Forks, Branches and Right Path: The Search

“If you only write when inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you'll never be a novelist.”
― Neil Gaiman

Thanks, Neil.  Like I really need the reminder that I may be a decent poet (but I can't be objective about that), and that I may never be a novelist. (sigh).  These days, I'm far from inspired.

I have been chewing on this bon mot for a few days.  There has been much going on in the alternate universe that is Gumbo's Brain, much of it fueled by the relentless pressure of the Job Hunt.  As the saying goes, looking for a job is a full-time job. It isn't physically strenuous, but mentally, it can really abrade the contact surfaces, you dig?  On the good days, it is a faint fatigue on the soul.  On the bad days...well, then it is like a big bag of wet cement laid across the head and shoulders.  It is heavy, and it presses you into the floor.  A big bucket o' suck, it is.

So what does that have to do with being a novelist?  Nothing and everything, I suppose.  My current job search has to play to my resume in order to have the most chance of success.  The search has to cleave closely to my documentable (i.e., 'paid and credentialed'), and that is nowhere near the territory of a novelist.  So there is the Nothing.

Tantalizingly, there are a number of conceptual parallels between writing and architecture.  There are also many direct intersections.  A lot of what I do (did) as an architect involved writing.  Writing notes, reports, specifications, proposals, estimates, you name it.  A careful describing of all sorts of things, written in dense paragraphs and splashed across brochures, coded into permit applications and construction cost spreadsheets.  There is a certain need for attention to detail and language and craft, even if much of it was technical and not truly creative.

"Being A Writer" is my big idea, an alternate path to gainful use of my time; becoming a Novelist would be the culmination of a dream-seed that has been germinating in my head for some years now.  I hadn't considered it as a full-time pursuit, because of the necessity of the real-life job.

A job that went away last October.  Leaving me in a free-fall of which I am still not in control.

This leads back to the Everything I mentioned above.  I am now at a crossroads.  I have been searching for a job in the field in which I have training and credentials; as a matter of common sense and necessity, I am obligated for it.

As a matter of survival and adaptability, however, it is becoming increasingly clear that I have to make a transition from writer to Writer, if I want to keep the wheels turning.  I must consider blazing a new trail, climbing a new cliff.  It is a new world order, and I cannot keep going back to the same things, performing the same actions, and expecting a different result. 

I'm weary, dear friends.  The drain of my predicament (but make no mistake, I know it could be worse, and I'm glad it is not) has me at an impasse.  I am in a creative slump, I am horribly unsure of which way to go, there are threads I cannot grasp.  I know what I have done, and could continue to do; I cannot abandon the field but it is mostly barren at the moment.  I know now what I could do, if only I had the energy, fortitude and most important of all, the imagination to forge a path into pastures new.  Alas, my imagination is choking on the splinters of the present.

This is maddening.  There has to be a way forward, there just has to be.  If only I could find the right path. If only I could write the novel that fuels my dreams.

Momma Ain't In The Big House

Today was a ridiculous cliche, couldn't look out the window or listen to the sounds of the day without feeling like I was stuck in the middle of an old-school country song.  If my mom had gotten thrown in prison, I believe the day would have come full circle.

I had woken up with a bad headache, feeling a bit sickly with a stuffy nose and that washed out lethargy that often precedes a cold.  The little bit of sunshine we had around here disappeared before the morning was half over.  The sky turned the color of a old ash pail.  My house turned chill and grey.  Admittedly, part of that is due to my stubbornness at not cranking the heat so as to enable making it through winter on only one tankful of heating oil.  Even with an undershirt, a shirt and sweater, jeans and socks, it was still cold. A dampish, steely feeling that worked itself into my bones.

The rain that had been predicted for later in the afternoon started before noon, something I did not pick up on until I finally snapped out of the fog I was in, staring out the window at my neighbor's house.  The little dots I was seeing? Hey, those are raindrops!  Yeah, I'm observant like that.

The morning was full of sighs and ennui, Internet time wasting, and some half-hearted soul searching.  I listened to the rain, drummed my fingers on the table.  I went off the rails a bit, not really sure of what to do next, what obstacles I should try to remove.  It then hit me hard: it was now just over three months since I was let go from my job.  Three. Months. And no prospects, yet, for a new one.

Three. Goddamn. Months.

I put my head in my head in my hands to keep it from hitting the table.  That was when I began to hear the faint strains of a mournful steel guitar in the back of my mind.  I chuckled, a bitter laugh, when I thought about the fact that I don't have a dog, either.  So I could say it was missing.

To ice that particular cake, as I sat there writing the country soundtrack to my life, I heard from across the river valley the plaintive sound of (you guessed it) a train horn. "Really?" I said to myself, looking up at the ceiling, "I'm sitting here feeling sorry for myself, and there's a frickin' TRAIN out there?"

It was at that point I had to laugh at the absurdity of it all.  Here I was feeling ill on a cold, rainy day, lonely and jobless and without a dog or a truck, listening to the train fade away in the distance.  If Hank Williams or Johnny Cash had come on the radio about then, I probably would have wet myself.

As it was, though, I sat there and quietly stepped away from the edge of the darkness, smiling and thankful that my mom was at home and not in prison.

Contender Blues

The bubble popped and I snapped awake.  Years, gone, and where did I wake up?

I had one of those moments today, of ennui spiced with dislocation, and a dash of mild anxiety.  It was induced by a chance encounter via email.  The email came from a professional networking website and it was chock full of catalysts and memory triggers in the form of "what-have-you-done-since..." blurbs.  The past come back to nag me.

The feeling of being underwater has been intense in the nearly four weeks since I was let go from the job.  Some days I wander around immersed in the sensation.  I put it aside most of the day, as I had my darling daughter  with me, and it was good.

But that email brought it all back.  I scrolled through the page, looking at all the people who had been somewhere and done something and it was at the end of it that the bubble popped.  I started as if awoken while sleepwalking.  It took me a brief pause to collect myself to remind me that I was on the couch staring at the laptop screen.  I was home.

Home, and wondering just what it is that I had been doing all these years.  Picking through the battered scrap heap of my career life to try and piece together that which I could point to and say: I Did This, And I Am Wonderful.  The pickings, it seemed to me, were too thin.

Leaning back into the sofa cushions all I could think was that I need to get my stuff together.  I need to do something worthwhile and soon, as I have metaphorically been sawing off the limb behind myself.  Its only a matter of time before that limb cracks.  I need to hurry.

I need to rev the engine, pop the clutch and damn the torpedoes.  I need to get somewhere, fast.

Of Axes and Impossibilities

This post wrote itself.  Not literally, of course.  I, me, the person who is at the keyboard did the work.  The central idea, however, was ready made.

I was let go from my job today.

Third time in three years.  I must say, it is a song and dance I am mighty sick of doing.  The timing is never good, but it is absolutely horrible for me right here and now.  I am quite short in a key resource, and the steady paycheck was necessity not nicety; no fat margins for me.  Hell, no real margin at all.

I say "was".  Reality? It is a necessity, a fact driven home to me when I sat down to take stock.  The stock, sad to say, was a bit thin.

So.

I don't know what the next step may be.  I've been an architect all of my adult life.  This is the sixth time in that span that I have been laid off.  You might think the universe is trying to tell me something.  The problem, the crux of this dilemma, is that I really don't know what to do next.

That's a hell of a thing for someone who is trained as a professional problem solver.

So.

Where now?  And did you know that, coincidentally, I began blogging three years and a day ago?  Interesting.  Trivial.  Useless, maybe, as a fact.  But interesting.

So.

Where do I go now?  I don't know.  I just don't know.  I'm fleeing axefalls and running headlong into impossibilities.  It's going to take some magic.

Please Welcome the 52nd State

Organ Grinder Monkey

A vampire-based economy
Anesthetic money coats the needle
that pierces the heart, tunnels the spine
yet you don't feel a thing

except maybe a pang in the collapse
of a soul gone numb, hallucinating
choices of free will, with brittle smiles
to cover betrayal of itself

But the stomach knows, it swats against
dollar bills blackening the skin like
mosquitos in an arctic summer,
that slowly drain the body white

Left behind to dream are the husk and bones
encased in amber of banker's green,
Because beating heart and breathing lungs
are in the bowels of the organ grinder

Cattle Dislike It, Too

Branding. Brand yourself. What is the brand that is "you"?

It is a simple question, on the surface. It gave me pause, but only after the seminar was over. The afternoon was spent in consultation with 49 of my peers, trying to define our individual brands. When I say peers, I mean other people "between employments", as the current language calls our joblessness.

As an aside, I feel the same way about that phrase as I do about calling a used car "previously owned": plus ungood.

Anyway, it was a group of us professionals who are unemployed or between jobs or making career transitions, and we were each a mini-corporation trying to define an image. Just like Nike, Coca-Cola or any other company that has some sort of iconic touchstone.

There was a lot of creative energy in the room, tinged a bit with puzzlement and the faintest whiff of cynicism. I managed to set aside most of my weariness and skepticism to dive in to the best of my ability. Believe it or not, I even engaged in some public speaking. Most of the time I avoid public speaking like I would avoid an aerosolized tankful of medical waste. Which is to say, I would run away as quickly as possible while holding my breath.

There was the typical small group exercise, which I did enjoy. It was fun to connect with people, tap into their ideas and energy and share thoughts on what we think we are, what we want to be. We all made lists of descriptive words and then tried to come up with a tag line* whereby potential employers or clients would recognize us and what we can do for them. It was to be along the lines of "Good to the last drop" or "Just Do It", but connecting the Brand (me) with the Client (employer) base. Fun and games, folks, but something happened to me on the drive home that really threw me into the weeds. As usual, it involved music.

I became aware that I don't know me.**

The trigger was "The Sweet Part of the City" by The Hold Steady. The song came on, I was daydreaming a little, and the slide guitar in the song is killer. Craig Finn isn't singing about being unemployed, but the lyrics combined with that guitar really hit me hard. I suddenly felt terribly alone, and weightless. I saw myself sitting on a derelict dock down at harbor, sunlight glinting on railroad tracks behind me. Just me and the gulls and gravel, and I'm crooning to the ocean. The sun is going down, as it should be. For reasons unknown, I started thinking about my brother, and how much I miss him. I wept.

The weight of worthlessness and isolation came crashing down on me. Trying to drive while figuring out who I am, or who I was, or who I am supposed to be...I couldn't do it. If I had been on a road trip, that would have been the time to pull the car over, kill the engine and go to sleep in the back seat. I was very close to home, as it was, so I did the next best thing. I parked the car at the curb, wiped my face and headed inside to collapse on the couch. My hands could barely support the weight of my head.

The essence of Me made marketable, employable...and I don't really know it anymore. Maybe I never did. The things that I was may not be the things I am, or need to be. Reconciliation of all the threads in this frayed rope of a life is slipping through some weary fingers. I can call myself all sorts of names, pile on the keywords and the adjectives...but now? None of it seems to fit, and that hurts.

Branding. Ask the cattle how they feel about being marked with a red-hot iron. Ask them if it is necessary.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am in no way affiliated with mp3bounce(dot)com, no compensation or endorsement was received, given or implied. Typical YouTube shenanigans...it was the best I could get for the song, the name just happened to be on the video. I am also not a paid spokesman for The Hold Steady...but I can say THS makes some awesome music.

*I won't reveal mine...yet. I'm too self-conscious, and I'm still working on it.
**Yes, its been said before. Yes, its a cliche. It also happens to be the Truth.

I Didn't Get No Cheese

Tony Hayward.

Joe Barton.

John Boehner.

(sigh)

I held out as long as I could. But this did me in:

Sharron, I must be fresh as a daisy, because I'm not feeling rotten.
At least, not in the way you said it.

(sigh.)

I leave them with this little ditty, circa 1983:

Block of cheese, anyone? Quick, before it spoils!

Don't Let The Terrorists Win: A Capitalist Theory of Same-Sex Marriage

"MARRIAGE WORKS."

"MARRIED PEOPLE MAKE MORE MONEY."

So say the billboards that loom over part of my daily commute into and out of Mobtown. The words jump out, brightly illuminated by the sun or floodlights, depending on the time of day. These trite phrases are accompanied by huge, full-color photos of a beautiful couple smiling bovinely into the camera as if wedding clothes and a cameraman hovering over them were the neatest thing since being told now they could have sex since they were married.

Couple in this context meaning man and woman. The billboards are sponsored by some sort of 'Save The Family and/or Marriage' type outfit, who believe that marriage can only mean God-approved gender relations.

Yes, the traditional (which in this country means "Western/European/American/Christian") definition is a union between a man and a woman*. But the definition of marriage varies quite a bit, through time and across cultures. Some of those definitions include same sex marriages, some say nothing of procreation. With that in mind, I noted to myself the first time I saw those billboards did not say "Marriage between a man and a woman Works" or "Married men and women Make More Money."

The first billboard doesn't mention human beings at all. The second says "PEOPLE".

Married PEOPLE Make More Money. Hmm.

I think that is probably true. But gender roles are not essential to making money. Making money depends on skill and training and character and environment and sometimes luck. My theory is that married people make more money** because they are more likely to be in a stable relationship with shared interests, coupled with a desire to be together out of love.

Stable, loving relationships are also not defined solely by gender roles. They are defined by the character and interests and abilities of the people involved to make them work.

So let me get this straight: 

Marriage works, and married people make more money.

Married people make more money because they are in a stable loving relationship.

Those relationships are not solely defined by gender roles, but by the character of the people involved.

SO...Married people = more earned money = bigger tax base + discretionary income.

Thus, same-sex marriage could be a much needed boost to the economy. Talk about a stimulus plan, look at the potential gains to be had in granting equal rights to a huge untapped demographic!

Gee whiz, with all the economic woes facing the country, you'd think the 'pro-business, less government' conservative *coughRepublicancough* folks would be all over this, wouldn't you? Especially since if more people had more money to spend on consumption, the terrorists have even less of a chance to win!

*It bears pointing out that in much of Western history, marriage was more about solidifying economic and political ties than it was about a romantic notion of "Three-makes-family". So spare me the platitudes about fulfilling God's design...unless you mean that design was for the greedy and manipulative to force their worldview on everyone else for the sake of gain.

**Assuming that is really true. I'm very skeptical of the methodology and criteria that the advertising organization used to make that claim. Statistics and data can be bent in many ways.

You Are Free To Eat

From the “Biting The Hand” Files:

Am I? Am I really free to eat?

I used to think so. Nowadays, I am not so sure. What does it mean to be free to eat? Rather, what do I have to DO to be free to eat? Be someone else’s tool, I suppose.

In the corporate culture, to be free to eat means to be not free to do something else. It means doing what you are told, when you are told to do it, by whomever is in charge of telling you what to do. They can get away with this through the exercise of fear.

Fear that you will not have a job.
Fear that you will not have insurance.
Fear that you will not have a retirement plan.
Fear that you will not move up in life.
Fear that you will not have a “career”.

These are wonderful things, but no one like the implicit threat of the leash.

Fear that if you do not keep your mouth shut and behave you will become a corporate leper. You will not be able to find, or keep, that “position” in the “ladder” or “organization” in which if you work hard enough, long enough, you too will be “vested” and get to tell other people what to do.

Just keep chasing after that next “goal”*. The goal is there, they tell you, it’s just up ahead, just around the bend, just around the next corner. So you do keep chasing it, because after all, achieving the goals is what gets you “security”. Isn’t security the most important thing?

You will have “security”, they say. Security being a relative term, that everyone thinks they know the definition of but is really solely defined by the inscrutable whims of someone else in “authority”. If by security, “stability” is meant, that is true in a limited sense. You get somewhere to go everyday at the same time, whiling away your hours. Security, however, is a myth. A myth wielded as a tool to keep the parts of the machine in line. ‘Replaceability’ is implicit in being a machine part. Machine parts are not really meant to be individuals. You are useful in so much as you are replaceable.

The threat of replacement breeds fear. Fear becomes a tool to control the other tools.

If I am going to be a tool, I prefer to be a tool on my own terms. If I am going to work myself to the point of exhaustion, I prefer it to be at my discretion, for my own goals.

I once told myself that “we are all exploited” and I suspect that really is true. It is up to us to set the terms of that exploitation. Does this guarantee security? Of course not. But to survive, no, to thrive it becomes a matter of imperative. Being free to eat does not mean always having the ability to put food in your mouth; it also means the freedom to say “I’m not hungry”.

If we don’t set the terms of our exploitation, we will never be free to eat.

*Digression: If you transpose the ‘o’ and ‘a’ in goal, it becomes “gaol”, an archaic term for jail. How about that.

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LAST DAY TO BEAT THE DRUMS: Please don't forget the HeBlogs/SheBlogs contest forget sponsored by Petra over at The Wise (*Young*) Mommy. Today's entries are from Ron from Clark Kent's Lunchbox and Ryan from Pacing the Panic Room, two nice guys (well, one nice guy and a handsome bastard relying on his good looks) who are very good at what they do, although we are not quite sure what that is yet. The posts go up at 8:00. Remember, voting starts tonight after all entries have been posted. Rock the vote!

Jacked Of All Trades

I finally have been getting around to laying some comments on other blogs near and dear to the Gumbo ticker, playing a furious game of catch up (which I’ll probably lose), and I just finished reading the latest brain fireworks from Jeff at GoodFatherBlog.com. The unsinkable GoodFather, like yours truly, was laid off late last year (we’re siblings in that respect, you could say) and has a few things to say about the state of that union. Please do give him a visit and lay down some luv, you won’t regret it. Sure it’s not exactly a feel-good topic, but Jeff pulls it all together with some of that cool GF humor. Speaking of humor, it brought to mind this really good joke, hope you like it:

(Phone rings. I nearly sprain an ankle leaping to answer)
Me: Hello, Irish Gumbo* speaking.
Voice: Irish, this is Sparky McDinglefritts** with Gobsmack Placement Services, returning your call from yesterday, about the job reference and openings.
Me (excited): Wonderful! Thanks for the return call. So, what do we have?
Sparky: Well, I have two positions with AtlasRoarkRand Architects***, requiring at least 15 years experience…
Me (wetting self): Yes! I have about 19 years of experience!
Sparky: ...as a Director of Operations or Senior Planner, sort of a “rainmaker” position concentrated in health care projects.
Me (sound of balloon deflating): Um, no, my experience is spread out over a lot of different project types.
Sparky: Ohh…(pause)…most of our clients come to us with very specific requirements.
Me (mouthing ‘shitshitshitshit’): Oh, I see.
Sparky: Yeah, the ‘jack-of-all-trades’ types generally have a harder time getting offers.

HAAAHAAA! WOOOooOOO! HAAA! Oh, Sparky, stop it ya killin’ me (wiping eyes) BWAAHHAAAHHAAH (gasp) HAAH (hic)HAA(hic)…See what you (hic) did, now I’ve (hic) got the (hic)cups! Oh, jay-zus, I gotta sit down (fans face) wooo, hep me, hep me! Oh, snap!

What, you don’t get it? See, there’s ‘jack-of-all-trades’…harder to hire…I’m a jack of all…and that means I…job…oh, never mind. I guess it isn’t as funny if you have to explain it. (sigh) Wow. That’s a wicked pissah! I am astounded that I have as much experience as I do and yet am now somehow harder to hire. Does this make sense? Does this mean that after all these years of taking the jobs I could get, learning as much as I could and trying to cover all my bases, that I am less attractive to employers looking for experience? Man, what a mess.

In another little twist (is that the hot metal tang of irony I smell?) to this tale of woe, I do have something approaching a specialization in architecture: a concentration in churches. That’s right, peoples, churches. O, sweet lawd, can you dig it? The snag is that even in the best of economic times, that sort of work is not as widespread or as financially secure as a lot of other types of projects, such as health care. The current crunch has everybody by the short and curlies, so when even the mo’ money types like hospitals, schools and the like are cutting back, church work is definitely not on the table.

So what to do? It is a bit discouraging to strive to be a Renaissance man**** when what the world wants are encyclopedias devoted to one subject. Architectin’ is the biggest skill set I have; reasonably certain I am overqualified to be a paperboy (I was a paperboy for 5 years) or a groundskeeper (briefly, one summer) or a shop gopher (one summer). Say, does anyone have any ideas? Anyone? I don’t know, maybe I could give this writing thing a try…

*All names have been changed to protect the befuddled. Plus, I don’t want to get sued.

**See? Sparky? Who would name their kid Sparky, really!

*** Inside joke for architects. Sorry.

****Okay, I can’t play a lute. Nor can I use an astrolabe or read Greek. And I totally suck at fencing. But you get the idea.

Woo-Hoo, Everybody! I Got Laid......Off

I didn't duck fast enough. I couldn't outrun the wolves. What is worse, I wasn't even really aware that the wolves were after me. Or maybe it was cheetahs:

THIS IS WHAT IT FELT LIKE

I got the "Do you have a minute, in the conference room?" approach just minutes before lunch today. Double suck for me, I get really cranky when I don't eat on a regular basis. I had to go in there with no food in my stomach. Wait, maybe that was a good thing. Nothing to hurl when I felt that punch in the stomach.

The tidal wave of the recessionary economy finally hit the beach I was standing on, so now I am bobbing around in the rip current. After about 16 years of steady employment, I am now out of work for the first time since the early 1990's.

Not to put too fine of a point on it, this sucks donkeys.

I have been in this position before, but I was younger (a lot younger) and I didn't have a kid and a mortgage. My cushion is a little bigger, but so are the obligations. Of course, I am not telling you all anything you don't already know.

Right now I am not as upset as I thought I would be, oddly enough. Yes, this is awful; the short term disruptions (two weeks before Christmas!) are aggravating as hell. I don't look forward to doing the unemployment office dance. I still have bad memories of that from last time. On the other hand, I am trying to remain positive. Truth be known, the position I was in was not the ideal for me. I was chafing under the management style, and struggling with a lack of adequate resources. I was not the best I could be.

Yes, it paid the bills. And I am sick at heart to lose that means of support. Got to make that dolla, or I'm gonna holla, boyeee! Right?

On the drive home, I was thinking about everything and thinking about nothing, trying to keep the worry off my mind. I realized that this is a "crossroads" moment. I could resign myself to possible months of unemployment while trying to replace my old self with the same thing. Or maybe, just maybe, this is a golden opportunity for REINVENTION. Maybe now is the time to truly find that thing that will combine what I want to do with want I need to do.

I can't say that I was filled with an overwhelming peace, or that I had a true epiphany. No beams of light or angels coming out of the sky. But I did feel more at ease. If ever there was a time for positive change this would be it. In the short term, I'll be looking for another architectin' type job (if anyone needs a freelance designer, I'm your man!), but in the long term? Hmm. Perhaps its time to learn to make a different kind of gumbo.

Wish me luck, and peace to all!