Where do I begin? The beginning sounds logical, but where is that?  I’m feeling so many extreme emotions right now that finding the beginning is proving very difficult vague. Bear with me.

I have a poor track record for keeping in constant contact with beloved friends. Terrible in fact. In between the times I do manage to keep in touch, they are often in my thoughts. I wonder about their lives, where they are right now, is the weather as warm and blustery? Are they happy? And then once again I remind myself that I must call/write/send a gift/a thank you/stop by, and I am cheered by that thought even as I’m already forgetting to do so. 

And sometimes, there is no next time and it is too damn late.

Yesterday, completely by accident, I discovered that a dear friend from my days living in Lambertville is dead.  I say is dead instead of has died because he passed away in early July. If you want to be technical about it, he probably passed away in the dark, wee hours of June 30.  And I am utterly gutted.

Tim was the lone fatality in major flooding that covered the Lambertville/New Hope area over a period of several days in late June/early July.  It was a freakish accident.  He had drinks with friends at the local pub and, some time after midnight, left to walk the 8 or so blocks to his home.  Like he, I and many friends had done so many times before.  But the river water had already emptied into the local creek and was more than a foot deep and rising on the streets. He was cautioned against walking through that particular area, and Tim, who’d lived in this sleepy little town and through so many other floods, knew the danger and how to get home safely.  Not to worry, he said, I know how to get around it.

But he never did.  On July 4, friends and family exhausted all possibilities and reported him missing. The police and the rescue dogs were brought in and, on July 5, they found him among the debris in the creek, drowned, a mere few blocks from the pub.  He had been in the water for almost a week, steps away from the neighboring houses.  He was 39.

So I went from kind of not interested to completely and utterly excited about the company I interviewed with on Monday.  I know I could totally rock the work, the company is on a growth spurt and focused on marketing and people I would be working with are great and seem excited about what they do.  The one woman is a mom and, professional capabilities aside, said I seemed like an ideal fit and wouldn’t it be nice to have another mother on the team?  The other bigger boss threatened to poach me for another position. 

I don’t think it could have gone better.

I only hope that they aren’t concerned that the position might be too focused or junior for my background.  I certainly didn’t think so. Sure, it’s not management but right now I want an interesting job with a good salary and I will do the best I can at it.  I’m not looking to conquer any dragons, at least not for a few years.

Then I had an email from the recruiter today, saying she would call me later to “discuss feedback from the team.” *gulp* I hope that’s a good thing.

Also this week I was offered two definite consulting gigs as a program manager, one potential free-lance position with another law firm and one additional potential marketing gig for a local arts organization.  So, if this full-time job is a bust, we won’t starve.  Feast or famine.  When it rains it pours, etc and so forth ad nauseum infinitum. Or some such.  I can’t wait to see how this turns out.

The only I’ve found to keep one cranky baby amused during long car rides is to sing.  Must have a good melody, must be upbeat, extra points for repetitive phrasing.  Problem is, I don’t have a huge mental repertoire of kid songs. Novice much? So, in addition to select favorites from Annie and South Pacific, I’ve had to fall back on the few classics I know, like Old MacDonald and The Wheels on the Bus.

Which, after the 15 round, can make any otherwise reasonable person want to jam hot pokers into their brain cavities.

There are now new passengers on the bus.

The homeless on the bus say Spare some change? Spare some change? Spare some change?

The fundies on the bus say Are you saved? Are you saved? Are you saved?

What other verses can you think of to the Wheels on the Bus?  My sanity is counting on you.

This afternoon I have an interview in Philadelphia for a job I’m not really sure I want.  Here are some of the basics.  It’s a good company, a smaller, more open-minded competitor of Big Giant Consulting, my former employer.  It’s great money, a generous 30% more than my current salary.  It’s a “city” salary, impossible to find in this area, and would go tremendously far in providing for the family and in fixing up the Karma Farmhouse, which is slowly weeping long tears of wallpaper, rust and rotten wood.  It would mostly be working from home, after a month or so of traveling the (if you know the area) completely teeth-gnashing 45-60 minute commute east to Philly.  There is a small team of people, one who I interviewed with over the telephone last week, a very pleasant, easy-going supervisor, and two more who also work primarily from home and who I will meet today.

Let’s sum up.  Good company, great money, work from home, collaborative team.  So, why am I being such a complete undiluted ass about this? 

It’s a writing job.

I know.  Here, let me turn this way so you can kick me straight in my bratty, obnoxiously moronic backside.  No really, have a go. Like you mean it.  The reason why I’m hemming and hawing and several times have picked up the phone for the “thanks, but no thanks” conversation is because I’m absolutely terrified at the job.  It’s not even a managerial position with any high-pressure supervisory responsibilities.  It would focus completely on writing project overviews, client wins and references, that sort of thing.  And it’s not like I haven’t done the same thing in the past. But here’s the thing.  A couple of things, actually.  I’ve always been a generalist…doing marketing events, strategies, advertising, sprinkle a bit of PR in there. Oh yeah, and some web and brochure copywriting.  I tend to have a short attention span, and there’s always been a wide variety of bright and shiny objects with which I could distract myself.  In this potential job, not so much.

I feel perhaps that I may have inwardly seethed long enough to give a little detail around the current work situation.  Also, I just woke from the weirdest dream involving railroad lines, Ellis Paul and narwhales and now can’t get back to sleep. So grab a coffee and let’s go for a ramble, shall we?

When I moved to this area three and a half years ago, I had been doing marketing for the government group of a global consulting firm.  It was a pretty isolated life.  I knew no one here, worked from home and spent a ridiculous amount of hours in grubby PJs crouched over a glowing laptop.  After five years with Big Giant Consulting, it was burnout city with hefty side orders of loneliness and depression. It wasn’t pretty.

So when a marketing opportunity came along at a local law firm, I jumped at the chance.  It came with at a 40 % pay cut but, hey! I was excited. Go to a real office? With real people? Having real conversations in front of real water coolers?  And I can shower and get dressed…every day?  Yes please. Because this full-time marketing position was new for them, the job description was both extremely open and a clown car of responsibilities, everything you could possibly imagine was crammed into it.  And I was excited at the opportunity of being, as I was told, in charge of the marketing efforts.

And, since I’m still gainfully employed, here’s where I need to be a bit diplomatic.

Everything started out great.  I enjoyed learning about the industry and got to know and work with a lot of attorneys. There was a lot to do and I enjoyed doing it. Performance evaluations were outstanding and it was hearts and flowers and nice raises. Then two things happened.  I continued to get more work and, at the same time, I had to work harder to get anything done. See, the basic tenet of law practice is that everything comes down to billable time. If an attorney doesn’t bill time, that attorney (and the firm) doesn’t get paid. Marketing, to many, is a major nonbillable time suck.  There is often no immediate, tangible dollar value you can place on it and, most importantly, it takes up time that could otherwise be spent actually billing someone. So, with that in mind, it’s no surprise that marketing is usually the first thing people ignore and marketers are the first people to go during budget cuts. But I digress.

Like, kick you right in the stomach with pointy shoes kind of fun?

Sharing an office printer and getting to see the resumes of all the hopeful people eager to replace you. *kicks the wall*

I can’t wait to be done with this.

On a lighter note...RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

I’ve had one trick or treater tonight. One.  And now I’m locked in a quiet house with an enormous bowl of mini Twix. And THAT my friends is the definition of terrifying.

I have plenty to say about the current work situation. Oh yes, I do.  But since getting a boot mark firmly imprinted on my ass last Tuesday, many amazing things have been happening to me at such a rapid pace, I can barely catch my breath.  It’s like Karma slept through her alarm that morning, waking up hung over, blearily eyeing the clock with an “oh fuck” at precisely the minute the Big Boot meeting ended, and has been trying to make amends ever since.  My days are spent working through some key projects here at the firm and fielding potential opportunities for new work after the new year.  My nights are well-slept and spent flying over frosted fields through blue, autumn skies.

Sometimes, when the Powers That Be close one door, they hurl a brick through the window.

One incredibly NOT amazing reason why I haven’t felt like writing much about my situation has everything to do with perspective. 

There’s a girl who recently joined the firm.  Mid-twenties, gorgeous inside and out.  Young, eager and completely in love with her fiancé, a state trooper who she would be marrying this summer.  From the day I met her, it was obvious she was crazy about this man.  It was incredibly sweet. I would hear her asking some of my colleagues for tips about this or that related to her upcoming nuptials.

Last week, on a perfect crisp morning, state troopers came to the office to inform this young woman that her beloved fiancé had killed himself.  He had been found in his truck on the side of a highway, a gun by his side.  No hint, no note, no prior problem that anyone could see. One day he was working security detail in a neighboring county, the next day gone.  Separated by two floors and many closed doors, I will never forget the sound of the howls of grief that came ringing up the staircase.  Or the memory of her repeatedly dialing a number on her cell, mumbling “he needs me, he needs me.”

I have a definite opinion about suicide, what seems to be the necessary solution to end of pain for one, that opens up endless grief for the ones left behind. But I have not been touched by suicide. My opinion is completely uninformed, and one that I do not have the right to share.  I think it’s a mind set only truly fathomed by those who have experienced or survived it. What I do know is that I cannot imagine her pain.  Nothing in my experience comes close.  And with that perspective, I haven’t felt the least bit worthy to discuss the “pain” my ego has been suffering in the imminent loss my job.

Soon, but not right now.