everyday is d. day

a time for remembrance

we've opted out of going to the cenotaph at victory park for the remembrance day service. it's almost an hour's trip and it's raining. still. but we are watching it on tv instead. a swell of emotion rises in me. i've watched, stood and listened dozens of times before, yet it gets me every time.

i could hear the rain falling all night beating a steady, rapid tattoo tap-a-tap-tap on the the windows and the ground below. i had to get up during the night several times and the thrumming tempo helped me fall back to sleep. it appears now winter has begun in earnest, or we are easing into in the way i remember and so it begins. i am trying not to look at it with trepidation and dread, though reprieves like yesterday go a long way to taking the edge off it.

maybe it will be different this time around. as it is, i'm missing the swirling snows of toronto and the calming hush it brings as it descends; its enveloping cloak of white brightening the landscape as it lays itself down.

i fired up the computer to do some research on the company i am interviewing with tomorrow and found the wireless down, yet again. i think it is time to upgrade the router. *sigh* i go into the den, get down on my knees and unplug the cord and wait the requisite time and then plug it in again. when it is necessary to refresh the ip, i have to go through this choreographed nonsense with the  modem as well. i do this so often i wonder "why don't these things come with switches on them?"

i am nervous about my interview, and a bit peeved. this is a temporary gig, but there's a chance it could go to permanent. the deal is though, that the company is nickel and diming over salary. this is a high-volume accounting position and the $$ are now hovering at least 6K a year less than than the market rate. the company is huge--making money hand over fist--and should be paying people what they are worth, instead they are employing a perogative i don't much respect. however, with the wolves at the door, i am going to put my game face on and do my best; and ask a pertinent question or two of them. i am trying to figure out a way to phrase it so i sound interested and engaged and somewhat knowledgeable. harder than it sounds.

"hey buddy, can you spare a dime?" "a job?" 

not a manic monday

the sun is shining, casting a fuzzy glow over the city. nice change from the bleary, drearies we've had of late. the cost for a litre of gas is under a dollar. i don't know why i take note of this. maybe because the 5 minute bus service has been running so that the buses run in duos, up to 15 minutes behind. this is some bad math translink is computing. and perhaps it makes me wish i could be driving in some of these instances. (maybe because i wonder how much we would have saved on the trip across canada when the cost nosed $1.40-something) doesn't much go with the green in me, but i get frustrated with this "service". the driver on the way down was trying to eat her yogurt as she was driving and it seemed to piss her off that she couldn't do it without the interruption of people nor was it doing much for her accurate handling of her vehicle. she harangued several people for no other reason, it appeared, than for not sticking their passes right into her face. thankfully, unwritten law bus abiding person that i am i wait patiently for people to deposit their coinage, ask questions, and whatnot before i show my pass very clearly and move on.

i got a call from one of the agencies for one of those one day only gigs. it's not that i am not interested (which is true), but the call came through--forwarded from my cell--to the other phone which happened to be charging in the den where i simply didn't hear it. i don't have the energy to get it altogether for that anyway. hardly have the energy to get out of bed. down to my last several hundred dollars, i am freaked out at the possibility of financial ruin about to befall me. oh, i know the sky isn't falling in, but it feels that way. won't go into the details of this weekend, but i wonder about the merit of sticking it out sometimes. is there some reward in all of this? besides the prospect of hanging in there longer? this is what my life amounts to right now. a handful of nothing, grabbing at not much more.

i've got a bunch of things on my agenda before i can call my day a wrap: laundry, check out govolunteer.ca, send a requisite number of resumes, make a couple calls, vacuuming, and dinner. it's 2:04. wonder how long i need to get all that done.

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Tags: transit

in the wringer

home by 11 am from an 10 appt with the right fit in surrey.

yup. felt like i got the bum's rush out of the place. blathered on about the right fit. it is a buzz word of the industry and i've heard it a lot, and in the case of this outfit it is their name sake, but sometimes i wonder about their judgement.

one would think that based on what these agencies have offered me that i am not:

intelligent
adept
motivated
initiated
a self-starter
keen
astute
a multi-tasker
flexible
compassionate
reliable
gregarious
industrious
adaptable
inventive
creative
improvisational
thoughtful
teamplayer
versatile
organized
teacher
a quick study
dynamic
personable

but i am all these things and more. i am and have been a nanny, a short order cook, a waitress, an ad clerk, a graphic designer, a writer, photographer, a photographer's assistant, a lunch truck driver, and the list goes on, and i can do most anything i set my mind to. it's the stuff i am made of, but i don't get the chance to show off this ability because i am sold short. i've been a temp before too, and back in the day, when i had virtually no experience, i had to turn down jobs because i was so busy. and i was paid well. that was in the '80s and this was when i had little or no experience. so now, with this vast body of experience behind me, i am somehow of less value, which makes no sense to me, and makes me furious. in the face of this i seek to make my own way. i know i am better than this. i am better than being reduced to debating whether or not i should take a job at tim horton's just to survive. and i think that my body is beginning to follow my head into the downward spiral. every day i wake up after a fitful night of little sleep and another part of me aches.

i've just gotten on the skytrain after being summoned out to surrey for what i will call a "fake-out" interview with yet another agency. i could just scream. he's pissing on about the culture shock that i would experience if placed with this multi-national company. um...alrighty then. it'd be a hell of a lot more culture shock if i ended up homeless. hypothetically, anyway. he doesn't know that this won't happen; that i've got the luxury of having a partner to keep the roof over me, but in the process he is beginning to flounder as well. he didn't bank on carrying the full whack of the rent.  i sit there, watching him watching me, assessing me. he's looking at the flimsy sheet of paper that is my resume and judging me on what he thinks i lack, not what i have. i wonder if his smarminess ever heard of the word adaptable. look it up, there's a pic of me--honest! well, maybe not, but i am sure capable of a lot more than these people give me credit for.

i leave the office, rain pelting down around me and i am muttering aloud. shouting into the deluge. these lot seem to think it's easy out here in the trenches. it doesn't help with them not helping but getting in the way.

there! whooosh....gone! now i feel better, sort of. now all i need is a job.

thrashing on

the chill in the air is a sign that winter is on its way; we're down into single digit territory now. i notice for the first time that there's a light dusting of white on the mountain tops that bears this out. the rain we've had down here is snow way up there. from the walkway of our apartment you can see the mountains to the north as if they are suspended in air. today, a downy layer of low lying cloud exaggerates the effect.

i pause and enjoy the view for awhile. it's a distraction. there's a pounding in my head that is relentless. screaming around inside the left side of my skull. it started while i stared at the computer screen at a.'s and  worked itself to a crashing crescendo somewhere halfway through my interview at swim. it's a recruiter i've never heard of before, but they seem to be different. they seem to offer real promise.  i was there with the hopes that something will finally shake loose from this job tree. the job doesn't pay much but none really do in comparison to toronto. odd, because the cost of living here is so much higher, in most every way. i really didn't think it would be so difficult to land a decent job, but so it is. whatever my skills might offer an employer they are apparently not enough. altis hr outright told me that they don't have any opportunities available. in this marketplace. bullshit. it's a good thing that us good citizens don't have to pay for what mere service they offer. by the time i got home from class my head felt like it just might split in two and that i would simply collapse from the weight of the pain of it.  i woke up a remnant hangover of it; laid me out for the balance of the day.

it's not very exciting. a life lived like this. the uncertainty alone is stress enough and it's heaped on top of the demoralizing process of job search. the looming financial disaster is worse and what's happened to my finances since this whole odyssey began. i had a nice clean slate just before i moved out here, and now it's all gone for shit. it makes me even less thrilled with this particular chapter of my life. i try to remember it's momentary, but making up for lost ground is doubly hard. all the future plans have been put off to even further into the future.

week end

lazy sunday morning. so far, we've had our morning coffee and are doodling around the place. just like a sunday should be. shaun has fixed my funky little chair (one item off the to-do list) and is now plinking on his guitar trying to get "kashmir" just right; the jimmy page bit. he hasn't exactly got it, but he's got enough of a handle on it that it doesn't sound like noise.

by the time i finally convince s. that we need to leave the house it's halfheartedly raining, so with umbrellas in hand we hit the street. once we are loaded down with groceries i can see his interest in walking has waned completely and we go home even though the sun is breaking through the clouds and painting the sky a glittering gold. the day seems long with the extra hour gifted with the end of daylight savings. talking about it later i said "well it's always spring forward and fall back, always occurs on the 21st of april and 21st of october or thereabouts", before i have the chance to realize that the 21st has long since passed. now i wonder, who changed their way of dealing with it, the US or Canada? Or both?