Saturday, September 29, 2007

Havin' My Cake

So I haven't written a decent update in a while. Well, what is there to say? My daily activities include working, washing dishes, reading books, playing Scrabble, riding my bicycle, to name a few (no one can ever name them all no matter how one may try, and really nobody wants to read a complete activities list of anyone's, anyway, now do they). I live in a country-esque setting, and I'm loving it. It's getting chillier here, and sometimes it rains. Every day usually/always consists of fog and sun, intermittently. And there is actually a fall, as everything is no longer all green but includes reds and browns as well. I'm learning everyday and striving to live in each and every minute, but also with a reasonable eye to the future and how actions translate into consequences no matter which way you live or look at it.

Is this reasonably vague or annoyingly cliché? Well, alright, here is what is exactly at this moment on my mind, you who may from time to time tune in to my blog and skim its contents:

When I started my job search here I wasn't convinced I'd find one good job. Now I find myself in a predicament; I have two long-term job offers, both places want me, and I want both of them. However, both are full time so I cannot choose both.

So now I REALLY understand the saying "you can't have your cake and eat it too."

I used to think this made no sense because if you didn't have any cake how could you eat it, in other words, you had to have it in order to eat it!?! But after you eat your cake, it's gone, so you no longer have it. Hence the saying. (I'm slow sometimes.)

When there are difficult decisions to make, how do you make them? When I knew I had to give living in northern California a try, I couldn't even give energy to thinking about all that I was leaving behind. I knew if I did I wouldn't leave. The result was I spent a lot of lonely time here in an unfamiliar place thinking about all that I left behind. I couldn't have my cake and eat it too. If I would have made pros and cons lists about my friends and family and familiarity back in Wisconsin and pros and cons lists about living in northern California and trying to make a life with Mike, which set of lists would have won?

I have no way of knowing because I never made those lists. I don't know what purpose that would serve now. I am here. I'm putting my all into it. Before moving away from home I used to say "if I do go I might regret it; if I don't go I WILL regret it." That was the only way I knew how to make a rational choice of 'to move or not to move'. That was my logic and it worked for me. I wasn't hearing anything else anyway, but that's another tangent some other time, or never.

So can I apply this now to two great jobs and which one to take? As a matter of fact I can. If I walk away from my non-profit Angel Fund grant-making work, I WILL regret it. At this point in my life anyway. So that must be the answer.

I did, I'll have you know, make my pros and cons lists for what I will lovingly refer to here as Job A and Job B. The pros list of Job A was equal in length to the cons list of Job B; while the opposite lists respectively were significantly shorter and also similar in length. So that could also be an answer for me, right? Job A wins. Right?

Why oh why can't I just have two pieces of cake? Yes, this is like asking why there aren't 48 hours in the day instead of 24. Yes, I know it's silly and nonsensical. But I never claimed to make sense. And I never claimed to enjoy making choices.

On the flip side of all of this, it feels pretty excellent to feel so wanted by employers. Especially since I've already had a chance to prove myself at both jobs, it's not like I just nailed two interviews. They know my work ethic, they know my skill sets, and they want me. (It stands to reason that the job market here is so poor for a reason, that I'm not so fantastically wonderful like I'm slanting this post, but that I'm relatively better compared to the options around me. In other words there is quite an unemployment problem here, and quite a poor job market here. Good employees are hard to find. But let's not focus on the negative, shall we? This is about something else.)

Ah, well, aside from sharing what has been on my mind I have an uncanny desire to go eat some cake now...*

P.S. Job B is the music festival job. Giving up such a fun job is no easy task, let me tell you.

*I forced Mike to let me read him this blog entry and his two responses were a) it sounds like a normal Naomi tangent and b) you could have been more honest about the fact that we have not finished unpacking yet.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

My Five Earthdance Photos for Y'all

I'm "stealing" a wireless connection from Mike's work. Actually his coworker Gabe is a friend of mine and is super glad to have me use it. He said so. He's an uber nice guy.

Anyhoo, here are some photos for y'all. I didn't have my camera out much and didn't take as many photos as I would have liked. Oh well. You'll get a bit of an idea, I think.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket


Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Monday, September 17, 2007

Back from Camping

So I have been camping from Thursday night to Monday morning and now I am back at work, sort of. In body anyway. Tired is the understatement of this post. On my way into the office, got my mail and lo (high!)* and behold (hark!)*, I have a California driver license. This makes me quite official now. Or something.

The weekend at Earthdance was quite an experience. Not sure even where to begin in describing it. Let's just say I felt transported through time into scenes (or rather more like observing them, with my mouth agape) that I had previously only seen in glossy pictures of Life Magazine. All of a sudden it was the 60's. At least that's what I think. I wasn't actually there in the 60's. Hence the Life Magazine reference, obviously. I took five pictures, which maybe I will share later. They have a website also, which is www.earthdance.org (which I can't link to this page for some reason) where I'm sure you can see all the beautiful and strange wonder that is people at Earthdance.

Speaking of strange, I'm also reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Uber creepy book. And yet I can't stop reading it...

Well that's me in a nutshell. (Help, help, I'm in a nutshell! How did I get in this crazy nutshell?)**

Hope you all are well. I'm muddling through this day called work/Monday and then going home to crawl into my bed (A BED! A REAL BED!).

*Hi, Mom.
**Inane reference to Mike Myers movie from once upon a time.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Still Blogging at Work = Not Good But Yet Good

Although I've actually been reading far faster than I can keep up with updating my "Currently Reading" sidebar here on Blogger, and also working on getting settled into my new apartment which is always more complicated than I wish it was, but also quite good to have my own space again (and more fun to share it with someone else and decide together what to do with the place, which is surprising I must admit because I historically don't like to share but he being an artist means while he does not care in the least about what he wears he actually has a wonderful sense of color and style and we seem to like a lot of the same things - not all things, but enough to make things really fun), my blog life is suffering because I don't have the internet at home. But the rest of my life is improving because I don't have the internet at home. Go figure.

So since I have sold most of my furniture we are starting over in that department. This means picnic style dinner on our living room floor by candlelight (we have lamps, it's just that candlelight is more exicting) while playing Scrabble and listening to CD's on my laptop plugged into some random speakers I still own from the PC I used to own, which actually makes quite a good stereo. This also means shopping at places like Bed Bath and Beyond (when necessary) and thrift stores (more adventurous) and choosing quality over quantity, making decisions slowly and mutually. I am loving every second of this having our own place thing. And realizing with each passing moment just HOW BAD my previous living situation was.

Which brings me to my next point. Sometimes things just don't bear repeating and just don't matter in the "big picture". My month of August, though the weather was EXQUISITE the ENTIRE MONTH, was one of those months that it is just good to be done with, and now that it's in the past I don't even want to rehash it all just to explain on here.

So I won't. A few of you know the story anyway from phone conversations. Suffice it to say things were rough through August, I am stronger for it, and we are all smiling here in northern California.

But seriously, August was sunny and warm and glorious EVERYDAY and we wore sandals and tee-shirts and there was no cold chill to the air. September, alas, has brought me back to the reality that is Humboldt County. And I have learned from the locals that it was unusual for August to be this "hot". (It was low 70's most of the month. To me that is not hot. Looking at the weather reports for Wisconsin, my hometown folks know what I'm talking about. People here are just nuts if they think 70 is hot.)

This weekend is my first camping trip. I'm really scared/nervous/excited.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

I'm Still Alive!

OK so I have finally moved. It has taken much longer than we had anticipated and hoped. But now it is done (except for all the unpacking but we are working on that day by day, slowly but surely).

I have emailed as many people as I can think of off the top of my head my new addresses but if you did not receive the memo realize that my brain may have reached its capacity and please don't take it personally. If you are reading this blog, chances are I really love you. Or you really love me. Or both. Or else I'm just an intriguing freak of nature to you. Or something else I just couldn't guess right now. But what I'm getting at is that you should pretty please contact me if you did not receive my new mailing address. Unless you don't have my new phone number. But you should at least have my email address. Or, you know, comment on here!

I will send pictures soon and more details as well. One thing I can think of right now is that the price you pay for not living with roommates anymore is increased rent and that means no home internet connection right now - can't afford extra frivolities like that. So I'm on my lunch break at work. This complicates things a bit. There is a sweet little coffee shop within walking distance from my house with free wi-fi and all that jazz. It's called Hank's. The coffee house not the wireless connection. Although then I run the risk of buying silly things like vanilla steamers, which they make just right there, but as Mike loves to point out, you are paying $2 for a glass of milk.

But anyway. I'm still here. I think that was the main point of this post.

Cheers!!