Evil Jim

01:40 am: I'm a lumberjack & I wish I were OK
I've been enjoying a steadily deepening depression this week & I believe it's due to the gradual realization that that things are going to get worse before they get better. The work search is still going but with no positive results. The only response I've received from any of my prospective employers is a postcard stating that they've received my resume & due to the high volume of other applications will not contact me again unless they find a match. This is after I had a discussion with the receptionist that revealed the posting has been up for more than a month.

Due to the error I made filing for my first week of unemployment I now have to pay back the money the Department of Workforce Development has already given me & wait until sometime in August before I am able to collect benefits again, if at all.

It appears more & more that I will have to borrow money from my parents to help me get through this period. I hate borrowing money. I don't even like accepting charity from my grandmother but it's coming to the point where I'll have to bite down & ask. As long as I'm asking I may as well ask for a lot & get ahead on my three biggest monthly bills for the next 90 days. Three months is a long time. Something is bound to come up in the meanwhile, right?

Crap.

Anyway, I just got home from laviorli's birthday party (observed.) Anyone who wasn't there when I arrived probably showed up later. People were coming & going all night so it was always interesting. We played video games, watched Ellen's stand-up routine, had food & a generally good time. I got to practice my doctorin' skills by splinting pennylane_81's possibly broken finger. It will work for now but I've already advised her to go to a pharmacy & get a proper splint as soon as possible. Still, it was fun cleaning off the Popsicle sticks we used.

I left about Midnite as I have chores early tomorrow with Pa. He's got firewood what needs splittin' and haulin' and it's best not to leave it sit. It'll be a brutal couple hours but at least it's only a couple hours. I like splitting wood, strange as it may sound. It feels good to use great bursts of strength for something positive & productive. To heft the sledge high in the air & bring it down solidly on a wedge pounded into log, shattering it instantly. It's physics at work & if done right, not a lot of work at all. But it's still cathartic in a way. After my first girlfriend broke up with me I vented a lot of frustration & pain into a newly fallen tree in my parents' back yard. A few hours of that & you'll be too exhausted to feel anything. That was probably the last time I did a lot of splitting but as proven last week, it's not something easily forgotten. I regret that they don't have the swing-the-hammer-and-ring-the-bell game at the fair anymore. Not the proper one anyway. I don't count the electronic version you see these days where you tap a metal plate just right to flash the lights. I'm talking about the old version that actually was a measure of strength & precision, where you smacked a board that catapulted a metal slug upwards of 20 to 30 feet to ring a bell high in the air. I rung it once at the local fair years ago, the last year I ever saw any such device there, & shortly after my father had taught me the techniques of splitting wood.

- E V I L O U T -

P.S. Be on the watch for two meteor showers this weekend, just little ones but there for those who look. The Delta Aquarids with about 20 bright yellow meteors per hour, & the Capricornids with maybe 15 more, also yellow. I stepped out a moment ago & wasn't outside five minutes when I saw one, slicing through the humid haze like a blade forged in gold. (Link)