Mall buzz

I was out and about yesterday and decided to hit the mall. It's something I usually don't do, because, as most of you who drop by here know, I don't like to pay retail if I can avoid it. But yesterday was a typical Sunday of late for me: rootless, without focus and with a bit jingle in my pocket. So I drove to Silverdale and took in their gigantic Goodwill, which was right across the street from the equally large and wildly busy Costco, and so, for the heck of it, I took in Costco, too. But it was the mall that thrilled me yesterday. What is it about brand new sparkly things that gets folks so excited? Is it something the manufacturers build into the packaging that draws us in? Is it some sort of slow release chemical that attracts customers in the way that exotic flowers draw in flies?

There is a sort of energy at the mall on busy Sunday that can't be matched anywhere else, well, maybe outside of a major factory production line or the Seattle Center on New Year's eve or during a key moment at a big sporting event. It was beyond busy, human running about like newly minted molecules, excited children bumping around like pinballs. The light, always kaleidescopic in a place like that, took on a carnival air. And it applied to almost all corners of the place. No shop or kiosk or big box store was immune. I cruised fast, skirting around customers like an old tin-can destroyer on a high seas cruise, getting in my walk for the day, and took in all the sights, big retailers like Penny's and Macy's, just to see the latest cookgear, as well as old favorites like Cost Plus World Bazaar (always liked their rug and wine assortment).

But in order to slip away from all the pre-holiday madness and catch my breath I snuck away to the cookbook aisles of Barnes and Noble. It was great having that store as an access point to the Mall. It was a sort of sylvan glen to rest in before I slipped out into the desert of retail madness, and a nice place to decompress before I headed off to my car. One thing for certain, if I am ever going to have a good thing going with my cookbook collection I must have readily accessible shelving like they do, and an equally large room to store them in. I was wowed, as I should have been, by the size and breadth and freshness of their collection, but being the after-retailer that I am, I couldn't bear to look at the prices after a few moments so I just took note of the most happening and nifty of their stock and left.

I do love going to the mall, no doubt about it. There was a time when I regularly exercised credit cards there, but those days are long gone. I think of those kinds of places as the new town squares. We dress the part and stroll about, like kings and queens and duchess in the gardens of Versailles. We get to show off our feathers, blow cash we don't have, eat cookies and bad Chinese and overly crusty pizza, smile loudly, bang about like loose cannons and yell after our children, but it's all in the name of commerce and patroiotism and retail therapy. I love that last part. That shop till you drop thing. And then, after we rest our feet, knock back a good cup of coffee and a heavily sugared treat, we jump back into shopping combat mode and go at it again, sort of like kids on Halloween night. They never seem to be satisfied until those sacks of theirs are embarassingly full. Watching the crowds yesterday, I saw no reason to believe that unemployment stood at 10 percent. Heck, all I saw was the full recovery of the nation being just around the corner, all stuffed into large department store sacks.

Yeah, I'll be back. See you in the cookbook aisle some Sunday, eh?

Salud!

Lies, statistics and the realities of job searching

If there was ever a time when I needed to practice better money discipline now is the time. For all too many years I have spent money like a drunken sailor (didn't hurt that I had a lot of experience being one for a time..) but now that credit cards and a fat paycheck are clearly out of my life I have no excuse engaging in "retail therapy" on a daily basis just to get myself out of the house. I have all too many other things I could be doing but I have been finding all too much pleasure cruising the aisles of Goodwill and all the other local junk stores in search of treasures that give me momentary pleasure. That is, until the next all too necessary fix...

Work. Hmm. I spend most of mornings "working" online. Actually, my routine is pretty dependable and fairly comfortable. The cat walks on my chest anywhere between three and six in the morning. Depending on my disposition (and the amount of wine I might have consumed the night before...) that will "start" my day. Better if it's closer to six, because then I have an excuse to put on a movie. Better if it's closer to seven or even eight because then I can start my daily in somewhat realistic fashion. Eight is a good time to be up and out of bed. Eight is good time to fire up the news, the stove. Eight is late enough in the morning not to startle the new neighbors next door when I stumble out the back door in my whitey tighties and throw out yesterday's coffee grounds. Eight is a perfect time to stretch, brush teeth, scratch, all that.

A daily routine is important if you want to stay on track, if you want to seriously want to get back on track once that proverbial ship comes steaming in. I wake up to old news in my head, but know that new news is awaiting me down at the computer. What's good is that I get to work online before the bandwidth is sucked up by the local branch library. I believe we share the same cable service. Seems when their doors open my computer slows waay down. Coincidence? Imagination? I don't know for certain but it is somewhat uncanny when it takes me a half hour to move through a couple windows.

No matter. Me and the state of Idaho have become good friends. I use a variety of on-line services for job searching and let me tell you, the hour that they give job searchers down at the local library isn't near close enough to find meaningful employment. Almost every application I have fired off over the last four months has been online. Without a reasonable expectation of two to three hours to search, work through applications and download a resume (let alone build one) if you are just using local library facilities you can expect be looking for work far longer than your unemployment benefits will run.

So my mornings are spent searching, but my afternoons have been largely spent hanging out with my pal The Hot Dog King. I have a small spot of concrete that I warm next to his cart and have gotten to know his clientle over the last few months. It's been a gas meeting attorneys, sheriffs, watching the court action come and go, especially the family and drug court folks who come around on Fridays. The "1:30 Follies" are especially enlightening. It's a "but for the grace of God go I" kind of thing. Helps to keep me in line and thankful. Every day.

So, the newspaper says "10 percent unemployment" My friend says it's closer to 17 percent when you figure in men like me who are out there looking for work outside the realms of their chosen profession, men who are happy to be applying for jobs that pay half of what they were making before just to keep the wolves at bay. The other day I said that I would never consider library work again. I know that I keep plugging away at Idaho, keep looking at working a desk in Boise or Pocatello or wherever as a Workforce Consultant. The longer I keep looking for work the more I realize my skills are needed in that agency to help folks like me find work. Let me tell you, it's a bitch, truly.

That library job I mentioned a moment ago? A branch library manager, Delta, Colorado. I wasn't looking hard for that job, let me tell you, but it was there on the Colorado library job line. Wrote a cover letter this morning. Will run to Gig Harbor Peninsula branch tomorrow to print out an application, send off a package Monday. Why Gig Harbor? Seriously? Can you see me getting within shadow's distance of my local branch?

The realities, though, of my life are that for all the anxieties about work I am pretty happy. Things could be better, sure..my house could have sold, I could be in Boise with my kids right now. Could have made better sense of my life while I was here, made better choices, kept my words to myself, all that, but hey, you guys voted me Best Blog. Had to keep up the faith by writing, sharing, wearing my heart on my sleeve, all that.

Oh, and for those of you who know or have the priviledge of being able to see MJR let her know that I need to talk to her. That we need to sit down and share a cup of coffee. It's been a year since I've seen her face and even then it was only in passing. And, if all goes well with this job search business, know that I'll be gone soon. That should be a plus, as far as information to pass along to her is concerned. Let her know that she needs to call me, okay? Ah, where's a good "broker" when you need one?

Okay, keep your body and soul together, chillin's. And know to keep your words and emotions to yourself, otherwise you, too, will learn to appreciate the joys of filing your weekly claim at midnight on Sundays.

Salud!

Road trips and revelations

For the last four months I have been grounded, in a way. Strickly my fault, you see. There hasn't been anyone forcing me to stay home these past few weeks, rather, it was a sort of self imposed arrest. There is something about travel that liberates the soul, that opens up possibilities, that releases the imagination that I wasn't quite comfortable embracing at the time. I kept putting it off, wondering what the world "out there" held in store for me, yet, at the same time, turned away from it because I was afraid of what I might find.

I finally took my act on the road last week after three false starts. I put off my long overdue trip to Boise for a number of reasons. First it was the mechanics of the car, then it was cash flow and then, finally, weather. But once I road tested my wee little beast up and over and back again from Twisp I felt confindent that the car could handle the miles. Money, well, there never seems to be enough of it even in the best of times so I decided not to let that be an impediment any more. And as for weather, well, I bought chains and that was that.

I figured since I had the time and the skies were clear I would take a lesser traveled path. I took the highway up and over the Cascades by the way of Enumclaw and into Naches via Chinook Pass, driving through windshield high snow drifts on a recently plowed highway. I was happy that my car was not giving me fits, as the phone reception disappeared once I left Mt Rainier National Park. I was happy for the solitude, the sunshine and the massive bag of snacks and tunes I had by my side. I felt self contained, even giddy, knowing that the back of the wagon was filled with loot for my kids and that I would finally be seeing them before the night was out.

What surprised me more was finding that after all the angst I've had about my little house and my community I was glad and happy to be back in Idaho. I fought the notion of moving for so long that when I arrived and got into the groove of living with my children once again that I had to wonder what the heck I was thinking of before. I had to really wonder about about myself and what had held me back for so long...an old stick house, a boxful of memories and a profession that, for better or worse, was just another way to make money.

I found that I was comfortable in Boise, as the place reminded me a lot of where I grew up. As I drove down Eagle highway and on the roads in and out of the subdivions of the Treasure Valley I kept having flashbacks to early days, to old towns like Tustin and Costa Mesa and all the previously unincorporated lands that were once fields and orchards and cattle ranges. As I took the Estranged One around to second hands, as I raced the kids to the movies and school and their friend's homes I kept thinking of the times I had in my youth where my friend's moms and dads would do the same for me and my pals. All around us the bean fields were disappearing and housing tracts were popping up. On the way to and from the beach and school and playdates the orange groves were coming down and malls and eateries were rising. I saw the same thing happening there on the outskirts of Boise and strangely felt at home.

I know that to leave this little house and this sweet community would release me from the self imposed exile I set for myself. I held the line for no one but myself. I came home from a wonderful road trip and lovely Halloween and a ton of good moments to house that was warm, filled with my things and "peopled" by my cat, but not much else. Oh, sure, that and memories, but memories do not warm a bed or make me laugh out loud or keep me busy in a meaningful way.

I came off of that road trip knowing that I work at Helpline because I miss working for people in a meaningful way. I know that I am here in Port Orchard because of an old house and friends and the memory of old loves and those reasons alone. I came off the road to a house that now off the market with the phone ringing off the hook looking for new possibilities to sell it. Now that I am "home" I can see that I took that trip not only to see my children but to help me mark my internal road map. Where I was headed was a mystery before. I know now that my sights are set on Idaho, if only because the dreams I had for this house, for this community, for my profession, are all over and done with.

Later on this week I'll have a new realtor. I keep throwing out applications towards Idaho and sooner or later something will happen there. My children light up my cell phone with calls and messages that I found were, more than anything else, are what really matters.

I discovered, too, after alot of thought, that my chosen profession is really just helping people. I am a glorified customer service rep to the needly and the lost. I am a helper to those with questions and to those with poorly defined answers. I am a man who knows how to find information but more how to set people on a path to a better life. Maybe I can do that for myself for a change.

One thing I found for certain and that is the Treasure Valley area is not too big on hiring librarians. So, from here out, in order to be where my heart needs to be since this place has effectively shut it out, I am going off into the world of customer service and leaving librarianship behind. Twenty five years of doing the same thing is enough for me. Time for something completely different, even if that means reinventing myself in ways that, even two weeks ago, I couldn't begin to imagine.

See there, that's why I didn't take that road trip before. What happened was what I was afraid was going to happen. It was a release of the flood waters behind the dam. Hell, the complete and total destruction of the dam and the life that I had been living. I am ready to be swept away, road or no road, job or no job, map or no map.

I am on my way. On my way to where, I have no idea, but I think that it will be to a place where I can be happy again, even if it's just for a moment, but hopefully, for the rest of my life.

Salud!