Halloween

I'm not much in the spirit of the holiday, but the kids are looking forward to Trick or Treating tonight. I'm working overnight and just uploaded Microsoft Office onto this computer. At midnight, I begin the NaNoWriMo project. The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November, and I plan to do just that. It is a little tough to use the word "novel" and not feel like a fake, but that's my problem.

I'm still job searching, trying to figure out what my next career move is, and working part time as the clock tick, tick, ticks and my hair becomes more gray than brown. Writing every day should help me to focus in the coming month. I'm looking forward to starting and have only the vaguest idea of what I want to write about.

I'll try to post a piece on this blog every couple of days. Happy Halloween!

Muddy Water Turned To Wine

Out Of This Gloom, Out of This Rut

Silver, Smoke and Cold

a bright moon on the rise
gleaming white-cold
clear skies frame silhouetted
naked branches
most of their leaves shaken
down now by rain and wind and
time.

wood smoke and a crisp bite in the air
 and silence and
... holiness...
if you leave it alone and
don't say
anything.

a hard frost will come tonight
winter's first stricken blow
while the last colors of Fall
endure
trying hard to be beautiful
in their time

hoping we see.

Status Update

I haven't posted in the last few days because I've been focused on my job search. I had two interviews yesterday, one with the same company that laid me off. They offered me a job in a different department for a significantly smaller salary than what I was making. The second interview was with the non-profit agency where I currently work sometimes. They want to basically hire me to do the same job I was doing at the other place for a much smaller salary. I haven't decided yet, and I'm still looking, but with three kids in this country you need medical insurance. Any sudden medical problem will leave you broke for life without insurance, and health insurance coverage for a family is going to cost you right around $15,000 a year. Employers are paying less and less of the rising premiums going forward. It's a trap, but it feels like security. Freedom is an interesting concept and still somewhere out there, away from here. Of course, there may be those reading this from other places in the wprld who understand freedom and its relativity very differently.

Anyway, thanks for reading.

James Brown - Refuse to Lose

Meditation #1: The Lay Off

It's early yet, I was only laid off three days ago, but I can hear the marching boots of negative psychology in the near distance, getting closer. Contact with negative psychology at a vulnerable time such as this is to be avoided at all costs, it seems to me. In order not to succumb to terror, I think it is best to rewind to the meeting.

The first struggle is swallowing and metabolizing the news of the lay off - "your position is being terminated". In the moment, I was steady and solid. Hell, if I were the powers that be and had to make cuts my former position would be on the top of the list too. Organizationally, it makes sense. It's good business.

It's only business.

But then something gets past my guard, and I wonder is this code? Does "your position is being terminated" mean "we need someone better than you in that position"? So I ask the question, for the sake of my own professional development, if this is about my job performance please let me know. No, no - they reassure me - you have been an asset to the department it's just a cost saving measure. And I am relieved, but I've been nicked with a dart and hope the tip wasn't poisoned.

The first lesson is do not take the impersonal nature of a lay off personally.