mondojohnson

Today I began my volunteer service at the very cool Fort Matanzas National Monument, here in Saint Augustine. This dinky little fort was build by the Spanish over four hundred years ago. It kept watch over the “backdoor” access (up the Atlantic coastway) to Saint Augustine (the nation’s oldest city, in case you didn’t know!).

I am working as a volunteer deckhand on the ferry that takes visitors to the tiny island where the fort stands guard. I have the rope blisters and sunburn of an old salt… it feels good to do some physical work, it’s a welcome change from the anxiety of my endless, fruitless job hunt.

Trying to keep my chin up; I didn’t make the short list for my L.A. dream job. Is it finally time to go stock shelves at “Winn-Dixie“?

[UPDATE, written April 2, 2010: How long will it take me to understand that the Bitches of Fates are forever keeping score, and that they almost always use this data to mock me with tacky plot twists? And I mean seriously tacky: prime-time TV shows would not get away with such cheap theatrics.

Those of you who are familiar with the recent, tedious chapters of my life story will know that within weeks of tweeting the above post, I got a job with Winn-Dixie. No, I wasn't stocking shelves -- I was an independent contractor working on specific instructional design projects. It was a classic, 21st-century, middle-class job: no security, no benefits, no reciprocated loyalty (i.e., management demands it from individual contractors, but offers none in return). In many ways, the front-line, low-wage retail jobs are better than those of the wandering contractor: at least the store workers are shielded by hard-won labor protections. And however menial its day-to-day tasks may be, the job of the shelf-stocker is defined by an existential clarity that the "management-level consultant" will never have.

Well, I certainly needed the money. But what, you may ask, about the exotic medical regimen that had been keeping me alive and sane -- but was no longer available due to lack of insurance? Well, truthfully, I was forced to become less alive and less sane. I would have gone all the way to death and madness had it not been for a series of misfortunes that qualified me for "socialized medicine", such as it was at that moment in Florida. But trust me, they really can't do anything until you have at least one foot in the grave, and even then it's tough.
I'm ecstatic to report that as of February I've been back at a job with full benefits Hallelujah.]

Waiting to see if I made the short list for a kickass job. Hoping for the best, planning for the worst.