Is this thing on...?
I didn't really go away. Nor did I forget you, honest. It's just that I'd been hunting for work for so long without result, so frustrated by the interviews that came to nothing and the applications that were never answered, so exhausted trying to get free lance work, and facing the terror of seeing my savings disappearing on living expenses - well. I fell into a slough of despond (or a Dark Wood?) and couldn't bring myself to write. Or do much of anything. Except breathe. I kept on breathing.
But then I got a job, and one I like - like it very much indeed, and it's not one of those jobs that make me feel as if I'm selling out to corporate establishment. This makes me a very happy worker indeed.
Happy but busy.
I celebrated my job with three things:
(1) A bus pass. Haven't had one in years. It's a Presto Pass now, and I love it with a passion. But my sense of freedom - I could go anywhere in the city! anywhere! and twice! - abated a little when I encountered schedules that were pure fictions, overcrowded buses (especially on the day school started), inescapable traffic jams due to construction, and various bouts of carsickness when I tried to read. I experimented with various ways to go to work, at one point even going a far as Billing's Bridge, Hurdman Station, and St. Laurent to avoid the construction on Rideau. It would have worked better if I hadn't got lost at St. Laurent, going to the wrong bus stop and so missing the bus. After all my cunning planning.
One of these days I'll try walking. According to Google, it will take me about 67 minutes.
(2) I bought a shirt. It isn't that I haven't bought any clothes in the past few years, it's that anything I have bought has been utterly practical - things to wear to job interviews or for clients. This was a shirt I saw in a street fair in Gananoque (when I was visiting josannpq). It's frivolous, it's, fun, it's colourful, it's comfy and I can just wear it whenever and however I like.
(3) I bought two books from Amazon, Moab is my Washpot by Stephen Fry, and Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch.
And to be truly honest, I went and got a massage from Bronwyn at the Ottawa Professional Therapy Clinic on Catherine, chosen mostly for its convenient location. That has a lucky happenstance: Bronwyn turned out to be terrific. When I can afford to go back, I will. And the sooner the better.