The Wild Winds of Fortune

I am too cranky to be Jenny, too lethargic to be Amy, and I lack Joanne’s strength of personality.

I was sent a job lead last week — unfortunately just before I found out about my fellow group member’s suicide.  I have been in some state of shock for the past several days — the little bits of writing I have done here are pretty much at the limit of my intellectual capacity. Except…

This post by Reginald Braithwaite at raganwald’s posterous identifies the problem of employers — or prospective employers — demanding to see people’s private social media posts with precision and humor.  My favorite sentence?

I’m extremely vague on the correlation between faux-promiscuous sex or drinking and employee performance, but as she is a seasoned veteran, I have to trust her when she says that things like this overrule my judgment as to who is and who isn’t fit to be a programmer in our employ.

For myself, all my Facebook, LiveJournal and Twitter posts are friends’ locked for a reason.  I do not want just anyone looking at them. (Although, to be perfectly honest, you would learn more about me reading this blog than you would from my Facebook page.  FB is for people who already know me.)

And yes, I suppose I should be more circumspect when blogging here, but, given that this is not so much social media as a creative endeavor, I think this xkcd cartoon covers that territory.

Dear Mr. Santorum:

Not only does the University of California system have American History courses, contrary to your claim to a crowd in Wisconsin, they require American History in order to obtain an undergraduate degree. Now, admittedly, all campuses except UC Santa Barbara allow students to take this in high school, but all campuses except for UC San Francisco have actual American History courses.  This could possibly be because UCSF is a medical institution. They have classes in nursing, dentistry, and biomedical engineering instead.  Not to mention a medical school.

You might try to lie instead about something that cannot be disproved by a five-minute Google search.* At least give those of us who live in the reality-based world a run for our money.

*Slow connection.

Before things went very bad on Thursday, I was making cold calls to businesses who had donated to the Gala in the past but who had not done so this year. Out of nine calls, I had gotten three definite “yes” answers and one “call back and talk to the general manager and we’ll see what we can do.”  That is between a .300 and .400 batting average.  Not bad.

I was pleased.

Tomorrow is Railfan’s eighteenth birthday.

I keep feeling like this cannot be happening, much like I did when the Not-So-Little Drummer Boy turned twenty-one.  Where did the time go? How can so many years have slipped by so fast?

I love my kids.  They are turning into interesting and compassionate adults.  I realize every parent feels this way, but, in general, my kids rock.  But part of them turning into adults is them going away.  It is separation.  And yes, as a parent you start preparing for this day long in advance, as you teach them to be independent, but it is still a shock when it comes.

Railfan will be home for a while yet (he is going to school locally), but he will be having a life apart from us.  And in a couple of years, he will be gone, as will the Red-Headed Menace, only to return on breaks from school and later, only at major holidays.

I am trying to savor all the time I can now while they are at home. I know how little there is left and how soon it will be gone.

The other day I was driving the Red-Headed Menace and Railfan to school.  The Red-Headed Menace was excited about a problem-solving method he had learned in his math class.

Red-Headed Menace: Railfan, do you want to know how to do this?
Railfan: Do you want the honest answer or the big, fat, lie?
RHM: Honesty, of course.
RF: No.
RHM: But it could allow you to rule your math class with an iron fist!
RF: No one would believe I had a fist of iron.  A fist of formica, maybe.

After yesterday, part of me wants to go away and hide.  Part of me wants explanations.  Part of me is scared: what about all the other people in my life who suffer from depression or other mental illnesses? Are they safe?

A large part of me is tempted to stop blogging.  What does this matter?  I know intellectually there are people who read this blog (I have friends whom I know do, we sometimes talk about it), but so often I feel like I am speaking into a void.  Even more often, I question if what I am writing is anything anyone wants to read. Do any of you really want to know my political or philosophical opinions or the cute things my kids say?  Is my writing at all compelling?

Is the Internet a real place?

I could take a break, but I have a strong feeling that if I took a break I might never come back here.

This post is not a ploy to get sympathy.  I also am not fishing for compliments, or even feedback (unless you want to). I am just venting, as is my wont.

Besides, if I get this out, maybe I’ll feel less despondent.

Edited to add: yes, it helped a great deal.*

*So did looking at Facebook and getting all indignant over some piece of stupidity running around.

That problem with my laptop?  The sticky keys from where I dropped a mocha on it? Unimportant.  That my kids are getting older and I am stressed about what I am going to do? Not that big a deal, in the larger scheme of things.  Unemployment? Upsetting, but not the end of the world.

There are times in life when you get smacked up side the head, metaphorically.  Today was one of those times.

I have written before about the group I attend on Thursdays.  It is an important part of my life.  The people in it matter to me, even if I only see them once a week.  Today I learned that one of the members, a smart, funny man whom I was getting to like a lot for his humor and warmth, had killed himself.

I am not going to pontificate about suicide. No “how could he hurt his family like that?” No condescending “It’s a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”  No one knows what demons lurk inside someone else’s brain.  No one knows how unscalable someone else’s mountains look to them. I have known a lot of people who have been in that place of utter despair.  He is as of yet the only one to have successfully acted on it.

No. Life is too short. All I can say is….

Tell the people in your life how much you love them.

Hug your kids more.
Reach out to the friends you’ve lost track of.
Ask that really cool person from church/work/school/Facebook out to coffee.
Listen to the birds.
Watch the sunset every so often.
Go home early from the office now and again.
Explore off the beaten trail.
Overtip the waitress.
Find your passion.
Forgive other people.
Forgive yourself.
Smile.
Laugh.
Love.

And always follow the sign to the chinchilla races.

The space key sticks and the backlights to the keyboard are gone. And Apple wants $700 to repair damage from liquid spills.

I do not think so.  They said that I could take it to and Apple authorized repair place, and see if they would replace individual components, so maybe I’ll do that.

This sucks.

About that post I wrote about my mood earlier….

You guys do know I would never, ever actually do that, right?  I would not hurt a fly.  I wouldn’t even hurt a Tea Partier.

I know I seem heartless sometimes, but I’m really not.