What Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?

What do employers want from me? I have about one thousand sent items to companies, corporations, publications and anything else in between, and dammit: I don't know what these people want from me.

How do you convince Jane No Name and her colleagues that you're totally, utterly, and completely, the lost individual they've been searching for all this time...without saying just that. Subtlety. I don't have it, I guess. I mean, seriously. I don't know Jane. I know her company, her brand of human, and I can imitate it all I want, but that doesn't mean that I fit, or even that someone will take the time to sift through the thousands of emails that funnel through 7 seconds after posting on Craigslist.

Thank Ed2010.com for that one. I look on that journalism job site, along with JournalismJobs.com and MediaBistro.com about a zillion times per day, week, month, yadda yadda yadda. It tells me who's looking, and today for the first time it told me why they weren't looking for me.

Other than the fact that being over qualified is now a turn-off, I'm not that surprised. [Also, I don't 'get' the whole over-qualified. Why is being ahead a bad thing, why is having a lot of experience a deterrent? John McCain and I ponder this every day.] But at the same time, even if you don't make one of these 10 careless errors, you and your silly letter will still be neglected. Lost in the Email Abyss, sorry to say. I came to a conclusion that made me highly depressed.

Basically: there's nothing I can do about it. My life is out of my hands all the time, and it's spinning out of control.

I don't like it.


For More on Joblessness and Out of Control College Graduates, check out: http://www.middleness.wordpress.com

Will Your Love Be Safe With Me?

"Re: Stacks" from Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago

This my excavation and today is kumran
Everything that happens is from now on
This is pouring rain
This is paralyzed


I keep throwing it down two-hundred at a time
It's hard to find it when you knew it
When your money's gone
And you're drunk as hell


On your back with your racks as the stacks as your load
In the back and the racks and the stacks are your load
In the back with your racks and you're un-stacking your load


I've twisting to the sun I needed to replace
The fountain in the front yard is rusted out
All my love was down
In a frozen ground


There's a black crow sitting across from me; his wiry legs are crossed
And he's dangling my keys he even fakes a toss
Whatever could it be
That has brought me to this loss?


On your back with your racks as the stacks as your load
In the back and the racks and the stacks of your load
In the back with your racks and you're un-stacking your load


This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realization
It's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away
Your love will be
Safe with me

big ideas. friends. change.

"A big idea will change you. Your friends may love you, but they don't want you to change. If you change, then their dynamic with you also changes. They like things the way they are; that's how they love you - the way you are, not the way you may become... Good ideas alter the power balance in relationships. That is why good ideas are always
initially resisted." ~ Hugh Macleod

I don't give a damn, I'm happy as a clam

"Nobody Knows Me At All"
from The Weepies.

When I was a child everybody smiled, nobody knows me at all
Very late at night and in the morning light, nobody knows me at all

Now I got lots of friends, yes, but then again, nobody knows me at all
Kids and a wife, it's a beautiful life, nobody knows me at all

And oh when the lights are low
Oh with someone I don't know

I don't give a damn, I'm happy as a clam, nobody knows me at all
Ah, what can you do? There's nobody like you. Nobody knows me at all

I know how you feel, no secrets to reveal, nobody knows me at all
Very late at night and in the morning light, nobody knows me at all
Nobody knows me, nobody knows me, nobody knows me at all

The Peace Out Explanation

Left: Photo of Iowa earth post my weekend trip to Iowa City





I went to Iowa City over the weekend to catch up and slow down at the same time. Ever since the culmination of my latter educational years, I've felt a bit of a mess. Internships, deadend retail jobs, family happiness on repeat, etc. has been a bit draining. So, I headed back to what had been my homeland for real growth and change, and it was a joy.

The best part of Iowa City is you never really know who will be there, when, and for what. I know things will change even more in the next year, because then I really won't know anyone anymore because we'll all have moved on, but it will still be the same. The thing is, once you accept that a place is fluid, that people are interchangeable, and visiting is always the correct antidote, it's fine. Iowa City can stand on its own in my mind. This morning before my favorite shop opened, a good friend of mine (Sarah) and I grabbed a warm beverage and chatted up one another about what this town has meant to us, how we are or were ready to move on from it, and how we're going to embrace everything it gives us. College towns do that. They have this warm, cozy up next to it feel, just as much as they have a cyclical, "get outta here and see the world" vibe. And we love it.

The only down beat is that the weather is cyclical too, and to really enjoy Iowa you have to remember and accept that it might snow at the end of March two weeks before Easter. It's a cruel weather world out there, regardless of which Midwestern town you've stumbled upon.

Banjo Pickin' Time

So, the latest tune I'm learning on the banjo is hence forth named, Banjo Pickin' Time. Recently I've picked up this instrument namely because I've always wanted to learn a string instrument, and the banjo in particular because everyone plays the guitar. I've had three lessons and really, things are going well with it. Up next is She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain and the Banjo Boogie.

I started seriously wanting to play in the fall last year while in San Francisco. My housemate had a banjo and taught me a few chords. Nothing too serious, and definitely informal as far as actual lessons. It's been great having my own instrument and having lessons. Though, I should add, lesson are not cheap. It's sort of a bummer, but I figure knowing an instrument is always worth it. Growing up I took piano for years and have sung since basically day one. I had some formal voice training, so music's no biggie, but string instruments are so different. I know the piano is string, but hand-held string instruments are so unique. For a while in junior high I played the trumpet, well, it was the cornet, but that's about the same thing, just a wee bit smaller. There were only three buttons on the trumpet, but a ton of chords could be made. I guess I just like the challenge of learning something knew while having that familiarity of a classroom environment to go with it.

If I can figure it out, I think I'll throw up some of these little diddies I've learned — if you're interested?

February 14 came, went and this song makes me tear.

Gray, quiet and tired and mean
Picking at a worried seam
I try to make you mad at me over the phone.
Red eyes and fire and signs
I'm taken by a nursery rhyme
I want to make a ray of sunshine and never leave home

No amount of coffee, no amount of crying
No amount of whiskey, no amount of wine
No, nothing else will do
I've gotta have you, I've gotta have you.

The road gets cold, there's no spring in the middle this year
I'm the new chicken clucking open hearts and ears
Oh, such a prima donna, sorry for myself
But green, it is also summer
And I won't be warm till I'm lying in your arms

I see it all through a telescope: guitar, suitcase, and a warm coat
Lying in the back of the blue boat, humming a tune...

-the weepies, "gotta have you."