• One hike
• Four cities
• Two families
• Two long-lost high school friends
• One very spicy New Mexican restaurant
• Two movies, one mediocre and one quite funny
• Two musicals, one a traditional holiday favorite and one not
• Three instances of traditional pre- and post-Christmas shopping
• One set of holiday cookies, including a bloodshot eye and a Rastafarian candy cane
• Two train trips, one spanning 6 states and one so narrowly missed it merits its own post

Photo Credit: ehavir

As noted in the post “Someone Give Me a Job,” I am between careers. If I were the résumé-padding sort, I might argue that I am working as a “consultant.” Since I’m not, I’ll claim a recent work history of admin support temp work and contractual employment ranging from data entry to web design. These circumstances often lead to interesting small talk scenarios, as most conversations veer quickly toward the money question: what do you do? I’ve found that an honest response raises eyebrows among those who think a well-established, high-powered career defines one’s self worth.

Two years ago I had a solid foundation in the social service & social justice field. I realized this was driving me absolutely batty, and decided to get out. What was the problem? Well, my former job at a rape crisis center serves as an excellent example of How To Go From Mostly Sane To Totally Not In No Time At All. I was responsible for two 24-hour sexual assault crisis services; planning and conducting biannual 50-hour volunteer trainings; volunteer supervision; and reams of paperwork covering every minute detail of the job. When I took the position, the program was in shambles after a series of major agency upheavals, and there were very few volunteers. Nonetheless, the services had to be covered 24 hours a day, no matter what. I ended up taking enough shifts that I was on call an average of 84 hours a week, in addition to my regular work schedule.

I loved that job, but it took over my life. This is represented symbolically in my answer to the “Where were you when” question of this era, i.e. 9/11: I was picking up the Hotline pager from a volunteer, and she told me about the Trade Center attacks. In a more concrete sense, I vividly recall what I came to identify as “ghost pager syndrome.” This is the feeling that you must be on call, because you’re always on call, when in fact you are not. The most memorable of these experiences came when I was on vacation, on a plane to Berlin, clearly incapable of making it to either of the local hospitals in under half an hour, and sat bolt upright in a panic to loudly exclaim “Oh my God, where’s the pager?”

Realistically, I might still be doing this work if not for the fact that larger problems in that particular agency exacerbated the stress of an already intense work environment. Regardless, that position sucked the life out of me to the point that, three years later, I am only now beginning to recover. On the other hand – would I do it again? Yes. The job left me traumatized, but it also taught me lessons valuable enough to make up for the scars tenfold. I learned more about sociology working in that field than I did in the fours years I spent getting a Sociology degree, and I now have a clue as to how to respond to a person in crisis. I also found that human beings are capable of healing from atrocities that would give pause to a combat soldier. I can honestly say that I became an adult in those two years.

A telling perk to this job, even years later, is that it highlights people who judge others solely based on external measures of prestige. Lately, when pressed as to what I “do,” I toss out a quick soundbite about taking classes, exploring new career options, blah blah blah. The response – accompanied by a air of judgment and barely feigned interest – is “what were you doing before?” As soon as I mention social service work, particularly the rape crisis position, a palpable change occurs. Suddenly, the person who was slowly inching away is now animated and curious as to how I managed to keep it together under so much stress, encouraging me to take a long, well-deserved sabbatical, and wondering whether I’m on the short list for canonization (posthumous, of course).

I guess I picked the correct wrong career path.

Photo Credit: Blueberry; altered, photocopied, and scanned by Grimes

From “Insomniac” (1961):

And everywhere people, eyes mica-silver and blank,
Are riding to work in rows, as if recently brainwashed.

These lines, along with many others in The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath, really spoke to me once. My parents bought me that book, along with The Journals of Sylvia Plath, Letters Home, a hardcover edition of The Bell Jar, several individual poetry volumes, and the wicked cool action figure from the Crazy Women Poets line. Just kidding on the last one, of course, although I would actually buy one now if it existed.

In short, my dad and stepmom were very supportive of my teenage Plath fixation. It was the aspect of my black eyeliner-wearing brooding phase they tolerated best, with good reason. They had finally found a way to steer me back toward actual literature after watching, aghast, as I succumbed to preteen series novels. Thanks to a brand-new circle of friends and a generally depressive outlook, I was reading poetry written by a woman who not only used big words but also won a (posthumous) Pulitzer. My father, who read us Moby Dick at storytime when we were in our mid-to-late single digits and tried to substitute War and Peace for my Babysitters’ Club book when I was ten, was vastly relieved. Although I never finished War and Peace (wholly on principle), I devoured the Plath stuff whole. Mainly in the wee hours, as appropriate.

Why, you ask, have I injected this anecdote into Project Janna? Well, I can’t sleep. At least not at night, as my current job requires simply that I work, with no prescribed schedule. I have slowly made my way around the clock to the 5 AM-2 PM sleep schedule. It’s not a bad schedule, except when I need to be awake in the morning for some reason, and tomorrow is one of those days. This dilemma brought to mind the poem quoted above, and I tracked it down in one of the volumes I have diligently transported from dorm room to apartment to apartment for the last ten years.

I was taken aback by the bleakness of Plath’s words, which you can read online here. The poem is beautiful (those Pulitzers don’t come easy), but, wow, it’s so depressing. My personality has changed dramatically since I was sixteen, and, reading this, I realize that’s a good thing. I do think it’s character-building to have moments of despair, but there’s a limit to how much of this:

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

Lady Lazarus, 1962

is healthy.

Maybe I should have stuck with War and Peace. After all, sometimes macro-crises are better than personal ones. Regardless, I did make it out of the teen years without undue influence by a woman who, though unquestionably brilliant, stuck her head in an oven at the age of thirty. Fortunately for myself and for a few social justice causes, I learned to channel my angst toward fighting problems outside my own mind.

Questionable fashion statement:

Hmmmm.

I live here:

I need a job. At the moment, I’m working temp and contractual positions. This is fine, except for the fact that there is no job security and no health insurance. Being “in transition” has been interesting thus far, but it’s time to move on.

Here are my categories of potential employment:

• Boring, decent-paying work with good benefits that will eventually cause me to contemplate throwing myself off a bridge. This is bad, as there are many conveniently located bridges in the Bay Area. This category includes admin support work. I am well-qualified for these jobs.

• Stressful, mid-to-low paying work with decent benefits that will rapidly cause me to contemplate throwing myself off a bridge. Note to self: choose a bridge plastered with an obnoxious logo (this personal crisis brought to you by Cingular!). This category includes social service and social justice work. My résumé is chock full of these jobs.

• Variably paid yet awesome work, with benefits enjoyed only by a lucky few. These jobs include writing gigs and graphic design work. I am moderately qualified for this sort of thing, but the competition is fierce.

• Impressively compensated work that might be fun, but for which I have no frame of reference, let alone applicable skills. This category is brought to you by my friend Colin, who likes to tell me that I should learn perl. He also likes to tell me that there are jobs out there for people who know perl. I am guessing one would be called a “Programmer” if one’s job centered around the use of perl, but I’m not really sure.

Of course, I am most drawn to the jobs I am least qualified for. I guess this is predictable, considering that the others have morbid consequences. However, for now, I’ll take what I can get. A guaranteed paycheck will go far toward keeping those bridges at bay. At least until I learn perl.

San Francisco’s public transportation system consists of a variety of options for getting from Point A to Point B. There’s BART, the subway system that attracts birds to its underground platforms; the tourist-happy cable car option; garden-variety buses; and, my favorite, the light rail.

There’s a good reason I prefer the light rail: aside from BART, I’ve never actually used any of the other methods. When your repertoire is limited, your “fave” is going to be something you’ve actually encountered. My experience with the light rail itself is spotty as well: of the five possible routes, I’ve only traveled one. Aside from a brief flirtation with the J Church (which I wisely opted to end before getting carried away), I have maintained a monogamous relationship with the N Judah.

Why the N? Well, first of all, we have a lot in common. The N and I hang out in the same places – the Upper and Lower Haight; Cole Valley; the Sunset; Ocean Beach. We both have Ns in our names (I have 3! JaNNa LaureN). We both … well, maybe that’s where it ends. However, we also understand each other. I tolerate the N’s flakiness. After all, who needs reliability in public transportation? That’s just plain Fascist. The N, for its part, allows me to take art-y photographs of its interior, and never complains when I open its doors with a satisfying kick.

I suppose we’ll have to move on eventually. I’ll find some sort of worthwhile activity in, say, Noe Valley, and I’ll be forced to explore a relationship with the J. After all, J as in Church complements J as in Janna. Until then, however, the N remains my one and only.