Here I am on the sofa in my PJs with my boyfriend, my dog, and a cup of cocoa. This should be relaxing, and it is, to some extent. But I am restless, too.

I had a productive day today. I completed everything on my to-do list, which included:

-Washing the dishes
-Cleaning the litter box
-Taking out the trash
-Finishing the laundry
-Changing the bedclothes
-Straightening up the bedroom
-Vacuuming the bedroom
-Getting started on undecorating the Christmas tree

This is a pretty full day for me. In my unemployed mopiness I can and often do spend entire days sitting at the kitchen table (or, even worse, in bed) piddling on the Internet and checking various job posting websites entirely too frequently. It's been nearly a month since the semester ended and one would think or hope that I'd have used this time to get a lot of reading done, or to have worked on some writing, or to have cultivated a new hobby. Or even just to watch a lot of movies I've never seen or something. But I've really done nothing of the sort. I don't keep the house clean, I don't cook gourmet dinners every night, and I haven't cultivated an exercise habit. It's become pretty clear that I make a terrible homemaker.

I am still waiting to hear back from the temp agency. I am still applying for other jobs as I find them. I am trying to stay positive and not worry about the fact that we really are running out of money. I'll have a residual student loan check coming soon. I didn't want to have to live on that money, but better that than not having any money at all.

Anyway, my point. I do have one, I promise. With all of this sitting around I've had a lot of time to think, and the start of a new year always makes me introspective anyway. I've been thinking about the fact that in a way I have done what many people would consider the hardest part: I quit a job I didn't particularly like. I leapt and had faith that the net would appear. I'm still waiting for the net, but the important part is that I did indeed make the leap. I'm unemployed and I can make anything I want out of it. What is it that I want?

Logic dictates that I do something with this master's degree that I am a mere 3 hours away from completing. That's been the guiding force behind my job search. Obviously I love Women's & Gender Studies and I would love to have a job relevant to my degree, both because I'm interested in the field and because it would be nice to feel that all of this education was not for naught. But there is also this other, crazy part of me that wants to do something else, that wants to become a freelance writer, or a web designer, or a baker or chef, or some other sort of passionate, free-spirited thing. The sorts of jobs I've been applying for virtually guarantee that I will be installing myself in yet another office or cubicle. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; I've done work in these sorts of environments that has been incredibly challenging and rewarding. But what if I did something else?

The question, of course, is what. And there's also the issue of time; if I wanted to try something freelancey and/or entrepreneurial, I should have started working on it back in August, when I was teaching and taking classes but also had a lot of free time on my hands and several months worth of income taken care of. There's really no time left now. I need full-time employment - or full-time income, anyway - as soon as possible.

I'm sure that eventually the temp agency will call, and then eventually one of the other places will call, and I'll have a full-time job and benefits again (that's another thing; I only have 6 days of health insurance left). But in the meantime, I can't help but feel that I ought to be doing something worthwhile with my time. Something that only the unemployed can do. Besides, you know, spending the day in my pajamas eating cookies. What will it be?

So. Things have been a bit trying as of late. You may recall that in August I quit my job so that I could teach a course at U of L. It was a huge leap of faith for me to do this, knowing that once the semester ended I would be unemployed. But I leapt and figured (hoped) that the net would appear.

Early in the semester a friend and classmate of mine who works for the state mentioned that she would be hiring someone in December. I expressed interest in the job, and she seemed thrilled at the prospect of hiring me. In late November she told me that she had requested permission from the state to hire someone. She never promised me a job, but things looked good. She explained to me that the whole process, from posting the job to actually hiring someone, would take about 3 weeks.

Boy, was I relieved. The pay for the job was great, much more than I've ever made before. The job would be challenging, would involve lots of training and a certification, and was something that I could actually make a career out of. I immediately started envisioning all of this, especially the money. Neil and I have been working really hard the past couple years to get our debts paid down, and we've been making good progress. But with this new job it suddenly became possible that we could be debt-free in 2008. Then we could spend more money fixing up the house and traveling. I also decided that to celebrate once I got hired, I would buy myself an iPhone.

I have to mention here that in December 2006 I very narrowly missed being hired by the Kentucky Foundation for Women. I was one of three finalists for a job there and I got the rejection letter in the mail the day before Christmas. I never knew something like that could break my heart, but it did, a little. Surely my end-of-the-year employment ambitions would be met with more success this year. I'd already had one major Christmastime employment disappointment. This would be the job that would make up for all of that.

This job, however, has yet to appear on the state's web site. I know this because I check it multiple times a day. I have watched other jobs in other counties appear on the list, stay their requisite 10 days, and then disappear again. No mention of the position I'm interested in. No problem, I figure, it's probably just hung up somewhere in the state bureaucracy. I emailed my friend about it a few days ago, but I haven't heard back from her yet.

Then, yesterday, I see in the paper that the state's finances are a disaster and that there will almost certainly be a state-wide hiring freeze starting next week.

Yeah.

And, to make this whole situation ever-so-much more delightful, our decrepit piece of crap furnace bit the big one in November, and we had to replace it to the tune of $7,000. We didn't have $7,000. We didn't even have a fraction of $7,000. We have financed the entire thing, effectively doubling our debt.

I am trying to remain upbeat. I had a very good interview at a temp agency yesterday and they think they'll have something for me next week, so I will have some income again. I've also applied for a position with a non-profit that I'm really interested in working for, and I think I'll at least get an interview with them. Something will come along. But, barring some kind of miracle, 2008 is not going to be the financially comfortable year I'd hoped for. It will more than likely be another year of scraping by and watching our meager incomes make tiny, barely visible dents in our debt. There will definitely not be an iPhone.

Like I said, I'm trying to stay upbeat. I do actually believe that negative attitudes attract nothing but more negativity. But I am mere months away from completing an education that, including undergrad, has cost me over $30,000. Right now it doesn't feel like I have much to show for it.

I know I really, really need to do a real update here, and I will soon, I promise. Maybe even tomorrow! But in the meantime I would like to point you in the direction of Blog Tartare, the new food blog that Neil and I have started. You should check it out!

In lieu of an actual entry, have some Otis and Franklin!

1. Dinner at L&N Wine Bar. My parents took me and Neil to (belatedly) celebrate my birthday. You know that kind of high feeling you get when you've eaten just the right amount of really amazing food and had a couple of glasses of wine? Yeah. Tuna Humphries is my boyfriend.

2. Erin Keane read from her new book of poetry, The Gravity Soundtrack, at the Jazz Factory. Not only is she a fellow Erin, she's a fellow Germantown resident. And a damn good poet. I really, really loved her work.

3. Lotsa Pasta - I know this place has an entry in my Guide to Louisville, but I went there Saturday and feel compelled to mention its awesomeness once again. I stocked up on edible birthday presents for a friend and also picked up a pizza, some frozen pizza dough, and a package of spinach gnocchi. I had to leave when I felt I could no longer fight the urge to toss every delicious or interesting-looking item into my basket.

4. The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters - The whole premise of this book is that if you use high quality, seasonal, and preferably locally-produced foods, you don't have to do much to them to create delicious meals. I can cook inasmuch as I can follow a recipe, but I never learned a lot of the basics of cooking. (Most importantly, perhaps, I've never learned to properly use a knife. I've never cut myself, but both Neil and my mother gape in horror anytime they see me cutting vegetables.) Alice Waters gives a lot of those sorts of basics: how to use a knife, what sorts of cookware you should have, how to care for your cookware, how to store different foods, etc. But the main point of the book is that if you learn a few foundational techniques and what's in season when, you can pick up whatever looks good at the farmers' market and build a meal around it without much effort.

For an example of what I love about this book, let's look at the chapter entitled "Four Essential Sauces." The four sauces are vinaigrette, salsa verde, aïoli, and herb butter. Alice writes:

These four sauces, though basic, add so much flavor, dimension, and color to meals that I can't imagine cooking without them. Any one of them can pull a meal together and turn a simple plate of meat and vegetables in to a finished dish; and they're so easy to prepare that once you've made them a few times, you'll never have to look up these recipes again.

That's how I want to cook. I want to go find an awesome piece of fish somewhere and decide to mix up some herb butter to put on it and then just do it, instead of fumbling with recipes. I also love the idea of eating what's seasonably available. I'm hoping that with the help of this book Neil and I can transform the way we cook and eat. Because frankly, the bulk of what we've eaten the last few months has been Lotsa Pasta's pizza and ravioli (oh god, the walnut and gorgonzola ravioli; what bliss!). While I know that Lotsa Pasta makes these products with much better ingredients than Tombstone and Chef Boyardee, the reason we eat this way - we are too lazy and/or busy not to - remains the same, and I don't like it. So I'm hoping that fixing delicious, good-for-us, simple foods will become something that I enjoy and am good at.

I finally updated the photos page. Now it links to my Flickr account, where you can see photos in nice neat sets and leave comments and stuff. Enjoy!

So I said I'd been having thoughts about turning 27. This is the first birthday that bothered me a bit. And I'm a person who generally thinks it's very dumb to get upset over birthdays. In fact, I've been sort of looking forward to my 30s, because I've heard from so many people that they're much better than the 20s. But 27 just makes me think, "Wow, I can't believe I'm this old!" I don't think 27 is actually old by any means. Rather, I think I'm shocked that I've gotten to this age this quickly. I was talking to 30-year-old friend recently; neither of us could get over the fact that when we met I was 2 weeks from my 15th birthday and he was 18. And now we're 27 and 30! How did this happen? It doesn't seem like it could have possibly been that long. And that's what bothers me, I think; it seems like in a blink of an eye I'll be 37, and in a few more blinks I'll be dead. Well, more than a few, I suppose. It's just weird to have so much life behind me already and that it's gone by so quickly.

This is a sweet story.

67 years later, a love renewed

I must admit, I'm a total sucker for this sort of thing.

In other news, I turned 27 yesterday. I have a lot of thoughts about that, but they'll have to wait.