fixee.

THE LAST WEREWOLF by Glen Duncan is probably the best horror novel I've read in a long time. People love vampires, but werewolves are more interesting thematically, yet no one really writes much about them. Until now. Best line ever: "Reader, I ate him."

THE LEFTOVERS by Tom Perotta. This hatched from his research for THE ABSTINENCE TEACHER, which involved him hanging around Christian groups. Those groups have a big thing about The Rapture [and I will talk about my own history with that at some future date] and I guess that piqued his interest enough to write this. But unfortunately like THE ABSTINENCE TEACHER, this book gave me the "Is that it?" reaction, although I'd say it was a little better than the aforementioned book in that some fairly big stuff happens here, but the book is slow to develop. The Rapture hits and the country is still confused about what exactly happened a year or so later. It's a national trauma and the whole country has a bad case of survivor's guilt, although they aren't sure how and why exactly they survived and what happened to those who left. There are traumatized parents who've lost kids, traumatized kids who've lost parents, and a number of cults that spring up among those who remain. There's no apocalyptic chaos to speak of, just a lot of sad people trying to carry on. In the end, though, it's about people trying to form relationships among fellow "survivors" and the whole Rapture setting is just a device to explore those relationships. I wouldn't say it was a bad book, but it's another one of those where I get over 200 pages into it and still don't really know where it's heading storywise...I don't feel like the story is really unfolding as it should. Maybe I should just stick to fantasy and werewolves, I don't know.

Showing some balls....and then regretting it.

The county called *again* today and it was the same frickin' Auditor/Tax Collector office where I've interviewed three times now with the same people [and five times with the county overall.] I decided I was tired of going through all of this so I explained to the lady that I had interviewed there five times and it was obvious I didn't have the experience they were looking for, so I was going to pass. I think she was a little surprised.

It felt good, but now I'm starting to wonder if I should have gone ahead and interviewed. Maybe if it had been one of the other county offices, but this one has turned into a farce due to my interviewing there so many times.

Also have a paranoid thought that maybe they were offering me a job out of the blue, but why would they do that without interviewing again....I don't remember that they actually said interview, but I'm sure they did.

Really don't want to be here anymore, but in a difficult situation as far as preparing to leave....

Interview...

...actually went okay. Can't really think of any moments where I should have said something else. The interviewers were nice and didn't really "attack" or challenge the way a lot of other interviewers have, questioning my experience etc.

Guess we will see. I'm not betting on it, but will just consider it a happy surprise if the say yes. Should know in a couple of weeks.

200.

Maybe that is a good place to stop. Well, not stop, but be on hiatus for a while, to figure out what the ultimate purpose of this should be. Writing about my job seeking woes is incredibly demoralizing.

Speaking of which, I have an interview tomorrow, I have a fatalistic attitude at this point. I cannot snow these people, I am just some phony accountant who only has one year of experience on paper, which consisted of maybe two months of working and ten months of screwing around on the internet. Just going to try and put it all out there and see what happens.