stuck in the waiting place

Another new year and I have nothing but good feelings for it. Things can only look up after last year. And the year ends in an even number so that's a good thing.

I feel I have been a thousand miles away from my online community lately.

The visit to the farm was good, though I confess I was a little internally restless, which paired with the flu bug I caught while I was there, made for an odd visit. Visiting with friends was good and balm to my soul. New Year's Eve B1, B2, and I made it safely to the farm around 7pm due to an earlier start from Buffalo than expected, good traffic, and great weather. The three of us, Amos & CJ, Mummy Dearest & Hubby, and Nevada celebrated a--for the most part--quiet New Year's Eve exchanging Christmas presents, munching on Mummy's hilarious hors d'œuvres (some variation of these), drinking (Amos brought back some sneaky liqueur from Bolivia and I brought Michigan beers for the boys' Christmas presents, which consequently were shared with all) and talking. It was a good time. The rest of my visit at the farm we took turns being sick, and thus "laid low."

Since I have returned I have been looking for crappy part-time work to pair with my other part-time job to pay the bills until a library job opens up. I am so tired of sending resumes and scouring the listservs for jobs that I can apply to--and if one more person tells me to enjoy this time of "not knowing where I may wind up," I will throttle them, or to quote a younger me, "rip my eyeballs out and throw them at the wall," (Chris, that was for you). The thing that sucks about trying to get crappy part-time work means I am filling out more job applications--AGH!--and no one wants to hire me as I am over-educated for anything except library work and who wants to hire someone that they think--and rightly so--will not be with them long...sigh...maybe I will just start lying on these applications and make myself look uneducated and undesirable...then the corner grocery store might hire me.

I am looking at a new year with the possibilities:
a new job--ney, a new career!
possibly moving again which means new digs

And in the midst of this I am trying to quit smoking--what a really good idea that was. Like one of my good friends said last week as we enjoyed a cigarette, "I wish smoking didn't have all the bad health side effects and I would smoke all the time." Me too.

I keep likening my situation of feeling stuck to Dr. Seus' Oh the Places You'll Go when I talk about my frustrations.

"And when you're in a Slump,
you're not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.
You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they're darked.
A place you could sprain both you elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose?
How much can you win?
And IF you go in, should you turn left or right
...or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.
You can get so confusedthat you'll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place..."

That Seus was a genius.

So as a means to inspire or uplift myself I went in search of a favorite poem by my favorite poet, Billy Collins. I give you Nostalgia .

I also found this fun quote, by a famous librarian:
"At twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment."
~Ben Franklin.

Maybe I should just be content today to be reigned by will, not far away from the days of wit.