Rain tonight. The morning was clear, all blue skies and white clouds and little puffs of wind forecasting an early spring. I knew it wouldn't last because I could see the steel grey peeking over the hills, plump with rain and ready to spill it into the bay after a boisterous journey from the sea. The sound of rain eases my mind, relaxes my muscles. Dark, rain, quiet; a coil unwinds somewhere inside, and I can think about almost anything calmly.
I am still missing items that I know I packed over a year ago. How can I still not have found them? I thought all my personal boxes had been gone through, if not totally emptied. I must have started stuffing things in any old box towards the end. I remember being thoroughly sick of carefully wrapping the titchy breakable stuff. If I haven't used it in a year do I really need it? Yes. I really need that blue shirt, that middle book of the series, that vase of a particular shape. A pity I ran out of organizational steam long before I ran out of boxes to pack.
Good fares from the Bay Area to surprising places: $222 to Tampa, $215 to St. Louis, $444.00 to San Salvador, all round trip. Who makes these fares up? Some committee somewhere: the infamous Yield Management who pore over statistics and reports, wave their hands mystically, conjure up a brief spate of cheap tickets, and set an expiry date along with arcane rules. The market surges and seethes, driven by the strange, unfathomable lunar rhythms of economics and politics. If the sea parts, run like hell for Israel. If you see a good fare, buy it now.
If I had to go back to college tomorrow with the specific goal of getting my degree in something for the purpose of obtaining employment, what would I choose? Not English literature, my beloved intellectual cabana boy, nor history, nor women's studies. Academia is not for me; I've no taste for the politics or the job competition. Not back to music, which was once mine own true love, and which paid the bills for umpteen years until I got sick of having four or five jobs a month rather than one paycheck. Graphic design? Maybe. It interests me, but I fear I might have to beg for jobs designing stockholder quarterly reports instead of something sexy like web pages or butter packages. Programming? Ha, you kill me. I wouldn't, couldn't do anything with computers. Journalism? There's a thought. Languages? I'm clever at accents and picking up useful words, and I once spoke passable French. Translating would be interesting, but of course, I've not the faintest idea what kind of career that involves. Oh, I'm a fine example of an educated person, I am. Lots of party tricks and interesting past jobs but no real skills. I type, doll. That's what I do best. I type 80 words a minute without errors, and that's my biggest marketing tool. College would nourish my soul, but it probably couldn't get me a job.
I don't need a new job. I need a little nourishment. I have sent off to MTSU for my transcripts. Just in case, you know. Just in case.
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