Sultry today. Summer arrived with a week's worth of thunderstorms. Afterwards, the air is thick and cloying, making it hard to walk, hard to work, hard to breathe. Hot, languid breezes move slowly over my skin, causing the tendrils of hair to lay damply against my perspiring forehead.
Time to cut this hair for real. Clip off the remaining foot and a half of burnished chestnut brown and reveal the silvery shock underneath. Start looking like a middle aged person instead of a college student, if this is possible and I somewhat doubt it. I have a baby face. I am only just now beginning to look like a fully formed human instead of a blob. But perhaps I exaggerate. Perhaps I'm just depressed again.
I got pretty depressed trying to write my resume for the temporary employment agency that wants to send me out on HTML coding jobs. I don't really know Java, or C++, or cgi, or any programming language except MOO (Object Oriented programming is Object Oriented programming, of course, but practically no one requires a temp to come in and code a virtual pinball machine or a spaceship). I fear being sent on jobs to companies who just want someone capable of typing a letter, printing it, and answering the phones. The agencies only pay $7 an hour for that. If I ask for $10 they say they can't place me. Nashville isn't San Francisco or New York, they say somewhat accusingly. Like, duh, it's not a real city. Real cities have buses that cover the city and not just four main roads. Real cities don't have to argue with their metro council over whether a centralized, computerized main library is essential and worth raising taxes for when that same council wanted to tax the hell out of the city to build a stadium on spec with which to lure pro sports teams. Oh, wait, this isn't depression. This is bitterness. Sorry, wrong pathology.
So, okay, I don't have much computer programming experience but I'm not willing to be bored out of my skull for $7 an hour, either, so I'm trying to make myself look good on paper without actually lying. In a perfect world, competence and flexibility would net me a job. We'll see what happens. Happily, John is still finding jobs to apply for and we're not really going to feel the need to penny-pinch until the end of August. After that, I plan on going ape-banana-crazy if I don't have a job.
But what I really wanna do is lie down and read something about snow and ice. I think I'll reread Sigrid Undset's truly wonderful Kristin Lavransdattir. It's too hot to do anything else.
