Gainful Employment

I just spent ten blissful days at the beach. I read six books, beat Matt at miniature golf (hotly contested, but seriously who chokes when their girlfriend yells, "Matt stinks!" mid swing?), and faced my fear of barnacles head on.

I ate more ice cream and fried food then I care to recall and never drank enough beer to get drunk just enough to generously pad and soften my middle. My free gym membership can't start soon enough.

It was a nice leisurely vacation, and after a week and a half of being job free I certainly needed it. ; ) I submitted my applications to Starbucks and Borders before I left to visit my parents pre-beach trip. And on vacation fretted only fashionably about my state of unemployment. I was interrupted once by my successor, who in a fairly pushy, naggy tone asked me questions I could not answer about the things she has done since I left. I felt a little worked up and annoyed after the call until, upon heavy exhalation I reminded myself that I do not have to worry about anything pertaining to that job ever again. And she does.

We returned on Sunday and I was feeling nice and breezy about unemployment until I wrote my first tuition check and got winded staring and the ever shrinking digits in my savings account. I'm not even paying rent yet. Ugh.

I got on the phone and followed up with Starbucks. I've desperately wanted to work there for the health care, which (as I have told countless elders concerned by my lack of support) is the same plan for CEOs as it is for part-time employees. As I have developed a potentially costly addiction to staying healthy, I've longed for their benefits package. And, as corporations go, this is in fact an increasingly socially conscious one. So there is that.

I interviewed at 7 this morning and was promptly offered the job. It is a gigantic relief, as very soon my militant landlord would no longer be satisfied by my expertly prepared dinners and thoughtful grocery shopping and will be demanding rent.

Of course Starbucks is not my dream job but it is a place that I feel confident won't wear on me the way the Hand Workshop did, that won't demand I work Friday night openings without pay and won't follow me home and into my dreams.

I do have to remove my nose ring each morning, which came as a shock to me and which I bound to forget to do sooner or later.

Come Monday it's a new chapter, new job, classes start - this life begins.

Soon hours on the beach will be a distant memory - but here is a picture of us doing what we did all week for the books.