Don't go to the Tenderloin

Apparently the worst thing you can do if you want to start blogging about your life again is to tell your blog that you're going to do that.

The condition of perpetual lethargy that I wrote about below persists. It's probably gotten a bit better in the last two months, though, since we have managed to do some of the things humans typically do. We've cleaned our house, had friends over for dinner, cleaned our house some more, celebrated my 34th birthday, done dishes, gotten another dog, cleaned some, eaten takeout, worked in the yard, been to a bunch of school events, camping, etc, etc, etc.

I also have been in the process of potentially (hopefully) getting a new job. My friend Elle who works at a hot internet company from San Francisco that's expanding its offices into our fair city invited me to a recruiting/schmoozing event. I figured the odds were very low that I'd be interested in anything they had to offer but hey -- free food in a nice restaurant! That plus the fact that the illusion that they were interested in me is very appealing to my baser instincts. So, my friend Doc Holliday and I -- looking very much like a gay couple for some reason -- headed out there to hang out with desperate dot-com types occupying various spots on the business-casual to hipster-interview-wear spectrum. The food was good and the weather was nice, but I talked exclusively to Doc, Elle, and a waiter who probably thought I was hitting on him. In short, I didn't exactly get fired up about leaving my extremely secure job at the university. But I checked out the job listings after the event -- mostly to be polite since I had just enjoyed delicious potato balls and kinda-weird doughnuts on this company's dime. Long story short, since then (Oct. 23), I've had two phone interviews, an in-person interview here in town, and most recently they flew me to San Francisco for a 4.5-hour interview gauntlet with nine employees of their company (individually).

So it's looking like I might be leaving the university nest. I've been in my current job for just over five years -- at the university in all my roles for over ten years -- and it's my little city that I love. I will miss it. I'll miss having a post office of my own and being on campus when all the students are gone and the wind could probably blow some tumbleweeds through. I'll miss going to the gym with creepy old faculty members who make me feel like a strapping young Atlas. I'll miss my Thursday bowling league and the complete lack of scrutiny into anything I do at work, ever.

I won't miss the boredom; it can be incredibly dull here when there are no fires to put out and I just have projects to plan -- with nothing on the line, really, if my projects are wildly successful or fail horribly. The dullness can be soul-crushing, and I definitely won't miss that.

Anyway, blog, I just wanted you to know what was going on. Looking at a new job. Probably going to get it. Hopefully it pays all right -- otherwise I will have wasted a lot of people's time and money. Although I did eat the best chicken tikka masala I've ever had when I was in SF for the interview. So at least that will have come out of it if this doesn't pan out.