south of north of Coney

In other words, Coney Island.

One:  I had the interview at Luna Park the other day. I was interviewed for the less-qualified position, and there are actually two of them, exactly the same, except that one will start sooner than the other.  The woman who interviewed me was lovely, and I think I did well.  She didn't mention money, but the job developer said it was $12-14 per hour, which is really less than I would like, but I'll try to talk them up to 15 or 16 if I get an offer.  It's seasonal, and would end in October.  The office is right inside Luna, and the job would entail a certain amount of time outside the office in the park, distributing paychecks and schmoozing employees to try to avoid the 67% turnover they experienced last summer.  The temp aspect of it works for me -- hey, who wants to be in Coney during the winter?  Also, they would require a drug test.

Sidebar:  I do not approve of drug testing, though of course I said I would take one.  Here's the thing -- if the issue is illegality, a background check would clear that up.  If the issue is possible intoxication on the job, who don't they ban any use of alcohol?  What if someone comes in hung over?  Also, there are a lot of prescribed drugs that might show up in a test.  I believe that Adderall (prescribed for ADHD in adults as well as kids) contains some sort of amphetamine.  Some people still take old-school antidepressants which are barbiturates.  I myself have a prescription for lorazepam (generic Atavan), a low dosage for bouts of anxiety.  And how about the whole issue of violation of civil liberties?  It's one thing if someone shows up at work obviously intoxicated, but what someone does on their own time should be their own business.  I generally do not apply for jobs where it's indicated up front that they drug test.  I think it's very wrong.

That having been said, I have decided that it's a good idea to start taking a goldenseal supplement and drinking a lot of fresh-squeezed lemon juice.

Two:  I had to go to the Coney Island HRA center this morning (luckily, I was excused for "independent job search," which is actually a Connect-to-Care computer class this afternoon).  They needed to make copies of documents that Barry handed to our caseworker two weeks ago.  These people may be overworked, but that doesn't mean they aren't fucking morons.  The woman who called wasn't our caseworker, but we referred her to him several times.  We find it impossible to get him on the phone, but you'd think this woman could have gone from the second floor to the third, walked to his desk, and asked for out file.  You'd think.  But no, I had to bring the suckers again this morning.  And as I said, it was a good thing I was already excused from Back-to-Work, because they require a document from HRA if you have to be there during work hours, and HRA insists that you don't need a document and they won't give you one.  Which of course, can put you at risk of -- all together now -- being FTC'ed.  Apparently they are FTC'ing people like mad because BTW is so overcrowded.

So Mrs. Abramova at HRA said that I had to bring the documents this morning by noon, and that I should go to the second floor and call her extension.  I was there before 10, and called her extension several times, and it didn't answer.  The receptionist didn't know who she was.  The receptionist asked me for her extension, and then she dialed it and got no answer,  Gee, thanks.  Finally, on my tenth time calling her extension, another woman who happened to be walking past Mrs. A's cubicle picked up the phone, told me Mrs. A was in a training session, but that she, Mrs. G, could copy the documents and put them on Mrs. A's desk.  Since I was a little concerned that these might meet the same fate as the documents Barry handed to the caseworker (not left on his desk -- HANDED to him), I came home and left a voice mail for Mrs. A and said that Mrs. G had left the documents on her desk, and that she should please call if she still didn't have them.  (I left out the part about her asking me to see her by noon when she was going to be in a training session.)

I hadn't noticed before that the HRA office is right behind the old Child's on the Boardwalk, which I believe Lola Star has converted into a roller rink.  HRA is about eight blocks west of the amusement area, past the baseball stadium (which used to be Keyspan Park but I've forgotten the new name).  It's kind of creepy and deserted there this time of year.  I thought about walking back to the subway via the Boardwalk, but my feeling was that the Boardwalk would also be creepy and deserted.  Plus, it was extremely cold.  It figures that I was at Back-to-Work yesterday when it was 51 degrees out, but at Coney Island today when it was 28 (plus the wind off the water is mighty strong).

Whether I'm working there or not, I look forward to seeing Coney in the summer.  I look forward to having a hot dog at Nathan's, even if I can't eat the roll (and have to skip the fries).

I'm not sure if I ever mentioned this, but I wrote a poem some years back called "palm sunday, coney island," which was actually published.  It was in a small literary magazine called "Exit 19" or Exit something, comprised of poetry and stories that all involved a place.  They never sent me my copy, and I no longer have a copy of the poem.  I do remember the phrase "the sturdy inaugural turn of the wonder wheel" (I wrote everything in lower case back then...maybe I thought I was e.e. cummings).  I know that I actually wrote it on the subway -- I had traveled backwards to Coney to pick up another train line (a number of lines terminate there).  And it was Palm Sunday, which is the first day every year that the rides begin to operate.  (They run on weekends only until Memorial Day.)  I looked out the subway window and felt very Coney, and scribbled down the poem then and there.  (I wrote poetry very quickly and usually at one sitting.)  Most of my poetry is lost now, but I do remember parts of a few good ones.

Mitzvahs (or is it "mitzvoth"?) of the week:  my sister-in-law Elise, who would be a saint if there were Jewish saints, went to a Jewish non-profit (she works for one and knows them all), and brought a pile of free dressier clothes for Barry.  Three suits, maybe a dozen button-down shirts, and as many ties.  (You can't wear jeans to Back-to-Work, so Barry's basically been doing it in one pair of black chinos.)

Then Elise offered to take me to the supermarket and she would pay.  (This is a double mitzvah since we don't have a good supermarket close by and she drives.)  So I did a pretty serious shop, and got us stocked up on things I can eat and things Barry can eat (which are almost total opposites at this point).  It was a good shop, and except for the fruits and vegetables, should last us for a good bit.  I'm hoping we'll get food stamps within a couple of weeks.

I'm concentrating my job hunt on creative companies and universities.  I need work soon, but I'd prefer somewhere that I can be happy, and hopefully make a decent wage.  After these CTC classes, my Word and Excel will be sharp, and I'll have Powerpoint and Quickbooks.

publicly assisted 2: electric boogaloo

I got a little lucky last week.  On Thursday, I (finally) saw my job counselor and job developer.  Since those titles are very confusing, I'll expound:  the job counselor helps with "life problems":  childcare, health issues, etc.  The job developer actually helps in your job search, one-on-one.  So I got to see my job counselor the other day, mainly because I wanted to ask about emergency Medicaid and emergency food stamps.  I wanted the Medicaid so I could get Januvia right away (more about this in a moment), and the food stamps so we could begin conserving our limited amount of cash.  No go on either, but the counselor was so impressed with my resume and my person that she grabbed my developer and I got to spend a few minutes with her.

The developer said that I ought to focus a little more on a career and not just on a job.  She said I should shoot for a creative company where I can learn and move up.  She's very sold on Google.

Later that say, I was grabbed by a second job developer, although each person is only supposed to have one.



Let me back up and explain about FEGS:  FEGS is a Jewish non-profit that has a number of programs, including a career development program called Connect to Care.  Barry's gone there some for job-hunting and resume workshops. I went to their orientation before we got into the public assistance stuff.  FEGS also administers (for the NYC Human Resources Administration, the HRA) the Back to Work program we're attending as part of the public assistance process.

So this second job developer works two days at BTW and three days at CTC, and basically wanted to hijack me, at least in part, to CTC.  (Let me be super-nice about this:  BTW is geared to less skilled, often blue-collar folk, and CTC is a lot more white-collar.)  So Ms. Garber "calendared" me for "independent job search" on Friday and I went to see her at CTC. 

CTC is way closer to where I live, nothing close to the overcrowding they have at BTW, and a lot more civilized overall.  Ms. Garber signed me up for seven software classes at CTC in March (she assured me they were much better than the ones at BTW), and will see me again at BTW tomorrow afternoon.

Januvia:  my doctor recently took me off of one of my diabetic meds, Metformin, since it seemed to be causing "elevated liver enzyme readings."  Unfortunately, the replacement, Januvia, costs over $200 a month, even with our pharmacy insurance  The pharmacy insurance, which runs us $55 a month, makes our generics very cheap, and is all of the health insurance we have.  My dad, in fact, sent me a check for $250 for the Januvia, but I am embarrassed to say that we had to spend it on rent.

My doctor didn't like the idea of my going without Januvia, but said that for the time being, I should be careful with diet and monitoring.  I being being OK but not great with diet and monitoring, and the weekend I was at Jannah's, I started to have dreadful foot pain.  This basically scared the shit out of me.  (It was partly because I've been in the habit of creaming and massaging my feet nightly, and I missed a couple of days, plus I was walking quite a big with a heavy overnight bag.)

So I put myself on a *really* strict diet and doing more testing, and finally got my numbers where they should be, plus I lost several pounds.  The reason I wanted Medicaid right away (we're due to get it through our regular application in about a month) is I wanted to start right away seeing my doctor once a month, my podiatrist once a month, and getting an eye checkup and getting the Januvia etc etc. 

Apparently there's no emergency Medicaid unless you end up in the emergency room, so I contacted Merck, which does indeed have a problem to supply meds if you can't afford them.  I'm seeing the doctor today and I'll have him complete his portion of the application.  My doctor is good about waiting for his money (plus he only charges $40 for a visit with no insurance coverage).

Another mitzvah (Yiddish for good deed) -- my wife-in-law Harriet had a pile of test strips and lancets that she got for free, and sent them to me -- nearly a years' supply.  (Those test strips cost a mint.)  They don't fit the meter I have now, but luckily, I found an online deal to get the correct meter for free.

Right before I got the materials from Harriet, I had reordered strips for my current meter from an online place where I'd bought my last meter -- I'd particularly chosen a meter that takes relatively inexpensive strips ($18 for 50, as opposed to the $40-60 per 50 that others cost).  I had run out of strips pretty suddenly, since I'd been testing a lot more, and had to have them overnighted at a truly stupid cost.  So they arrived...except instead of a box of 50 strips, they sent me a whole new starter unit, which includes 10 strips.  I sent a scathing e-mail, and told them that they WOULD overnight me the proper order at no cost to me, and if they wanted the starter pack back, they had to send me a prepaid mailer, but what I would prefer is that they let me keep the starter kit so I could use the ten strips there until the new ones arrived.  The squeaky wheel got her way.

We have our "home visit" today, which I understand is simply a formality and they just glance into the apartment.  But it excuses us for the whole day, which is why I'm seeing the doctor later.  I used my excused time on Friday (Ms. Garber only kept me 20 minutes) applying for jobs from home.  Then I had a call from another developer at FEGS who wanted me to interview tomorrow morning for one of two HR jobs at Luna Park in Coney Island.  I'm a little underqualified for one (it involves a lot of accounting), and the other pays crap ($12-14 an hour), but I'm taking the interview anyway.  After all...well, I guess we know how I feel about Coney Island.  And I do indeed love the new Luna Park, although I'm having my doubts about what Zamperla's doing with some of the other spaces it's developing.

I've now applied to Google, of course, and also to a few more universities.  I'm still looking at Craigslist but I'm being a little pickier; I'm actually looking for a job I'd like to keep.  Also, I've taken the advice of my classroom instructor, the wonderful Ms. Munchez, and have been writing much peppier cover letters (I had been using a very formal letter which was essential a form letter tinkered for each instance).

I also seem to have volunteered myself to edit Rafael's novel.  I will certainly start, and then see how much work it is and how much time it will take, since I hope I'll be employed before it's done.

I'm certainly feeling less depressed and more hopeful...honestly, I was feeling a bit like a sheep after a couple of weeks at BTW.

Well, on to job-hunting!

testing, one, two, three

I may have mentioned that my doctor recently found that I had high liver enzymes, which he attributed to one of my diabetes meds, metformin.  He wanted to put me on another med instead, but there's no generic and even with pharmacy insurance, would have run $250 a month.  So I won't be taking that, but I have to be very careful about my blood sugar. 

I knew that my blood sugar was probably pretty bad, as I'd been pretty bad over the summer, though I've recently improved some.  I know that the only way to keep myself honest is to test once a day.  And I hadn't used my meter in so long that the batteries had leaked and I had to throw it out.

We checked with our pharmacy insurance to see if they covered a meter and strips, which they don't.  But the woman from the pharmacy plan recommended a website called Hocks.  Their stuff is super cheap, which is important because I can easily go through most or all of a jar of 50 strips in a month.  I ended up with a brand called Acura.  The meter cost $11 but most important, the strips are $18 for 50.  A lot of strips are $50-60 for 50.  The meter is very easy to use and a lot more modern than the one I had before.

This morning's number is 181.  This is not as high as I expected.  When my diabetes was first diagnosed, the reading was around 300.  However, it needs to come down.  I'd be happy with 90-120.  To be continued...

more foot boo-boo/new blues gig

I had my doctor look at the foot yesterday, which I'd thought was mending well. Turns out it wasn't infected but did have a piece of glass in it. He couldn't remove it easily himself, so he sent me to a podiatrist who had an office downstairs. Luckily, the podiatrist was able to see me right away, and he removed the glass (which was a slight about a quarter in wide and half and inch long), and then put in four stitches because the wound was kind of deep. There was a very painful needle involved, a shot of local to my heel. The bright side was that not only was the doctor very good, but he had a nurse/assistant who was very sweet and a real nut for Swarovski (I noticed a lovely pendant she was wearing, which turned out to be antique Swarovski, and we were off!) So my foot's all bandaged and wrapped, and actually hurts a lot less. But I have to go back a week from Friday and get my stitches out.

It looks like Ive gotten myself a gig with Examiner, which is sort of an online entertainment guide written by freelancers they call "examiners," such as "Brooklyn Nightlife Examiner" or "New York Theater Examiner." I am, of course, to be "New York Blues Examiner." I get paid according to how many people I drive to my page there. I have to officially register in the next couple of days, send in a bio and photo and get detailed instructions about posting. It seems like they're looking more for events listings than for reviews of shows that have passed, so I'm planning to do a lot of "what's coming" and also interviews with local musicians. If I can get some CD labels to send me promos, I'll also do CD reviews. It shouldn't be too time-consuming -- I wrote a 300-word sample piece for them at 4:00 AM, and was offered the spot twelve hours later.

the mysterious foot boo-boo

Early this morning, I remember shift in bed and sliding my foot down a little, and then -- terrible pain and a bleeding foot. Very scary. I have a small gash right on the edge of my heel. We got the bleeding to stop and Barry cleaned it with witch hazel and foot on neosporin and a bandage. But it hurts like hell to put any pressure on the heel, and I have a feeling I'll be more or less off my feet for a few days. My best theory now is that when I stretched my leg down the bed, I inadvertently kicked a cat (all three of them, at times, sleep at our feet), and she swatted out and a claw accidentally caught my foot. None of our cats would scratch us hard enough to cause this injury; our cats, at their angriest (with each other or us), might hiss and air-swat in our direction, and they rarely get angry unless, for instance, we rub a belly that doesn't want to be rubbed.

Anyway, this is freaking me out a bit, and I'm watching very closely to see if the pain lessens or if there's any sign of infection. For me, the absolute scariest thing about diabetes is the possibility of losing my personal mobility, my ability to get around on my own, which is why, ironically, I'm always ultra-careful about my feet. Even when I've been lax with blood testing or diet, I've always been extremely good with my foot care, though not 100%. What I'm supposed to do on a daily basis is wash, dry, examine, and moisturize my feet. I do examine and moisturize daily most of the time, and probably do the extra washing (besides showers) three or four times a week.

I've had some kind of skin problem on the ball of my right foot for over three years. I had thought it might be a recurrence of the psoriasis I'd had some years earlier on the side of my heel, because it looked and acted like psoriasis (hard dry skin that cracked). But when I was diagnosed with Type II, my doctor said that it was an opportunistic fungal infection that develops when blood sugar is high, but I have lowered my sugar, seen two podiatrists and one dermatologist, and three years later, it was still there. Recently, I started treating it more intensively with an over-the-counter diabetic foot cream, and it finally seems to be going away. This was part of the reason that I went all summer without wearing sandals last summer, which was murder for me even though I didn't go out much. I look forward to wearing sandals all year, though I know that these days it requires being extra-attentive about my foot care. So, after walking all over the place in sandals for two days this week with no problem at all, I cut the hell out of my foot in my own bed. Shows you how much I'm in control of my own life.

A new friend of mine, whom I met through my blog and then hers, has been making me think a little more about the lack of spirituality in my life over the past number of years. It's not so much anything my friend has said about me but the example she's shown me. And it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to be involved in any organized religion. Actually, another friend, Jannah, belongs to a Reconstructionist Jewish shul in New Hope, PA, and that's the only organized religion that's appealed to me in years. It's kind of like Reform Reform Judiaism: very gender-neutral, and very inclusive (for instance, they don't really embrace the "chosen people" concept). It's also very, very community-oriented; when there was terrible flooding in the area, the congregation was really, really there for anyone who needed help.

Unfortunately, although you'd think we have every possible kind of Jew in Brooklyn -- no Reconstructionists. There are only two Reconstructionist congregations in New York City, and they're both on the upper west side of Manhattan. I've been in e-mail contact with someone who's trying to start something in Brooklyn, which might initially be a group that floats to different shuls with Recon. rabbis guest-conducting services. But it looks like this activity will probably center around the Park Slope neighborhood, which is not that far away, but is in no way my neighborhood. Unless something is a little closer by, it's not my community; Brooklyn is not solidly car-culture, like some other places. A lot of people have cars, but a lot can and do do without (like us). It does shrink the "neighborhood" a bit, to the size of what's accessible by walking, or a short bus or subway ride. If I have to ride the bus 45 minutes to have coffee with someone from my shul, that's nice but it's also not a nearby network for me. And quite frankly, Park Slope is a little on the yuppified side for my taste. (I did live there for about nine years, in an area that was then a little iffy but is now cleaned up, but the more "desirable" part of the Slope was always too rich for me.)

Barry and I had a great day yesterday -- went to see a matinee of A Behanding in Spokane with Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell, and Anthony Mackie (I had scored some ultra-cheap and really excellent seats). It was my second time seeing Walken on the stage, which was a real treat. It was a beautiful day, so I decided to wear one of my new Mission Canyon getups, my new sandals and more of my jewelry than I generally do (meaning earrings, a necklace *and* an anklet). After the show, we went down the the Village and had a bite at our favorite Italian cafe, then smoked a j*int and strolled around. Poked our head into a favorite jewelry store, C'est Magnifique on MacDougal Street (also home to one of our favorite store cats, a tiny three-legged tortoiseshell named Fazool who is well over 20 -- the store guy thinks 23-plus).

Somehow, we ended up putting deposits on two pieces of jewelry, for no particular occasion. (Given that I have made some 95% of the jewelry I wear over the past 8 years or so, I'm trying desperately to feel entitled to my new ring.) I spotted a 14K ring with a really lovely sapphire cab set in a high pronged setting, with three one-point diamonds on either side of the shank, very simply. It's a much higher setting than I usually wear, meaning that I like rings which are closer to my finger, but what's so beautiful about this ring is that the high setting allows the light to really get around the stone and show it off, and it's a lovely Ceylon blue color, not one of those navy-blue sapphires that's so dark it's practically opaque. Barry is actually more of a jewelry-wearer than most men (for which I am truly grateful, since he understood when I began spending so much time and money on making jewelry), and he favors silver, turquoise, and Native American. He spotted a bear-claw and turquoise cuff that was too small for him, but then chose a stamped sterling cuff made by a well-known Native American jeweler (last name is Bill, I can't remember the first, but he's the son of a slightly more famous Native American jeweler).

So he's going to have lunch with his friend Felix tomorrow at the Italian cafe (we go there together, and also separately with other friends), and is going to go pay off the balance on our jewelry and I'll get my ring tomorrow (his cuff actually needs to be made slightly smaller). I actually think this is the first gold ring I've gotten since my wedding band, which was from The Clay Pot (which is in Park Slope, and is very famous for artisan-made jewelry and wedding bands in particular. (I took a quick look, and they no longer sell either of the rings we wear -- his is white gold in a Celtic design, and mine is simple connected leaves in 14K). I'm not a metalsmith so I don't really make rings, though I know a lot of people are making wire-wrapped rings now and I'll probably learn that at some point. So I have a beautiful new ring which was not horrendously expensive ($275). We're going to call the new jewelry "a gift from Poppy," meaning that we'll pay for it with some of the money Barry's dad left him. His folks were always generous with us, and did things like bought us a new bed when we moved out of our original apartment, and paid for the catering at our wedding, and it's kind of nice to feel that they're still doing it. I think they're also buying us a new air conditioner for the bedroom this summer.

OK, here's some truly good and amazing news: I've lost 10 pounds, in a little over a month. (The first ten always goes fast, and after that, I can lose around 7-9 pounds a month if I behave myself with food.) This puts me down to 170, after a few years of being around 180-185. I know numbers are just numbers, but it's one of a number of ways that I can measure how well I'm taking care of myself. I'm trying to test my blood three days a week (I was getting sore fingers from testing every day, and the doctor said I didn't have to test that often). This morning's fasting number was 97, and unfortunately, I fell asleep after breakfast (I woke up with my foot injury only 3 hours after I'd gone to bed), and so I slept through the two-hour post-prandial test time. But I tested anyway, four hours after breakfast, and it was 117, which looked good to me for a double-post-prandial. (Had to order breakfast in, since I couldn't stand up to cook, and had a white-Western-with-cheese omelet wrap -- I asked for cheddar, but ended up with American somehow. And then a navel orange.) I don't mind eating a certain amount of fat in the morning because I know it keeps me feeling full. And there's healthy stuff we can order in for dinner around here -- there are a couple of good kosher vegetarian places (we're neither kosher or vegetarian, but their meals are clean and fresh and wholesome).

My sister-in-law Elise forwarded me some info about a crafts sale in Chelsea next weekend that's looking for vendors. I'm checking to see if they provide tables; if they do, I think I'll cough up the $50 fee and see what I can sell. I was looking through some of my work last night, because I'm sending some earrings with Barry for our favorite waitress at the cafe, and also was going to bring some to my GYN today, before I had to cancel the appointment due to the malady known as Boo-Boo Foot.

My last couple of sales were not successful. I did one last year at the Hudson Guild; after taking a quick peek at my jewelry, the supervisor there was glad to take my table fee, and so I tried to sell hand-crafted jewelry in a room full of people selling old crap from their closets. I had some friends come down, and *still* didn't make back my $25 table price (I would have made a profit if I had sold even three pair of my cheapest earrings). Last summer, I did some outdoor selling In Pennsylvania, at a benefit for the Israeli Red Cross (I had met the folks who do the local fundraising for Magan David Odom at one of their fundraisers at my friend Jannah's shul). This was a cool event because it was a Jewish motorcycle rally. Jews on hogs! rabbis in leathers! "Hillel's Angels"! But the only vendors who really got much traffic were the food vendors; none of the rest of us did much of anything. Also, Barry and I had been staying with Jannah, and in the rush to get to the shul on time, had neglected to put on sunscreen, and this was an outdoor event, and there were no canopies on the tables, no shade. As a result, I got roasted to a fare-thee-well. (Recently, I was shopping at our local Rite-Aid drug store, and grabbed up an impulse item at the checkout counter: a key chain with a little bottle of SPF 30 attached to it. Don't leave home without it. It might prove to be the best $2.25 I've spent in quite a while.)

I got my hair cut on Tuesday, my first venture away from long grey old-hippie hair in about a dozen years (though once in all that time, I went to a very pricey salon and got it nicely layered, though mostly I just trimmed my own ends). There are a bunch of hair cutters and salons around here that all charge about the same, $35 for a wash and cut, so I picked the one that looked the most modern. And oy vey, what a nasty stylist I got! If there's such a thing as good "chairside manner," she don't got it. Instead of saying something like, "I know you wanted to have a very short top, but I'd like to try something a little longer on top first and see if you like it. I think it might be more flattering", what she said was (and imagine the brusque and heavy Russian accent), "Your hair too thin on top, I cut short, you see scalp." I let her cut the sides and back short and leave the top longer, but I felt like she hated my guts for wanting something wash-and-wear, low maintenance, and not dyed. She let me know that she believed women should not wear their hair grey until age 60, and gave the distinct impression that there was something wrong with *me* for not wanted a hairstyle that required a blowdryer or straightening iron or curling iron. I mostly got the short, messy style I wanted, but the beyotch insisted on plastering it down with gel before I left, which was way ugly. When I got home, I immediately got into the shower, washed out the gel, then toweled it and put in a dab of a much gentler styling product, and worked it with my fingers. Nicer.

It got me to thinking about the *good* experiences I've had with hairdressers and haircutting, having worn short hair for most of my life. I really love to hair a hairdresser who will cut for my face and my lifestyle (LOW MAINTENANCE HAIR), and really listen to what I want, and really talk to me, and make suggestions based on his or her eye and experience. It made me think that I might want to learn to cut hair, and I actually made inquiries at a few cosmetology schools. I have an appointment to tour one on Monday, which I now think I'll cancel. Unfortunately, the mysterious foot boo-boo made me think hard about any job that would require me to be on my feet a lot; even if I lose more weight, I'm not sure I can stand for hours and hours the way I used to. (I've learned this the hard way at some standing-room concerts over the past bunch of years.) If I were a haircutter now, I could easily lose four or five days of work over something like the foot boo-boo.

I'm thinking more now about making a new effort to show and sell my jewelry. If I do the consignment route, at least it would be full-time and I could keep up with the shops a little better (it is often hard to collect money from stores in a consignment arrangement). Or else I'll find a couple of good an appropriate indoor flea/crafts markets (not having a car, I can't really provide my own table), so I can only work events where there is access via public transportation and I don't need to carry more than my wares, a hand mirror, a calculator, etc. I think I do good work and haven't yet found the right outlet. I'm also feeling very motivated to start working again. I packed away my jewelry stuff a few months back after our landlord bitched about the clutter in our living room; I had been working at a bridge table with materials spread all over the top, and plastic shoeboxes of beads stacked all around and under. I always have insane amounts of materials, I guess the same way any artist would want as many color and medium options as possible. I just hate the idea of wanting to make something and not having what I need. So we packed it up to show a fairly empty table top, and still need some storage solutions so I can work without cluttering things up. For instance, I could use some shelving behind the table to store materials, and maybe some drawers for finished work. And a file cabinet for the cartons of bottlecaps that are also in this area. Basically, I don't want to unpack anything until the clutter is a little more under control and I actually have places to put things away, rather than just leaving them on the tabletop. But I really do miss making jewelry.