For starters, Update to last week’s post. The very day I posted that, later that night, we took Lola-dog in to the vet, which led to her being put to sleep. Pervasive cancer. Poor girl, I’m glad now that I was sneaking her pain pills.

Spike-kitten and Lola-dog, about a year ago.

Well, the result of that day is that I did get the job. I started on Tuesday. I almost wish I hadn’t.

It’s boring. It’s mind-numbing. It’s frustrating. It’s…temporary? God, I hope so.

Shelving books. Discarding books. Shelving more books. Discarding more books. Working with people who have no respect for books whatsoever. They keep telling me that in a few weeks, I won’t care about the books either. I dearly hope not. If I ever get to the point where a book is as of little importance as an apple core or stale cracker, I don’t know if I’ll even be me anymore.

Disorganized, messy, crowded…the whole store is that way, and the book section is no exception. Sorting 3-4 carts of books right out on the floor, piles of books stacked on every available surface. And they don’t know what they have. Their logic for why they keep one book and discard another, it makes no sense at all to me. What makes one book “antique” and one book “old” is a mystery. And the woman who runs that department has been there for 8 years, so I don’t think anything will change.

I am telling myself now – it’s a temporary thing. It’s just until I can figure something else out. If nothing else, I’m going to try for a transfer to the newer store that’s close by – they haven’t even put their library up yet, so if I can get in to it early enough, maybe it won’t be so bad. I hope. Maybe I can go back to Borders and beg the manager to give me a chance – now that I have a job, maybe I’ll be more attractive

Anyway. It is a job, and that was desperately needed. I only wish I’d gotten a job where I could think and learn and do.

Today was one of those, whatchacallit, “bittersweet” days. I finally found a job, and went with my daughter to fill out the paperwork for the background check and do the drug test. She’s my lucky charm, and it was easier than cutting her foot off for my keychain. It means she got up at 6:30am to go, no small feat for a teenager in the midst of summer vacation.

On the way there, the bus traveled through familiar territory. I am used to ignoring it, mostly, but it starts a chain of thoughts. As the bus pulled in to our stop, I said, this may look familiar to you. “Oh?” Yeah.

We walked to the drug testing place, and I pointed out what other building shared the walkway. Yeah, the midwife’s place. The one I went to when I lost the baby, 4 years ago. Anway, shake it off, go inside. Where the nice man asks me about the tattoos on my feet. The ones of my dead baby’s feetprints. Smile, explain it simply. Keep going. Walk out to the bus stop afterwards, try not to think too much about how many times I walked in circles around the block, trying to make labor progress so that I wouldn’t have to go to the hospital to deliver him. Distraction – visit the Asian market while we are waiting for the bus.

So the result of all of this, combined with the knowledge that my son, had he lived, would be turning 4 years old this month, really put me in a mood. Which led to having this song in my head all damn day. Blue for You , by Men At Work. A sample:

I must get out and about
Of that I have no doubt
There surely must be new places to go
Sights I’ve never seen
All with pastures green
‘Cos the old ones are making me blue for you

or how about this:

The sun it still shines in
And I shall close the blinds
‘Cos I know I won’t see you anymore

So, do I win the emo prize today?

I want the job, but what if I get it???? Then I’ll have to go there and do work that I don’t know how to do etc……..so there’s that.

I dunno. I’ve been without work for more than a year now. I don’t like the idea of sitting on my ass not working for the money I’m getting, but on the other hand, it’s scary out there!

Of course, I’m pre-freaking out and I probably won’t even get the job. But after a year of looking and only getting 3, yes THREE interviews, each one is a special anxiety inducing event.

Anyway. I’ll either be working by Monday, or I won’t.

Good stuff happens in 3′s right? I’m going to say that today.

The good things are:

1. I won a contest that got me a Pet’s Eye View Camera courtesy Uncle Milton and cuteashell.com cuteness.com.

This is neat because I can attach it to a chicken, a cat or…my kid. I plan to attach it to my daughter for Kumoricon. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Kumoricon is an anime convention held in Portland, Oregon on Labor day weekend. This serves a dual purpose for us – it gives us something really cool to do just before school starts again, and gets us out of going to the family gathering that same weekend. Sounds mean, but given the options, I’ll pick hundreds of oddly-dressed stranger-geeks over too many family members.

2. I did a survey thing and got a $60 gift card for Amazon – for real. Awesome because it got me a new coffee cup warmer, egg/fruit slicer and a 15ft HDMI cable (perfect for watching downloaded anime on the 42″ flatscreen the roommate got recently), as well as some seatbelt webbing and tights for my kid’s Kumo cosplay. She’s going as Dita from Chobits – and has a friend going as Dita’s partner. Kinda cool.

These are all good things. Hot coffee, sliced eggs, happy child. Who could ask for more?
This brings me to:

3. I got a job.

At least, that’s what I hope to be saying in a few days. I’m going in for an interview tomorrow, sadly I was half asleep when they called so I’m not sure what location or what position, only that I need to be there. It’s at St. Vincent de Paul, where they have an actual job of being the librarian. That’s what I applied for, hoping that’s what they want to talk to me about. They just opened a new location that’s very close by, so…

Anyway, it’s like a dream job until I figure out what my dream job would be. Sorting and shelving books in a thrift store? YES. Especially one the size of the St. Vinnie’s around here. My mom actually has that job in another town, and loves it. Hard work, but she loves it. She actually recommended it to me, and I was able to use her as a reference. So, cross fingers and keep them crossed for…2-3 days?

Anyway. Those are my 2/3 shiny things for this month.

It was a hard one.