As Harvey Pekar once wrote....

"Brand new decade, same old bullshit."

I'm still on the fence about whether to contribute more to this blog or to just start a new one, but right now I'm thinking I'll just stay here. If anyone does end up reading this, just know there's a lot of years of posts about being unemployed during the Great Recession, trying to find work and failing, and reading a ton of library books. Working now, but still looking for another job. Lots of personal upheaval this year though I'm not one to go into details about it. Been reading blogs by full time RV people, and feeling the urge to wander, to do something different, to hit the reset button [again.] My buddy Ben Hamper wrote about his father having "a habitual lean for the nearest exit" and that's how I often feel Never mind the reset button, I'd like to hit the fast forward button and move on to a year from now.

Christmas Eve

I'm feeling especially melancholy this year, for reasons I won't go into just yet. Christmas Eve was a big deal when I was a kid. We had a big gathering at my grandparents, where I'd visit with all my cousins. It has been 11 years since that's happened, and sadly I missed the last time because of my stupid job at the Big Firm. One grandparent passed away, and it was just too much to manage to continue to have the family gathering there. Occasionally they had one at the local community center, but that came to an end once my last grandparent passed on [somehow, he hung on until a couple of years ago] as the family has dispersed and the grandchildren have started their own families and some of my generation are even grandparents themselves at this point [it's rural Oklahoma, par for the course.]

It's been difficult for me to travel to visit my parents, sister, and nieces. I will probably try to do so next year. But for this year, I'm thinking about the past, and what has been lost, and wondering what the coming year will bring. Merry Christmas, Imaginary Reader.

Back from the dead....

AFter seven years, it's hard to know where to begin. I worked at the job in my last post for a few years, then financial necessity caused us to move to the Bay Area. We puttered along for a few years. I found a job working for a non-profit. It had good points and bad points---since it was a small organization I was also responsible for HR busywork and some general office manager stuff, neither of which I liked. But I liked a lot of the people and supported the mission. I wasn't planning on staying forever, but hoped to at least last a few years.

The 2016 election changed all that. We were dependent on grants from the Department of Education, and had been doing well for the last few years. We'd actually had a lot of support under Republican administrations in the past, and had hoped that we'd still be awarded the funding we needed. Unfortunately, that didn't happen with Betsy DeVos.

My salary was cut by 40%, and I left as soon as I found something else. It required us to move, though not out of the state. Unfortunately, it was a frying pan/fire situation. I was a federal contractor for an agency where I really didn't have any interest in the work. It was the worst environment I had since my experience at the Big Four. People not working together, even within the same departments. Horrible coworkers. Being assigned work without being given the tools needed to do it. Just an overall feeling of futility. I was fortunate to find my current position after eight months. Back in non-profit, back in healthcare, back working with the Native community though this is considerably different than my previous work in that field [we started off in Native health but have developed more as a provider for the under-served community in general, which is something I view more as a necessary evil for us to be able to continue to provide the services we do for Natives.]

And without going into too much detail, I find myself about to undergo a major life change that I didn't really want, but will probably be for the best in the end. 2020 is going to be a difficult year, and I'm not sure where I'll be on the other side of it all, but I've decided to try and write again in order to make sense of it.

A final update.

2012 ended up being a year of major changes. In June my wife was at a breaking strain with her job, and I knew my part-time bookkeeping job would never develop into anything that could support us. I happened to see a government job with an Indian related agency back in my home state. I decided to apply, was interviewed a few weeks later, and got a tentative offer the next day.

Although I had said we would not do so again, my wife and I had to separate for work, and instead of it being 150 miles away this time it was around 1500 miles away. I've been living alone for a little over four months. I'm hoping my wife can join me this spring.

It has been very difficult. I know I was out of work nearly three years and needed a secure job that I was not going to find in California, but I still often regret my decision. Not long after I left there was a promotional opportunity that would have been easier on my wife, but she could not try for it because I had made the decision to leave. She is leaving her job in a couple of weeks, and will work to get the house for sale over the next few months. The housing market seems to be improving, and we're hoping that things will work in our favor. She will have to do the work by herself, which makes me feel immensely guilty.

After a rough start due to lack of guidance, the job is going fairly well. I like what I'm doing, and I am more suited to the pace. But I know I don't want to settle in my home state long-term, and this job has no promotional potential. The step increases will be yearly for the first three years, then they will slow down. At that point, I think I will probably search for another job with another agency, because I do think at that point I will need to find something where I can at least get to the next highest pay grade [which would be good enough for the rest of my career.] But it's good enough for now, and it's good to not feel work stress. I know this is what needed to happen, but I still often wish it worked out some other way.

I spend a lot of time reading. My life feels pretty empty other than that. I'm hoping things will be better this spring, although there will still be things to deal with. Best to you, Imaginary Reader.

I have come to tell you I'm going....

I have decided to not contribute any further to this blog, but will continue to write about books and movies on the other blog I mentioned in an earlier post.

I'll continue to keep this blog up, mainly just for me to look at and to remember what I was going through in 2010-2012. Nothing has really changed, but I am hoping my situation will be different by the end of this year. Things that have held us here are not really around anymore, so we will finally be able to leave Detroit of the West as soon as we get our ducks in a row [which will take a while depending on the real estate market.] But it's finally all in our hands, with no one else to blame. UPDATE: Finally got a part-time bookkeeper position, better than nothing and maybe this will be a good way to gain experience. Probably should have tried this type of thing from the beginning instead of going the whole grad school/CPA firm route.

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.