Half a year

It's been nearly half a year since my last post, since I'd resolved to look for a new job. I spent the first quarter year there looking and interviewing while also trying to remain loyal to the team and do the work asked of me. In early March, after working myself actually into illness, and failing a writing sample for a prospective job because I just couldn't give enough time to it, I returned to work and was told that my project was being reorged away from (heavily implied: costly) San Francisco.

The deliverables I'd sacrificed my health and a prospective future to were no longer due.

It figures. It was on-brand, really. The queen of lost causes, going down with the ship. (Oh yes, and today is one year and one day since Things Ended.)

At least this time I have some time. There's a little work to do to help the transition, and the company feels badly about this since everyone here was performing well. They're trying to place us internally, or letting us ride out to the transition date, so it's *like* having a part time job that retains my salary. Everyone else has started going to the gym; almost everyone else has a transfer offer in hand though, and none of them are quite living as close to the wire as I am.

I've been busting my ass interviewing. I realized at this point I'm a Senior Writer (tm) and it honestly started to freak me out. "Senior" means more expensive, it means you're the middle layer that gets cut when times are lean. And it wasn't until I was in an all-day intensive interview (the second in this six month period, and the first of... four upcoming) and I heard these inspiring leadership-type words falling out of my mouth that I realized... yeah, actually, I'm okay with that. I think I'm ready.

In the mean time, let me use the last two months of the relatively-good insurance wisely.

The sinus infections that I'd shaken for over a year came back in February. And then again in April. The crusty old curmudgeon of an ENT finally retired, so I'm finally getting an ENT to take a look. My right ear has been plugged and painful since late April so it's Time.

Also, I think I have PCOS. I'm not sure what causes it (apparently nobody is?) but so many of the random annoying shit stacks up into a pile of co-morbidities that are... pretty compelling. My appointment to get screened is in two weeks. I get to talk about the major indigestion, about the cramping and sharp pains always to the lower left and about every four weeks, about the floaters in my eyes, those couple of dark hairs that keep showing up on my chin, the sugar cravings, the weight gain around my middle (god, he'd be so smug to have dumped me "before she got fat again"), the scary liver panel that they pulled from my blood when I drove myself to Urgent Care the day before Christmas Eve.

Last night I gave a talk at Odd Salon and invited an Ohlone woman to give the Welcome to Country. I feel like it's the best thing I've done in awhile. Today I gave a *hard* presentation about myself and my work to a stony-faced interview panel, but it sounds like the reviews may all be okay anyway? On Friday I interview across the street from the place I worked... 12 years ago. My god, how time passes.

I still haven't sewn anything in ages. Costume pieces are piling up and I need to have another fabric sale. I'm holding my house hunt on pause until the job search resolves, and that too is an act of will.

In the end, I have to build my own home first. And there's an order of operations there; I can't do all the things at once. First job, then move, then build that home. (I'd also be pleasantly surprised if I could get the car insurance company of the guy who hit me to actually pay my medical bills, but this seems like one of those things that requires bulldog-like determination, rather than luck.)

Who knows what the future holds? I am reservedly optimistic.