I have been spending a long time trying to get a resume together that doesn’t cause me to weep at the futility of mankind’s meager existence on this small and revolving planet.

Now, I’m going to take bits and pieces of it and cut and paste everywhere that I possibly can in order to rejoin the daily work force.

Although, I am pretty proud that I have done some of the independent projects I have set out to do, including learn a lot about web design and freelance out some of my new skills and making decisions about a writing future. I think if I focus on a very fluid, yin yang balance of my own interests and a job without the required emotional, full-tilt, take no prisoners investment, both my own bad self and a future employer could approach a bunch o’ contentment.

Look for my opus of the week at job boards and employment websites near you.

By the way, if you are reading this post, and you have any friends, family, lovers, enemies, colleagues or what have you in the Northern California vicinity who might be hiring, please let me know. I’m going to use as many networking angles as I can to get a good thing going.

I’m bright (or at least not slow). I have a meticulous, scary even, attention to detail (believe it or not, based on this shite). It turns out that my ability to read poorly and obscurely written government policy and legalese and turn it into normal speech is savant-like.

I write, some might say, “very well,” and thanks to my A-one, brand-certified, wicked excellent journalism degree, I’m actually rather skilled at writing for different situations, audiences and environments. In other words, I don’t always write like I do here, and quite frankly recognize that no one need toss around the fuck word with such wanton abandon.

I’d link up my resume here, but if history taught me anything it’s keeping the comedy/writing site clearly about comedy and writing. This ain’t my working gal self.

For the first time in a week, I don’t feel like crying myself to sleep like a weak baby. Whatever cold or flu this one was, I don’t recall having felt so fucking miserable.

Add on top of it that I’ve been trying to work on my resume and looking through job listings (at those brief times when my read and rheumy eyes could focus without tearing), life ain’t exactly the banquet I’ve been hoping to enjoy. Now I’m behind in everything I planned to do this week, and on top of it, haven’t seen or talked to any of the friends with whom I need or want to catch up.

Aggravating.

A lot of my anxiety about finding a job is less about my getting shitcanned yet again six months ago or the money. I do worry money will run out, and I’ll end up homeless without even 49 sweaters to wear in the streets, because I’ve already given them all away to charity. Would it be the definition of irony if I end up in a shelter and someone hands me something I used to wear?

No, while all of those thoughts do enter my head, that’s not my central area of anxiety. I think most of it has to do with the life and times of old Pat.

(Incidentally, right now is the anniversary of her leaving the mortal coil. Well, I guess it is. Maybe tomorrow or Tuesday is the anniversary of our discovering she was actually gone. I thought it was the 18th, but my sister said tomorrow. Hard to say exactly, though, since she went quietly and alone, and the house was freezing cold.

By the way, both the police and the oil company guy said that it was common for old people to stop oil delivery (or not call for a fresh delivery) right around the time they die, like that’s part of their whole plan. Why pay for oil if you ain’t gonna use it, right? It’s kind of sad, yet so compact and efficient, like folks just know when it’s time. I don’t know, though. For me, I might leave all the lights on and the heat cranked up and leave in a blaze of glory, power consumption-wise anyway.)

Maybe it’s work or maybe it’s the anniversary of her being gone or maybe it’s my naturally tendency to worry, but how I spend my time to make money to live is big on my mind right now. And, the only thing I am sure about is that probably the best way to honor the memory of my mother is to deliberately not live the way she did.

I don’t mean the good parts. She was hella loyal to her family and her kids, even as she bitched and moaned. And, even though she was never demonstrative and closed off all outward manifestations of affection, when something went wrong or when I saw her at moments of truly losing someone, I could tell there was a depth of love. She was also a great provider, and, I’m told, a great teacher.

All of those things (well except never demonstrating affection) I would emulate.

No, the thing I don’t want from her life is always living to not quite get what you want. Like she never, ever took a sick day from work for herself. She dragged herself in and did her job no matter what. In the end, the town made her feel old and used and forced her into retirement essentially against her will.

Obviously, it’s complicated, but she literally suffered for her job and felt none of that loyalty back. Her experience, and my own, taught me that I don’t want that. I hope to take every sick day or vacation day and enjoy my time, if I work for someone else. Or, if I’m lucky enough to do my own thing, I want to remember that putting in that kind of effort and energy is of benefit to me, and if it’s not I want the presence of mind to see the risk-benefit analysis.

She was also good with money and had gone to college for business. From the circumstances of being a widow with five kids, though, she became a teacher, because it was the only gig that she could do in the days before child care centers. I think she wanted a nice, neat office job where she could use that part of her brain, but it didn’t happen.

She was also good with her hands and crafty, and as far as I can tell was always doing something artsy fartsy. (There were ceramic figurines (think Hummel) around our house from days long past when she had taken some kind of ceramic figurine molding and painting class. And, there was a veritable town of dollhouses left in her house, each one built and furnished and decorated by her. And those were just the ones she kept.)

I think she would have like to get formal training in painting, but she held herself back from even taking an adult ed class. I’m not sure why. She had a friend who went back to school for an art degree. When she talked about her friend’s success and even her scholarship trip to France, you could see the excitement and, I guess, longing.

I don’t want to have those kind of unfulfilled dreams, especially if it’s as simple as paying a few dollars and driving to the local night school.

And, so I write this bullshit on the Internet. I hope to better understand and better achieve what I do want.

In the end, while looking for a job, I think I have one life’s goal. I want to die at break even. Financially, I want to have enough money to live comfortably and not have any left over that I could have or should have used to live. Emotionally, I want to feel like I’ve extended myself or tried new things or continued learning. I don’t want to feel worn out or broken or used.

Do you know anyone hiring for something like that?

My groggily working on my resume, tonight’s fun project, had me reviewing and thinking and churning.

Maybe it’s some meta-Freudian subconscious thing, but I can’t hold onto a decent copy of my resume. First, a while back I realized the best version of my resume was left on my former employer’s computer. No problem, I had paper printouts. Only somewhere in my apartment emptying, they must have been left in the recycling bin.

Then, I typed up a swell new version and began the needed updates to reflect the goals of the new, non-academic-administrating me. Only before I backed it up anywhere (d’oh) I fucked my Powerbook and may very well have vaporized it. (Could be the data recovery and repair I’m waiting on will make it all better, but since I’m pretty sure my hard drive died. I’m not counting on it.)

Then, I dug up my old IBM ThinkPad (running Win95, a rocking OS when I bought it) that had a circa 2000 resume on it. Cool, cool, cool, since I was at the same place of employ from 1997 until the incident. Only when I cracked it open tonight to retype everything (since none of the ports it uses are currently in fashion) something crackly happened with the screen and the display is all trippy colored lights and spots.

Finally, I hooked up a monitor and typed away. Fucking Whew.

Now, I’m refining the timeline, because I want to make sure I have all of my promotions and exemplary work record reflected. Bwahaha. So I went back through this space and realized the night before the troubles began, I wise cracked about losing my job. The fucking night before. I’m a witch I swear.

But, the most important sign of all was talking to a friend of mine from comedy last night. She was majorly stressed out and not feeling well and just generally having a bad day. Among the reasons was the pressure cooker of her boss’ working on needed stuff for his continued academic success. Like I once was, she is an administrator in an academic environment.

Anyway, her stress was palpably familiar to me. The weird edge of being a team player supporting others, yet knowing that at the end of the day it ain’t your team and if the “they” you support ain’t helping the ball club, you can’t do nothing about it.

Academia is a distinct environment and if you know others working there, you’ve heard the same stories over and over again. You end up ceding all control to the one personality at the top whose ego and needs must be coddled and fed. Generally, they are benign despots with compelling enough leadership and personality to allow a few pecadillos to pass forgiven, and the worthwhile goals of the body of work provide an esprit de corps.

But, when shit falls apart and they require your hand holding at midnight, goddamnit, they expect your full cooperation.

I’ve worked late shifts and crunch times in the private, for-profit sector, and yeah, there’s stress. Somehow, though, I never felt the emotional drain that I did in academic support. It’s not enough to just work late, they need to feel that you are completely committed to their needs, when they need you most.

I’m describing it poorly, but it’s the manipulative tone of disappointment I heard in the last conversation I had with my former director. The tone when I think she realized that I was choosing my own ventures over hers.

Obviously, I am projecting, but it’s that pressure that I read in my friend’s face last night.

I’m sure she will work out the middle ground she needs. For me, it was a reminder that even if my path is unclear right now, it’s the correct one.