...and the sad thing is, it could get worse

So, I've come up for air after spending the past four months or so writing a novel.

I've spent the time doing that, looking for a real job (no joy there), and taking a walk every day. I've been without a television or a radio. YouTube has been my friend. I've listened to a lot of music, but I've pretty much been ignoring what's been going on in the world. Anything I've known about what's been going on in the world has come from either Facebook or Ravelry, a website for knitters.

Don't laugh. Ravelry sometimes scoops the national networks when something big happens because, with over 2 million members, Ravelry is everywhere and Ravelrs are smart.

Anyway, in the past few days since I sent the manusscript off to soe beta readers, I've been looking at a bit of news. And, you know, I wish I hadn't. It's just too depressing, both the headlines and the background noise. Rioting in Egypt. Extremists beheading hostages. Both Sarah Palin and Donald Trump are talking about running for president again. Televangelist John Hagee thinks that the unemployed should be made to starve to death - well, I think the word he used was "allowed" to starve to death, but it comes out to the same thing.

That last may be the thing that bothers me the most. Because, you know, I'm still unemployed. Working, since writing is very damn hard work, and only people who have never written think otherwise, but getting paid for work right now. And, at this point, I'm not only not making money, but I'm losing the place where I've been staying tomorrow and I don't have anywhere to go. And becuase of that, this Hagee guy, who professes to be a Christian, wants me to die.

He doesn't know me. He knows nothing of my circumstances. He isn't doing anything, as far as I've been able to discover, to find jobs for the unemployed. He just wants to abandon a growing segment of the population of our country to die because...well, I'm not sure exactly why. He says the Bible says that those who don't work shouldn't be allowed to eat. However, I'm not sure that his attitude really represents the sort of Christian charity that I was taught that followers of Christ are supposed to show their fellow human beings.

I guess it's par for the course in a country where the rich are getting richer, the middle class is in danger of becoming the poor, and much of the corporate world advocates not only not paying workers a living wage but wants minimum wage laws overturned so that they don't even have to pay their workers a minimum wage that is inadequate to support an individual, much less a family. There are times when I think a certain segment of our society (and I'm looking at you right now, Koch Brothers) won't be happy until we becoe a feudal society, where a very small number of very reach individuals owns the rest of us, body and soul. There is something very wrong when, in the richest country in the world, there are not jobs for everyone who wants one, where some people don't have a roof over their heads and enough food to keep them healthy enough to work.

Because, God knows, I want to work. I'm willing to do anything I can physically do - and, of course, that is legal and moral. But, in three years of looking, of submitting so many resumes that I've lost track of their number, I haven't gotten even one interview. Oh, people want my labor. They just don't want to pay for it. So, I've done volunteer work. I've tried to generate my own job by advertising my tutoring services, but it seems like everyone who has enquired about getting tutoring for themselves or their children suddenly loses interest when they discover that I expect to be paid for my work. You know, like everybody else in the world.

I realize that I've said most, if not all, of this here before, in other posts. But I have to be honest: I'm getting kind of tired of being expected to do a thing, but then denied the basic conditions in which to do that thing. I'm told by society - get a job. But then I'm not given the opportunity to compete for a job by interviewing for jobs. Even worse than that, I'm condemned by certain segments of society for not working, but then I'm told, through their rhetoric in the media, that because I'm not already working, I'm not even allowed to have the basics to be able to have a chance to win the job if I do get an interview. I don't deserve, in their opinion, even a place to sleep safely, a place to keep myself and my clothes clean, enough food to keep myself healthy enough to do a job if I can even find one. I'm not entitled to have a phone and an address - but who is going to hire anyone who doesn't live anywhere and who can't be reached by phone to come in for an interview?

You know, I intended to write a nice, upbeat, "Yay, I wrote a novel...I've always wanted to do that" post today, since I've been away so long. But I just don't have "upbeat" in me today. And yeah, I'm feeling a little sorry for myself today. But things aren't all bad. I'm getting some mentoring toward getting some money coming in from my writing. It isn't going to be easy, working from the street, but I'm determined. Well, some people would call it stubborn. I'm going to fight these idiots who think I should just be written off because I happened to lose a job in the general downsizing that came in the wake of the financial sector shooting the world economy in the head.

But, you know, as stubborn as I am, as determined as I am, there is a stubborn, contrary part of me that almost wishes that the whole situation had made me suicidal. Becuase if I was - and I am not, so don't worry about me - I'd find a way to get me to John Hagee's church, and I'd sit down on their front lawn or whatever it has, and I'd have me this big sign that said: "Okay. You think I deserve to starve to death. Great. I'll just sit right here and do that for you and see how you like watching it. See how you like how that really looks in practice."

Becauase if I deserve to starve to death, the people who want that deserve to have to watch it, up close and personal.

Running behind today...

It' after 6 pm, and it just occurred to me that I haven't posted anything here today.

Oops.

I guess that headache isn't as gone as I thought it was.

It should be gone. I slept late today (the first day this week I haven't had to be up and out early). Other than doing some housework and reading, I haven't really done anything today. The weather is nice - in fact, this was the first day it really, really felt like fall around here, for all that it was still 79 degrees for the high today. Despite that, when I went out to take some bottles to the recyclers, there was something in the air that made it feel like autumn rather than summer. And I'm really glad of that. I'm over the whole summer thing for this year.

Except, I lied. I did do something else today. I did homework. Well, kind of.

I'm learning how to work with Excel. It's something I need mainly so that I can put it on my resume to increase my chances of getting a job. Not that I can really imagine myself in any job where I would have to do anything even vaguely like keeping books. Yeah, I know, spreadsheets are used for lots of things besides bookkeeping. But numbers are often involved and I have what you might call an adversarial relationship with numbers in general and manipulating them in particular. It isn't that I can't do math, understand. I just don't like it much.

Although, one thing I've discovered that I really like about Excel is that it does your math for you. Yes, you need to understand what needs to be done to the numbers (add them? multiply them? a little of both?), but once you figure that out, you just put the equation together and apply it, and you've got your sum or your product or whatever. Yay.

The thing that I'm finding interesting is that it isn't the numbers part of Excel that is giving me fits. Instead, it's the formatting. Putting in and taking out borders. Centering things in cells. Adding titles and colors.

Drives me crazy. I think I broke my brain on the stuff I was working on this afternoon. Now, I feel a definite sense of accomplishment at having finally conquered the project. Yes, I do. But my headache, which has been with me for pretty much all week but had seemed much better after sleeping in this morning, was back by the time I was finished. Along with a bonus tic.

No. Literally. All the muscles around my left eye were in spasm by the time I printed out my final product and shut the computer down. No clue what that was all about, but I was really happy when it stopped.

I'll figure out all this spreadsheet stuff eventually. I haven't worked with spreadsheets since I took my very first computer class, back in about 1989. I don't remember much about it. Might have been Lotus? It's really been a long time.

At any rate, I've been good, I've worked on Excel and I've written, and I vacuumed the carpets. Now it's almost time for dinner, so I'm going eat and maybe do some knitting, and let my brain rest. It is the weekend now, after all.

Friday after 6 pm does count as the weekend, doesn't it?

When life consists of miscellaneous stuff...

Again, it's been a busy few days. So, I haven't dropped off the earth, I've just been doing stuff out here in the real world. This includes writing, CVP volunteer stuff, looking for work, and...well, so much stuff I can't even quite remember some of it.

I also had an ailing computer for a few hours yesterday, so couldn't get online until that got troubleshot? troubleshooted? Fixed, at any rate.

Yes, I know troubleshooted is not a word. I just thought it was funny and had to include it.

But, mostly I haven't been writing because I'm going through one of those pissed at the universe phases that I encounter occasionally, and I haven't wanted to subject you all to that. It's been a free-floating pissed-offedness for the most part, but there have been some foci to it as well, including the fallout from news out of the recent National Rifle Association meeting...not going to get into that at all because, well, for reasons.

There was also the news out of Cleveland. What the hell was that guy thinking, kidnapping and holding hostage three women, two of them teenagers at the beginning and one of them a friend of his daughter's. I'm not into the "let's all hate men" thing, but there are men in this world who just don't seem to have a freaking clue that they don't have special rights just because they have a...well, you know. I won't comment further on that, either.

On a related note, I read an item in the past week or so about a middle school that banned girls from wearing strapless gowns to graduation, or to the graduation dance, or something. Well, I can see that in principle, as I'm not sure that thirteen-year-old young women really need to be wearing strapless dresses, but that's just me. I'm old. But the reason the school district gave for the ban was something along the lines of "because it would be distracting to the boys." Excuse me, what? Are we still teaching young men that if they can't control their hormones, it's the girl's fault, and that it is the girls' responsibility to cover up so that the boys won't be distracted, or do something about that distraction. Really?

There's more. But I'm on a library computer at the moment and my allotted time to use it is about to run out. So, just let me say that the continuing dearth of jobs is also continuing to frustrate me as well. One thing I can't really complain about this time is my Facebook feed. People have mostly been behaving themselves this week. There have been a couple of exceptions, but those were easily hidden.

Additionally, I can't complain about my writing, which is going fairly well considering the mood I've been in. In fact, I've been finding this week that the only time I'm really happy and content is when I'm writing something.

So, maybe I should have made myself sit down and write posts every day. Maybe I would have been happier.

Oh, one thing I want to mention before I go for the day, considering that I write about movies here from time to time: I finally got to see "Argo" last weekend. Fabulous movie. I can see why it won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. And I do want to jump on the bandwagon of folks who thing that Ben Affleck got robbed by not being nominated as Best Director for his work on the film. The performances were wonderful, with special props to Affleck for starring as well as directing. It was especially interesting to watch the movie with a friend of mine who lived in Tehran for a time, up until just a couple of years before the events depicted in the film. She had a few quibbles with details, but it's Hollywood; they never get anything completely correct. But, even knowing the city and the culture and recognizing the fact that there were some inaccuracies, my friend still liked the film a lot.

If you haven't seen "Argo", please do. I'm pretty sure you won't be sorry you did.

The rant I've been avoiding all week...

It's been a busy week around here. I've had meetings at CVP, and I've been working on my book project, and a couple of other things. And so, I haven't had much time to write anything here.

But, that's not my excuse for being absent from here for most of the week.

No, my excuse is that I've been in a foul mood and everything I've thought about writing to post has been more rant than post. Since it's Spring Break week, at least around here, I didn't really want to subject you to all that. However, we had a discussion in the meeting I was in yesterday that I just have to say a few things about.

As you know if you've read here very much, I'm currently out of paying work and looking for a job. As part of that, I participate at Central Valley Professionals/Experience Unlimited, which provides seminars, workshops. and networking opportunities for professionals who are looking for work. Well, at my committee meeting yesterday, we started talking (again, as usual) how difficult it is to find work if you are not, well, perfect. If you are not young, employers don't want to hire you. If you've ever had any sort of medical problems or conditions, employers don't want to hire you. If you aren't already employed, employers don't want to hire you - some companies have actually started putting in their job announcements that only the employed need apply.

And god forbid if you're like me, and are both over fifty and have an existing medical condition - arthritis, in my case. Add to that being a woman, and the chances of being hired by any corporation are essentially nil. This is true, no matter how qualified for the job you are, how much experience you have (and, in truth, having experience can work against you - one of the members of my committee just got turned down for a job because he has too much experience), and how reliable you are.

It occurred to me, thinking about the conversation we had in the meeting, that the corporations are putting themselves in the position of essentially deciding if people are worthy to have a place in society at all.

Really.

If you can't get a job, you can't earn any money, and without money you cannot participate in society. And, heaven forbid you ask the government for help once all your savings run out as you try to keep a roof over your head and food on your table, much less take care of any family you have. If you ask for that help, then you are labeled as a leech who just wants handouts and is too lazy, stupid, and immoral to work. No matter that you lost your job through no fault of your own because the economy crashed and your employer had to eliminate your position. No matter that you are actively looking for work in a region where unemployment is twice the national average and you've already spent all your savings and can't afford to travel or relocate to look for work in other areas, and couldn't afford to move even if you got a job out of your area. It's all your fault, and you don't deserve another chance.

Do I sound bitter?

Well, yes, I suppose I do. And I'm not going to apologize for that. I didn't do anything wrong. My mother got very ill and I had to take care of her. Because of the nature of her illness, she needed someone with her on a 24-hour-per-day basis. This lasted for several years. There was no money to hire someone or put her in a facility, and so I was the one who had to be there for her. I do not regret doing this. I was lucky enough to find a job that allowed me to work from home, and so I was able to work part-time while not being able work outside the home. After my mother had to go into a facility because her illness had reached the point where I could no longer take care of her, and after she died, I kept that job because I couldn't find anything else. But, eventually, the economy got so bad that my position was eliminated.

So, besides the strikes against me that I described above, I had been working essentially on my own - because I was a private contractor, I am considered to have been self-employed even though I was doing all my work for one company. And, it seems, many companies don't want to hire people who have been self-employed. I'm not sure why that is. I thought that getting up every morning at six a.m. in order to meet my daily deadline, and doing this without a boss looking over my shoulder, even though I am not a morning person, day in and day out over a period of years proved that I was reliable, could take the initiative, and was resourceful. Apparently, though, that's a bad thing today in corporate America.

I guess I just don't understand.

I will apologize for venting here. I've been trying so hard this week not to rant. But, you know, it gets really frustrating sometimes when people treat you like you're a leper or something over things that you have no real control over.

Research and headaches and thinking too much, oh, my!

So, this is me, complaining.

I'm on the third day of a headache - migraine, sinus, or a combination of the two. Makes it really difficult to get anything accomplished.

Oh, I've gotten a few things done. Wrote some on the novel I've been working on, the one I started for NaNoWriMo last November, that hit a block when I started working on my non-fiction project. It will be interesting to go back and read what I've written the past couple of days and see if it makes any sense when I don't have a headache.

So, that project is going now, but the non-fiction work is still in the water, so to speak, because I've hit a block there. That mostly has to do with ongoing research (I tend to research as I'm writing, a section at a time, rather than doing all the research and all the writing, separately) issues. The local public library system here doesn't seem to have the sciences as a priority, and it is difficult to find up-to-date sources. In something like history, having access to up-to-the-minute work in the field is good but not necessarily imperative. Of course, you want to make sure that there haven't been any recent discoveries of primary documents or anything, but history, by its very nature, doesn't change that much in the retelling, unless you're working in relatively recent times. The bigger problem in history is watching out for sources that claim to be authoritative but are actually revisionist.

In the sciences though, and especially in paleoanthropology, which is what I'm researching currently, new discoveries are made frequently - at least, there have been several discoveries, or, at least, announcements of discoveries, that have the potential to rewrite what we know about human evolution in the past year or two - and if the writer is not aware of them, he or she can look like an idiot when the book comes out. There are periodicals, of course, the science journals where the official announcements and descriptions of new fossils are made, and my library system has a pretty good online source for some of those journals that I can use; otherwise, the online presences of most of the top journals make it prohibitively expensive to do research. You can either subscribe to the online journal for hundreds of dollars per year or you can purchase access to individual articles - sometimes at $20 to $30 or more per article. There is no way I can afford that.

But, books that are up-to-date in the field are rare in the local library system. And, for some reason, they are also rare in the library at the local state university. Added to that is the fact that if I use their resources, I have to use them there. Oh, they have a "community borrower" card for non-students, but that costs, last time I checked, $100 per year, and then you can only check out two or three books at a time. While I understand that students should have first access to the books there, two or three is a ridiculously low maximum. At the private university I attended for my upper division work on my BA, the community borrower card costs something like $25 per year, and the non-students is allowed to check out something like 25 books at a time, despite the fact that it is a much, much smaller library. Unfortunately, their collection of books on paleoanthropology is very small. Now, if I were researching something in history, or in theology or biblical studies, I'd have access to more than enough research materials there.

But a lack of research materials is not the only problem I'm running into presently regarding my non-fiction writing project.

There is, in addition, my blessing/curse of an oversize dose of curiosity and my belief in the principle, stated by John Muir among others, that everything in the universe is attached to everything else. It goes something like this with me, on this project:

I'm writing about archaeology and physical anthropology (hence the current focus on human evolution), and so I'm thinking about beginnings a lot. Part of what archaeology looks at is physical evidence for the beginnings of civilization, and before that, the beginnings of agriculture, and even before that the beginnings of art and other symbolic thought that mark the beginnings of behavioral modernity. But thinking about the beginnings of behavioral modernity in turn leads, at least for me, into thinking about the beginnings of humans. Which leads to thinking about the beginnings of mammals, which leads to thinking about the beginnings of animals, which leads to thinking about the beginnings of life, which leads to thinking about the beginnings of the earth...the solar system...galaxies...so that, pretty soon, I'm wanting to go find things to read about the beginnings of the universe. The questions that topic raises can be all kinds of frustrating, not least because I don't have the mathematics and physics to really understand most of the work on the subject.

What is more immediately frustrating to me is that I've been being very good about staying focused on the topics directly related to the book I'm writing. A long as I've got work to do on it, sources that I can use for research, I've been very good at staying on task, researching a section and then writing it, then starting the cycle over again for the next section. But now that I've got a temporary break due to inadequate sources, my mind is wanting me to go seriously off the reservation and start looking into some of the questions that I have about other kinds of beginnings than just the ones that archaeology and physical anthropology are so key in studying.

I'll be fine when I can get back on track with research sources. I know I will. It's this down time that is driving me crazy.

That, and this damn headache, which is better today - else I wouldn't have had the concentration to write this blog post - but still needs to go completely away.