Layoff, Day 137. I approach the ides of July with LA temperatures rising, along with my real level of anxiety. I’m not sure if I’m in the Inferno or Purgatorio, but any sense of internal or external Paradiso would seem to be absent at this point.

A colleague that was attempting to do some well-meaning networking on my behalf, forwarded the email response from his contact:

“BTW, I spoke to a couple of people I know regarding your friend’s job situation and THERE ARE NO JOBS!”

Thanks, Dante. Divine comedy, indeed.

In my job search, one of the tools I’m utilizing is Yahoo Hot Job’s automated search results. With it, I receive a daily email listing new job posting results based on my prescribed job search terms and locale. You can have any number of these automated searches running, based on your own personal search terms.

One of my searches uses the terms “creative technology.” I was doing a quick scan down the list of daily finds on “creative technology” in the LA metro area when this job title and brief caught my eye:

Project Manager, Clinical R&D – Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery

…Heck, I think I’ll apply.

I recently signed up to volunteer at a German Shepherd Rescue, here in the LA area, hoping to do some good,  get a little perspective, and keep myself among society in wake of my layoff from employment. Maybe figure out if a dog is right for me. Or a girl.

As far as accompanying prose, this picture and post title pretty much speaks for itself, and in volumes. A little double entendre here..maybe even triple or quadruple. If you have some idea about this blog’s roots and my current micro-world happs, this can be taken just about any way and length one could…and with milage to spare.

I’ve had a handle on this living in the “past” thing, and I seem to have acquired a better perspective with living for the “present” over the past year.  Now if I can just have a better idea of what living in the future might be…

Lawrence, Kansas. Home of the last, most westward Steak N Shake. Get yourself a strawberry smoothie today.

If I had a closer, this would be it. Thank you, and Good night, Muncie.

Oh really?

A star.
A burning bush.
A clap of thunder.

God speaks to me too.

It is happening.

What it is, I’m not quite fully aware of yet. Or perhaps my mind is too freaked out to fully process. Perhaps I feel like the scientists that witnessed the first detonation of the atomic bomb.

What hath God wrought!

I’ll keep you advised. More as this blows up.

While walking in Brooklyn with a dear friend, we passed a yellow lab trotting beside its owner and I began my typical lament about how much I want a dog but can’t get one because I am never home and live in an apartment roughly the size of an office cubicle.

She suggested that I should get a cat instead because I like cats too, though they aren’t as great as dogs, but are much less maintenance.

I can not get a cat. Because that would make it appear I was giving up on men. On the eve of my 29^th birthday, single, looking for a warm body to sleep next to and feed in the morning, it would reek of “desperate woman” even though that would not be the case. The warm body I want to sleep next to would have four legs and never complain when I want to watch ‘Brothers and Sisters’.

My friend thinks I am exaggerating, but as a collector of men (because they are cheaper than comic books and action figures, and take up much less space) I have been asked many times when meeting new guys whether I have a cat. The look of relief on their faces has been identical and predictable. As if they all shared this thought: “Thank God she isn’t one of those crazy, lonely girls who will work fast to rope me into a committed relationship and pressure me into a marriage I am not ready for. Her biological clock is still set to ‘sane’ and she has no desire to take care of anyone other than me”.

If I were to get a cat, that would change. I would become a marked woman, categorized as someone who spends crazy-money at PetSmart on clothes, jewelry and furniture for my feline life-partner. I know those women, and I do not want to be mistaken for one.

Someone I once knew said he would either get a girl or a dog by his 28^th birthday. Instead, he started a blog. Perhaps if I turn 30 without a boy or a cat (or, preferably, a dog), I will move to Texas and work on a ranch, drive a pick-up truck, and convince the locals that I am no city slicker by out-drinking and out-dancing them at the neighborhood honky tonk. Then I’ll write a book about it.

Something is different, as of late.
Not necessarily clear, as to what, but a delta.
Definitely.

This is a good thing.

At lunch today, a conversation with a friend reminded me as to why I love men so damn much; many, if not most of them, can’t help but to make decisions with their crotch.  I present the awesomeness that is Man (names changed to protect the perverted):

Interior New York City Diner

In a booth sits an attractive twenty something woman across from an average balding thirty something man. They each have a steaming bowl of matzah ball soup in front of them.

Jason:  I’m going to Matt’s bachelor party in a few weeks.

Cilcia:  Yeah? Here?

Jason:  No, in Philly.  But get this.  We’re going skydiving.

Cilcia:  [laughing very very very loudly] You!  Skydiving!

Jason:  I know.  I don’t want to.

Cilcia:  [still laughing very very very loudly] I’m sorry.  I just can’t see you skydiving.

Jason:  I have to.  If I don’t, Bateman is going to call me a pussy and hit me in the nuts at the party afterwards.

Cilcia:  Yes he will.

Jason:  I saw the list of guys who aren’t jumping and I don’t want to be on that list.  Or get hit in the nuts.

Cilcia:  You don’t want to die either.

Jason:  I won’t.  We’re jumping tandem so I’ll be strapped to a professional.

Cilcia:  [starts laughing uncontrollably now] I just can’t get that image out of my head!  You falling to earth with some dude spooning you!

Jason:  Yeah.

Cilcia:  So what’s with the party after the skydiving?

Jason:  I don’t know.  Which are cheaper, hookers or strippers?  Probably strippers?

Cilcia:  Both of them sound like a trip to the doctor for a prescription.

Jason:  Yeah, a prescription for fun!

Cilcia:  I was thinking more like a prescription for Valtrex.