I was sitting on the floor in my computer room at Radio Free Ross-a-Noodle today, staring at walls empty of the years of accumulated flotsam, at a floor no longer crunchy but clean, at corners free of the morass of electronic junk that had lived there for 7 years. I wrote 4 novels in that room. I'd recorded podcasts there, debated the layout of covers and written thousand-word e-mails and blog posts. I sat there for half an hour wondering why I felt nothing at all at an empty house where I'd lived for so long. Why don't I feel anything?

The last time I felt attached to a place was the Hobbit Hole. I had to conclude it was because I'd shared it with other people. Since then, I've lived completely alone and there's been no reason to remember places or get attached to them. They're just places.

It's other people that make places memorable, that make them stick in my mind. To make them matter.


Thus ends Migration 2009.

In one of those dizzying reversals the computer industry is known for, my new Dell Vostro A90 is due to arrive today. It was listed as "in production" until this past Saturday (5/9) and scheduled to be shipped on 5/19. Then boom, it suddenly changes to "shipped" without the least warning. So it's slated to arrive today. I imagine I'll play tag with FedEx for a couple of days, but still, a week and a half ahead of the date they gave me. O.o

Note this is NOT a complaint. The peanut gallery on Twitter is probably thoroughly disgusted by my going on and on about the "Shiny Shiny" like Golem over the Ring.

Job news: Have been asked to delay the relocation until sometime in June due to short-handedness. So I'll be living here for another month with only the bare essentials. And three computers. And a GPS. Given this, I may go ahead and buy a cheap microwave and some more cooking stuff and some storage things for my clothes. And possibly go ahead and get the dryer and get the washer hooked up. I just have this suspicion that I still won't be moved in by my birthday. *sigh*

Doctor appt. on Friday. Think my BP meds may not be as effective now that I'm moving around so much rather than sitting like a lump all day. As you may expect, this is troubling.

Still no word on what I want to be when I grow up. I may need to consult an outside paid opinion for this. Just that the term "life coach" makes me wince.

Project 2230 now has 3 posts. www.project2230.net

Had to wrestle with the mortgage co. yesterday because I'm a glutton for punishment. How many times can I say "no, I can't pay you people" before they get it through their thick barely English-literate heads? So am spending most of my time now at varying levels of depressed about that. Oddly, being at work provides a sort of escape from that since I can't think about much else at work but work.

Well. Must call Dr. Jones' office and see if they can send my records to the new doctor.

Tired. Very tired. May not have been a good idea (no matter how good the food was) to go out for a big Chinese meal after a whole day on the window the day before Tax Day. Very Tired + Mongolian Beef = Oh Great Force I Can Barely Move.

Still sitting on the floor in here, though now up against the wall. Still no furniture. But by the gods I have 2 computers, cable internet, wifi, and a closet full of mythology books, gaming books, old photographs, selenites and crystals.

The necessities of life, to be sure.

Garbage service would be nice, though. Won't start til Friday.

My mortgage co. is apprently really burning up the bandwidth with their robocaller, since I get spammed twice a day now.

Well. I have the hankering for either a science documentary or fanfic, so I'll be seeing you.

Much to report on. I have been in the new house in Gainesville almost 4 days total now. I have one full day of work and am about to go in to begin my week for real. I'm off on Friday/ Sunday, which is irksome after several years of Monday/Tuesday, but oh well.

I had Electric, water and Internet by Friday 5 PM, and am calling the garbage people now. The massive storm system that caused tornados in Tennessee happened the next night. Then despite having successfully found my way to all sorts of places with the GPS, on the day I had to be at the job on Saturday I got lost. In an empty tiny city center at almost 8 in the morning the day before Easter.

Have discovered so far within 5 minutes of the house: OfficeMax, PetSmart, Best Buy, Publix, Books-a-Million, Wal-Mart, Atlanta Bread Co., Home Depot. Have also found an appropriate vitamin/herb shop on Google, but have yet to go there in person. Also although Publix has an extensive organic section I'll have to go to Athens or Roswell for Greenlife-level organic grocery store. So it's a project for a day off. Which it was before anyway, with Greenlife being 20 minutes away from where I was.

Mortgage company's robocaller has been out in full force. I am waiting for the Relocation company's consultation phone call on the 15th. It's like when everybody saw Katrina on the radar when it was out in the Gulf and everybody knew it was only a few hours until it hit NOLA.

Still no furniture in the house here, save for an airbed. I was going to get a table and office chair yesterday but couldn't find anything appropriate or inexpensive at Wal-Mart and OfficeMax wasn't open.

Gotta go, more later.

Migration2009 -- I am back from the on the job training. I had thought that being on my feet for 8 hours a day would be the biggest challenge, but oddly it was almost a non-issue with the help of Tylenol. The biggest challenge was in fact the psychological aspects. Lately I have become really averse to the retail attitude, so to speak. I've found myself wishing Hutchins, Wallace, et. al. in the new media community would stop with the selling and just be themselves on Twitter. The constant sales pitches drive me nuts. This became an issue during the on the job training due to the push for revenue generation. I suspect it has to do with the Feeling aspect of my INFJ type. As I see it, people don't come to the Post Office to hear a sales pitch. They come in to mail something, pick up a package, what have you. They want to get it done as quickly as possible and get on with their day. I respond to sensing this in people by trying to be as efficient and non-annoying as possible. Being required to give an unwanted sales pitch that annoys people when they're already annoyed at having to stand in line for 1/2 an hour goes against all my Feeling instincts. The job is telling me to do one thing, my INFJ instincts are telling me to do another. There was quite a bit of disagreement with my instructor on this point and I spent half a night unable to sleep until I figured this out. It doesn't help that I could lose my job due to my objections to this. And of course I resent being threatened in such a manner to gain my compliance rather than trying to talk it out and understand what's going on in the situation. When confronted with such things, INFJs just get stubborn right back. That whole "this type cannot be successfully coerced" thing? It's real.

But I got soldiered on, talked to my instructor about it, she assured me she understood but I still had to stick with the script, and I still feel bad about it. And not at all certain I can handle doing this job.

Then yesterday, Friday, my last day in Athens, my instructor got in touch with the postmaster of Gainesville to try to find out for me when I'm supposed to be there. And the other shoe drops.

It seems that the PM of Gainesville didn't post a window clerk job. He has no idea where I got that posting and asked me if I knew where the REC got that posting. I sez I don't know, that's what Mr. McCollum offered me, he had a list when he offered it to me, that someone else before me had won that bid but took another bid and I was offered it after that. I accepted, and here I am on my last day of training... but they don't even HAVE full time window clerks at the Gainesville PO. I'd have to come in as an SSDA instead of an SSA, I'd have to learn a scheme, or do something else altogether. The bottom is dropping out of my mind at this point, because I just spent $1700 to rent a house in Gainesville, I've got a house here I'm looking at foreclosure on, and a job I thought was a done deal suddenly vanishes out from under me. The second time this has happened, if you're keeping score.

To his credit, the PM of Gainesville seems like a really nice guy. He said we'd work it out, he understood my situation, that he'd find something for me to do in Gainesville. So Monday I'm going in to the REC to bang heads together again, and there will be a conference call with everybody in the room. It may be a small satisfaction to watch McCollum squirm when he's asked which orifice he pulled that SSA posting from, but I'll take what I can get.

And on top of all that, finally got the voicemail from the relocation people.

And my cellphone started acting screwy last night, and I can't determine if it's the phone or the AT&T network.

So I have quite a bit to do this weekend. Groceries, vitamin store, etc. And packing, of course. Further bulletins as events warrant.

Managed to save myself upwards of $100. I thought my vacuum cleaner was dead and that unlike every other vacuum I've owned I couldn't figure out how to take it apart to fix it. Then this afternoon I figured out how to take the cover off and hey presto it's just a broken drive belt. Nipped down to Lowes and got a replacement, and it works great again now. I may not have to leave the house a total pigsty now, and I won't have to buy another vacuum cleaner.

It's getting slightly difficult to get through the dining room now, with all the boxes, magazine carts, and such beginning to fill up the place. I took down my M31 poster from the Temple today, and put it in with that Stan Bruns picture I've never yet gotten framed. Maybe I'll be able to soon. It's of a wizard in a circle of standing stones. Would be quite appropriate for the new Fortress of Solitude. I've had the thing rolled up in the tube for time out of mind, I've been meaning to get it framed for years now.

Still to be done -- packing for the on the job training trip, and going through the last of the junk and old clothes in the bedroom; packing up the CD collection; cleaning up the living room and packing up the last of the books and the videos; packing up the kitchen; packing up and taking to my mother's church the non-perishable foodstuffs I won't be taking with me; eating as much of the stuff in the refrigerator as I can so as not to waste it; going to get a larger carrying crate for the Fuzzster (who now has a new collar tag w/ the new house's street address); getting stuff shut off and preparing the house to be empty; actually hearing from the relocation company as to when they'll be here (as they haven't gotten in tough with me yet, way to cut it close there people).

I think I'll start getting stuff turned on at the house in Gainesville while I'm in Athens this next week, since I can do a lot of it online and I'll officially be on the lease as of the 1st. Provided I hear from the relocation people, that is. Part of me is wondering if there's grounds for a lawsuit in all of this, the way it's been handled (monumentally badly). If you think about it what do I really need turned on to move in? Electric and water. I can wait on the cable modem for a week if I have to. I'm not quite THAT borgified yet. There's a Panera about 3 minutes away from the house in Gainesville. I can eat a good nourishing meal while I'm syncing with the collective. ;-)

I need a netbook like an addict needs a meth factory.

Okay, so maybe you know you're too industrious with the cleaning when 15 minutes after the garbage man emptying your garbage bin, you've got it filled up again.

It's gonna be a long week till it's emptied again. o.O

But the computer room is mostly cleaned out now except for my desk here. I've already cleaned it off once and it will not take long to clean the leftover off.

I packed up the altar yesterday, I lack only rolling up the M31 poster to complete that. All pagan books are packed. Source materials are largely packed. Cafepress boxes will not take long to consolidate and move into staging area. Yoga ball needs to be deflated and packed. Yoga mat is rolled up and ready to go. Copernicus, external HD, the USB drive collection, printer, need to be packed. Depending on how I arrange things at the new house I may end up using the nice wood table I got for the printer as my altar table, though it's a bit small for it. May end up with just the larger selenites and crystals and incense burner there. Trying to plan in my head how to consolidate 2 computer rooms and the Fortress of Solitude into one smaller room. The magazine collection may have to live in the living room at the new house, I don't think it can fit in the new computer room. I have two entire 3 drawer carts FILLED with PopSci, Discover, Futurist, and Scientific American.

What do I actually NEED in the Fortress of Solitude? Copernicus, the external HD, the plastic table, the (or a) good office chair. My source books. A table big enough for the altar, a wall over it where I can pin up the M31 poster. I would like to have a comfy chair for meditation and a floor lamp that I can put in colored bulbs. I've pretty much proved that I do better when my writing set-up is separate from the net computer. The net computer could conceivably go in the bedroom or living room. But I've consistently proven to myself that I need that physical separation from the computer INTENDED as my internet computer to be able to concentrate on my writing.

The living room, OTOH, is going to be one giant library.

May have to go back to the boards and bricks form of shelving for a while. Though I can make it look a little more respectable by painting the cinderblocks and boards.

So now I've had 2 days of orientation at the GMF. The second half of today was very weird for me. Mostly it was about revenue and how to make it and how to keep it and selling and ... I was suddenly shown in stark detail the reality of being an INFJ in this materialistic world.

I wanted to say "I'm not your shill, go find somebody else to pimp your warez," but of course I can't do that. The whole SELL SELL SELL REVENUE IS YOUR WHOLE FOCUS SELL SELL SELL attitude just completely turned me off. I own a total of 2 t-shirts with corporate logos -- one is for Ubuntu, and one is a Star Wars shirt. I believe and love Ubuntu enough that I feel completely comfortable as a human billboard for them (probably because it's completely free, non-profit, and open source). Star Wars is because I fragging love George Lucas and would jump in front of a train for him. Outside of these two things, I flatly refuse to be anybody's billboard.

Yes I know the Postal Service is a business, I know they're in this to make money. Fine, good, whatever. But a great deal of my brain just recoils from this kind of thing. This is because I am an INFJ, and our entire mindset is geared toward the spiritual and the creative -- the very antithesis of the down-to-earth bread and circuses of the corporate world.

It also doesn't help when you're a contrarian INFJ and you can see the 500 lb gorilla of the Internet in the room when all around you are blithely ignoring it and going on about increasing revenue opportunities and elevator speeches and how to pimp all the various kinds of package delivery. Everyone pretending that everything but package delivery is going to be gone in probably less than 10 years. And when 40% of your revenue comes from first class postage...

I was watching the people feeding the sorters yesterday during the tour of the plant and thought how much happier I'd be feeding mail to robots than dealing with irate people as a window clerk. All the whirring machines. But for some reason people think I'd be good as a window clerk. Me. The Introvert. Who deals with people with an auxiliary psychological function and deals with the real world with a nearly-non-existant tertiary function. I can see the train coming around the mountain and the crash will be spectacular.

Okay, so...

Sent the deposit and signed lease today. $1700.

As of April 1st, this is where I'll be.

..april 1st. Why did it have to be april 1st?

Okay, so it's going to be Gainesville GA after all.

I'm going next Monday to look at a rental house.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

And yet still no word on where I'm going, when I'm going, regarding the job transfer.

Okay, so with regards to selling the house it looks like I have a choice of two equally bad options.

• I go the lawful good route and try to sell it in a market where houses much nicer and more expensive and with more to recommend them are languishing on the market for months or don't sell at all. I won't be able to make the mortgage payments if I am living elsewhere with a rent or lease payment, so undoubtedly would result in foreclosure anyway.
• I simply walk away and take the foreclosure rap without trying to go about this in an honorable way. Resulting in my credit rating going the way of the dodo, when heretofore I have excellent credit, have made all my payments on time for years, and do not have a credit card and haven't for years. (Of course, this happens in option 1 above as well.)

No matter what I do I'm going to end up in foreclosure. Even if I try to handle this in the responsible adult-type manner. And yet, as stated, I have had an excellent credit rating heretofore and have made all my payments on all my various bills and loans in a timely manner for years. I've worked hard at that.

So somebody explain to me what is the point of being conscientious and responsible when you end up in the same place as if you'd run up thousands of dollars on multiple credit cards and lived the high life buying toys?

Oh the tangles web we weave. Or something.

I got fed up with the waiting today and actually went to ask Mr. McCollum himself what the deal was. It's been 2 weeks since I won the bid on the job in Jacksonville, would like some reliable info, k thanx! Only to find out I've been punked. The job doesn't exist.

I kid you not.

For close to a month now I've been thinking I'm heading for Jacksonville. Yet only today do I get it confirmed (as I'd suspected) that the job doesn't exist.

So Mr. McCollum claims he's trying to fix this, either find me a job down there, have somebody create a job for me in FL, or prepare to offer me and several others in similar straits another batch of jobs. I had asked because I'd really have liked to get started on getting an apartment lined up, yadda yadda.

So we're back to square one.

So not happy right now.


In other news, have been doing some interesting thinky-thoughts re personal symbology, dreams, etc.

Had an interesting dream a few nights ago that had Dionysus in it and indicated to me that something is going on in my subconscious. There are presences - or a presence - that is working to unlock my subconscious to make it more accessible to me. Also another dream told me I am in touch with higher forces. It provides me with a chuckle, though, to see the forms the symbols take. During the "communicating with higher forces" dream, it was a smartphone type device that could link in to the Secret Service network -- those who were closest to the "highest" presence, i.e., the President. And a giant radio telescope, a "big ear". In the Dionysus dream, Dionysus took the form of a "too sexy for my shirt" kind of redneck on a customized Harley, with a bunch of keys and several bottles of Jack Daniels. Dionysus/Bacchus was/is the god of drunkenness, wine, drugs, etc.. This is the god of ethneogenics, i.e. psychedelics. I was yelling out of a second floor window at him that he was going to steal things from me while he was apparently unlocking something in the garage on the ground floor -- i.e., I was on a "higher", more intellectual level and Dionysus was unlocking things on a "lower", more primal level.

I have a weird mind. I do.

Note Twitter posts to the right -->

Otherwise, it's Christmas Eve. I have a cold. I have received my 60 day notice, and thus things must start happening soon re the lay-offs/transfers.

The situation is thus:

The house must be packed up and cleaned up as much as is practicable and possible.

I must contact HomeVestors and sell said house. Before doing so, I will probably have to get at least the plumbing fixed. I have been able to live with the small but annoying things (partially broken shower head, non-functioning hot water in bathroom sink, very slow drain in kitchen) but I will probably stand a better chance of getting enough to pay the mortgage off if I fix what I can and clean up what I can. Points in my favor: 7 yr. old water heater, garage door, CH/A only a few years old, railing on stairs out front. Points not in my favor: practically everything else.

In the probable event that I will not obtain enough from the sale of the house to pay off the mortgage, attempt to add whatever is left to my car loan or get another loan to cover it from the credit union. I have not yet gone to talk to the nice ladies at the CFECU to ascertain if this will be possible. I'd call it 50/50 right now. I've never had any problems with doing so in the past, but the economy is vastly different now and it is now exponentially more difficult to obtain loans than it was.

Find out where I'm going. Search for and obtain an apartment or rental house in the new location. If needed, obtain loan from TSP account to cover initial rent, etc. At present, I am able to obtain approximately $2,000 in this manner. This could also be covered by the loan from the CFECU to avoid drawing on the TSP account. Therefore, the TSP loan is strictly a last-resort option.

Pack up computers and irreplaceable books and Fuzz into car and go wherever I'm going. Move in. Get Internet service, utilities, cellphone, etc.

Take a day or two to get settled, get my bearings, convince Fuzz to come out of the cat carrier, freak the hell out of my mind, sleep, eat, freak out some more.

Go back to work.


I'm tired just looking at it all.

It would really be nice to know where I'm going.

I was afraid for about 24 hrs. that history was going to repeat itself. Fuzz went outside yesterday before I had to go to work (6th day, went in at noon). He didn't come home until just a few minutes ago, so almost 24 hrs. outside. For a little while I was beginning to wonder if I'd lost him just like I lost Boo 1 year and 3 days ago.

But here he is now, came in screaming his head off for food, and is now in his window seat I think.

So I am getting better now. Just in time to spend all fragging day running the errands I could have accomplished in a much more leisurely fashion if I wasn't inexplicably working six days.

Stayed up til 2:30 AM last night reading fanfic.

Bought a shredder yesterday to help deal with the paper clutter re this giant overstuffed filing cabinet I call a house. Will get some packing boxes today to begin packing non-essential books. In with all the other dozen things I've got to do today. Like paying property taxes on a house I'm about to sell. Property taxes used to pay for schools for kids I don't personally have. But are they fixing the screwed up pavement on Mack Smith Road that I have to run over every day at least once? No. Are they picking up my garbage for free? No.

That reminds me, the car needs its second oil change. Have had the Honda for a year and a half now, and this is only the second oil change. I've only got about 10,500 miles on it. Okay, yeah, I never go anywhere. But that's because I have nowhere to go.

We have yet to find out any details re the REC closing.

I'm bumming out at the moment. I've got to dismantle the LLC and go close out the bank account. Put the remaining money back in my savings account. Because I might actually need that $390 in the near future.

My usual method these days of dealing with major depressive incidents is to go buy something fabulously expensive and electronic, and I know exactly what I want. I even have an excuse, getting my usual Christmas present for myself. With that $390 I could even get it handily, as it's about $320. But of course I can't do it. And that's aggravating me no end. Strangling people doesn't solve any problems. Neither does buying an EEE PC 901 with 1gb RAM, 16gb SSD, and Linux. (They use Xandros. I'd have to locate an external CD drive and burn a copy of Ubuntu Netbook Remix and install it before I could use the EEE without holding my nose. But that's a small consideration.)

Oh, and I looked up how much they're selling the Merakis for these days, and they've inexplicably trippled the price of their standard indoor model. So that was one instance where being an early adopter paid off in spades. So guard those $50 Merakis with your lives, cats and kittens. Worth their weight in platinum, at least. (smishes Meraki, you make my life complete and wireless all at the same time!)

JCF RoundTable tonight, and I have no idea what to talk about.

It also bums me out that I was only just acquiring a life and now I've got to up sticks and start over somewhere else. The JCF, the magazine... then somebody somewhere hit the reset button. This too makes me want to strangle people.

Oh well. Not much I can do about it, or even think about it until I have some answers. Like where I'm being posted, yadda yadda.

The REC is closing April 21st.

They told us Wednesday morning, the 19th. I still don't quite know what to make of it. There are people panicking, of course. But me? I'm not.

We still don't have details yet as to where us careers are going to end up, though it's almost certain it won't be here in Chattanooga. There's nowhere to put us here. So far, the only REC to offer to take careers is Salt Lake City. I wanted to go to Glendale, AZ. But hey, west is still west, just not as far west as I would have liked. It means I'll have to pack up the house, somehow get the house sold, and move across the country with an 11 year old cat who's never taken a car ride longer than 20 minutes. Get someplace to live out there. Move in. Get settled, somehow. All the million things that were overwhelming when I just moved across the city, nevermind across a country.

Mom, of course, thinks I'm throwing away my life. She was yelling so much that she didn't give me a chance to tell her this may be the only option I have to keep my job and all those great benefits in the midst of our failing economy. You'd think she'd be glad I still have a job instead of moving in with her and not working for a year or two.

Well. If she's going to act like that then I have no time or use for her anymore. I only have so much energy and patience and time, and I can't waste any of it on things that aren't helping me do what I have to do.

Until I have more details, I can't say anything for certain. That's all there is to it.