Today Is a Good Day.

I'm sitting in my living room entering books for sale into Amazon.com beside my cat Sam, who is curled up on the top edge of the couch, right by my head. He's looking out the crack in the blinds over my glass front door, just in case he needs to defend me from intruders. I feel loved.

I sent Collin sunflowers at work today. I never sent flowers to someone before but it felt really good. Also he liked them.

I need to apply for jobs today but I also need to make dinner. I've been meaning to do so since I got home from work, but Without a Trace keeps coming on. What to do, what to do...

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

May the road rise up to meet you,
May the wind be ever at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face
And the rain fall softly on your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.
-Traditional Irish Blessing


I hope you're wearing green.

Writing the Stories of My Life.

Another musical communiqué:


I am still trying to get a job, and I'm still trying not to let anything break-a my spine, but I have gotten a couple more rejections now: from Berkeley and USF. It just highlights how dreadfully long this process takes. I applied for those jobs in early February. So the next wave will be the Atlanta jobs I started submitting my resumes to after Collin and I broke up.

I've had several people putting in good words for me at Turner, and basically I've been told that it's easier to move around in Turner than it is to get into Turner. This fits with what most of the comments on the job search boards say, too, so I wasn't surprised. But I have been pretty disappointed and discouraged about the whole thing.

Finally will come the rejections from the jobs I'm now applying to - in San Francisco.


Ok, so I don't know where to start, and I guess in that case it's best to just start. This past weekend my relationship with Collin got much more complicated. We began by becoming friends again last week, and at this point, it does look like I'm going to go to San Francisco at some point in the near future. I don't know what that means anymore, for me, for us, for my career, for anything. I just know that if I don't go now, I'm going to regret it for the rest of my life. Collin is my best friend and I just can't accept the thought of living without him in my life in some fashion. He apparently feels similarly about the situation. Finding this out was what has really made this complicated, for both of us. I'm going out there at the end of this month, and we are basically going to have a long-weekend-long discussion and come to some conclusions. We both hope it works out, but we also both know that our relationship is... complicated. At the end of the day, though, we love each other, and we really have a good time when we're together. I think those two things generally go a long way.


(I really wish I could have been at this show.)
I'm absolutely terrified of what I'm going to do when I finally get out there. I'd like to be a writer. I've been trying to learn about how to "be" a writer, other than writing a best-selling novel (since that would take a little too long and I'd *probably* deplete my savings by the time I finished it, especially considering I have no savings). It turns out there are a lot of different ways. I mean, when you look around you, writing is everywhere; someone somewhere is paid to write it.

I have seen several writing jobs in SF, but the pay is abysmal, and most of them are only part-time or temporary anyway. Eventually a writer can piece together a satisfactory income from freelance work, but that takes time. Part of me - actually quite a large part of me - wants to get a job in a hotel or restaurant or something and just work my butt off in my free time building a portfolio and sending out pieces, and query letters, and calling people, and volunteering my services, and basically just begging for work. Eventually I know that would pay off.

It's very scary but also very exciting. It will be really nice to accomplish something based on hard work, though. Up until this point in my life, I've mostly just relied on my good brains. Great love and great achievements require great risk, as anonymous said, and I'm ready to take those risks.

So yeah. I'll keep you posted.

By the way, I figured out where most of my nightmares originated: this video.

My Life In Song Right Now (Figuratively If Not Literally, But Maybe Literally, Too)

It's been a whirlwind month. I haven't written in a few days, obviously. I've wanted to, but at this point I don't even know where to start. I'm trying to maintain composure...

Up, up, and AWAY!

Biplane ride with my friend Allison = Much needed FUNventure!! And what's more, I finally saw Stone Mountain after only 12 years in Atlanta! I feel like I got a lot done today. Even though I really didn't do anything.

This weekend has been a major diet CRASH/cheatfest. I've had pizza, beers, nachos, chips and salsa (separate incidents) and hardly any fruits and vegetables all day. I feel bloated and gross. Tomorrow it's back on the diet-wagon and I couldn't be happier about that.

Ease On Down the Road...

Well, it's been a long day in the middle of a long month.

Today I realized that writing was the thing uniting all of my career aspirations, so writing it is. Yikes. I bought a book about different types of writing jobs -- how to get them, what they entail, how much they might pay, etc. I'm feeling good.

Of course, I still don't have a *job* but honestly it's been nice just to want to do something. I want to do web design, but the market is completely saturated, in SF *and* in ATL. I want to learn to do it still, but the more time that passes, the more clearly I see that I can't expect to make any money doing it for some time yet. So I'll keep applying for jobs, program coordinating, copywriting, etc., and hope that something comes up. I do feel like I'm on the right (write) path. It is just a difficult and scary path. But what trip worth taking is easy and boring? The harder you work, the more satisfying the outcome, I think. So I am going to work hard. And hopefully my hard work will bring satisfaction.

Fingers crossed.

Everyone Needs a Night Off Every Now and Then.

And Without a Trace is on again. :-D

I have a list of 21 jobs to apply to tomorrow! Somehow, someday, I *will* get a job. But tonight I'm taking it easy.

Speaking of fabulous television...



Awesome.