Just Checking In

It's been over a week and there's really nothing new to report on the McDoings front. Life goes on: I keep trolling the job sites for positions for which to apply and no interview requests seem to come back. I'm working with an employment agency in Los Angeles and their jobs, many of them temp positions, are the upper crust of the available market right now, but no bites as of yet. I do know that they've been doing a fairly comprehensive background check, talking to previous employers and coworkers, and by now they probably know I'm the genuine article.

One pleasure I have had: no late nights working on awards shows, no early mornings covering award nomination announcements. And while I genuinely appreciate that, nothing has come forward to take the place of the entertainment industry as the professional component of my identity. I think that's what I miss most about not having a job: when people ask, "What do you do?" I can say graphic designer, but I always have to answer the next question (Where do you work?) with, "I'm looking right now." I never imagined I would be unemployed for a year and a half … and counting.

I baked my first carrot cake tonight. I really love carrot cake, but I can't seem to find anywhere in town that has a good one. I caught Paula Deen on the Food Network sharing her grandmother's recipe, so I took it down and tried it. Being a southern recipe, it has pecans instead of walnuts (which are not my favorite, except in honey-walnut shrimp at Panda Inn). The layers are cooling now, and I think I'll have to wait until tomorrow to frost them, since it's already pretty late.

We did our taxes last weekend. It's a rather schizophrenic experience for a married gay couple, since you have to file as single individuals with the federal government and as a married couple with the state. I ended up owing about $2,000, since I didn't have any taxes withheld from my unemployment benefits. Luckily, I held out more than that in the savings account to cover the cost, so I'm cool. Steve got a small refund from the feds and we got a fairly sizable one from the state, so the overall liability is minimal.

I'll try to remember and take a picture of the cake to share in the next blog entry, and I'll let you know how it came out. I'm hoping it's a really tasty recipe (although grating three cups of carrots by hand takes quite a while). That supposedly is the secret of good carrot cake: grate the carrots with a small grater (like for Parmesan cheese) instead of a regular food processor blade.

In any case, our eyesight should definitely improve.

It's Started

The holiday decorations came down the weekend before last, and the extra space in the house is amazing. Last week was kind of a pause for me, (though Steve is dealing with all the year-end and year-start minutiae of his employment). There's no turning back, though: 2011 has begun, and I must meet it with an assertive stance.

This is the year I become employed or wither on the vine. I still think about starting up my own design firm, but the tasks involved are somewhat overwhelming. If that is the course I am to follow, I'm sure I'm up to the task, but it would be so much nicer if someone would employ me for my vast graphics expertise. What the year will hold, I cannot tell.

I keep toying with the idea of escaping for a week all by myself. I haven't even brought up the subject with Steve, since I don't know what that week would entail. But I feel, somehow, that something must present itself to infuse me with enthusiasm for the upcoming year.

My siblings have been writing back and forth, discussing a family reunion sometime during the summer. No one is quite sure what form this would take, and I am not sure where I will be come summer, but the idea piques my interest nonetheless.

With the moms' passings, the older generation (that includes us) is feeling a need to maintain some kind of continuity, building bridges between our generation and the next. It's a good thing, I think, but I'm not sure exactly how that would take shape.

Right now I'm concentrating on creating goals for myself for this new year: Finding meaningful employment, continuing with the remodel of the house, getting things back on track to close out the next decade and prepare for Steve's and my retirement. The first goal seems to be the one that will ensure the completion of the rest. I only hope I can find a way to make that happen.

So, nothing important to report today, but I feel the need to make an entry in the blog anyway. No impressive or darling pictures to post, just an update on feeling the year begin.

We started the year with lots of rain, but now it's in the 80s this week and that means a chance to get out and enjoy the wonders of a California winter. I think rain will come again soon enough (as we really need it), and I'm hoping that the winter will be a week or so of beautiful weather followed by a week or so of chilly, rainy days.

It's started, most certainly, and there's no stopping it. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Yes, It's Prime

2011 is a prime number. They are rarer than nonprimes, of course, and there are fewer of them as the numbers get larger. There are only 14 prime-numbered years this century and we've already seen two (2003 and 2011). The next one won't be until 2017.

So something great has to happen this year, right? Looking back on 2003, there wasn't a whole lot of great stuff going on that year. I vacationed in Paris alone, which was probably the highlight of the year. We got the governator (French news was full of the governor's race in California, covering it like a circus. I had a "Family Guy" T-shirt that said "Stewie for Governor" and it was a hit with Parisians; seems the French really like "Family Guy" and Stewie in particular.

But nothing of interest has happened this year. Saturday we stayed home and watched the Rose Parade on TV, saw the stealth bomber go roaring past our living room window. Had real French Toast for breakfast. Here's a photo of the beginning of the parade, live and as it happened on my television.

Sunday we went shopping. Monday and Tuesday, I searched for new jobs online but found none. The rest of the time I spent watching tutorials on HTML 5, which is the new markup language for web design. I want to be up to speed with it by the time it comes into widespread use.

I caught a photo of Patty sitting on top of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, keeping regal watch over the holiday decorations. It also shows off my first successful indoor plant. It was about half this size when I got it a few months ago.

Our tradition is to put up the holiday decorations as soon after Thanksgiving as convenient, and to take them down the first weekend after Jan. 6, which, of course, is the Epiphany (and also the upcoming weekend).

With Steve and I both sporting the latest iPhones now, hopefully there will be more photographic chronicling in the blog this year. The biggest challenge for me is remembering to take the photos in the first place.

Maybe it's just me, but doesn't it seem like this year is starting off awfully slow? Compare and contrast: Comments, as always, accepted.