I’ve been itching to write lately, but I can’t seem to come up with anything when I sit down to do it.  Does this happen to anyone else?  There a need… a longing to get something down, yet when the opportunity comes, nothing comes out.  It’s not writer’s block per se, just some sort of short-circuit somewhere.  It’s aggravating.

Nothing is happening with me lately.  I’m still on the job hunt, having been laid off recently.  I’ve filled out so many applications that I honestly can’t remember who I’ve applied to and who I haven’t, but I’ve gotten no responses save for Target, who told me to go take a hike.  If I can’t get hired at Target (I applied to be a cashier, no less), then what are my chances now?  I am SO depressed about this.  I’m to the point where I literally don’t have any more options, and I don’t know what to do.  I’m lost.

On Tuesday I traveled up to Idaho Falls to see my friends get married.  It’s a horribly long drive, but it was made easier by a carpool situation that I and two other friends managed to set up.  Of course, nature intervened for me and made it one of the absolute worst allergy days of the year, so I spent the entire day blowing my nose and sniffing uncontrollably.  I was also drugged up to high heaven and was basically stoned the entire time on a combination of DayQuil and Claritin and Flonase.  I tried really hard to act normally and be as pleasant as I could, and hopefully I pulled it off successfully to the point where not too many people noticed.  That allergy attack has since worsened into a sinus infection, but the good news is that I got to witness my best friend in her happiest moment, and I wouldn’t trade that for all the allergy drugs in the world.  That’s the important thing. 

The defining moment for the evening (for me) wasn’t my misery, or the long drive, or the yum-licious red velvet wedding cake that was positively orgasmic.  It was the point right as my friend walked down the isle with her dad accompanying her.  The smile on her face told everything.  She beamed more brightly than I’ve ever seen, and at that moment she was more beautiful than anything or anyone else in the world.  Those are the moments that I love, and to see that kind of happiness makes everything else absolutely trivial.

In that small, fleeting moment… the world was a good place, and nothing else mattered.

Now it’s back into the fray.  I sit here today, having mostly recovered from my illness (just a slight cough and some soreness), and I’m wondering what my future holds.  Bills keep coming, but job offers don’t, and I’m getting depressed all over again.  Reality sucks sometimes.  Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

Thank you Erin, for that moment.  I’ll keep it with me and remember it when I’m feeling a bit down.  Best of luck and all my love to you and your new family.  Be good and be happy.

So I got laid off last Friday from my job, and like before, I’ve hit the street filling out applications for all kinds of various places that I hope would have the courtesy to hire me.  This is a process I despise, naturally.  I mean, who wouldn’t hate this?  I do admit that filling out applications is easier than it used to be, with most of them being online now, but it’s still a major pain. 

Here’s my conundrum, however.  On every application there’s always a question that asks, in some form or another, whether or not I’ve ever been terminated from a job.  It’s a fair question, but I’m having a crisis on whether to answer it honestly or not.  Yes, I have been terminated from a previous job, but I don’t believe that should disqualify me automatically from the one I’m applying for.  I believe that it may doing just that though.

I have been answering “yes”, of course, because I believe honesty is always the best policy, but I can’t help but wonder if this is what’s been keeping me from getting the jobs for which I’m applying.  Should I tell them “no” on the application, and hope that it never comes up again?  Or should I continue to be honest in the hopes that it really shouldn’t matter that much?  Are employers really judging me for this, or am I just being paranoid?  They are more than welcome to ask me about it in the interview process, and I’ll be completely honest, but so far I haven’t managed to get to that point.  I’m really getting frustrated.

I do think being honest is the right way to go.  I just don’t want it to bite me in the ass.

They say money doesn’t buy happiness.  They also say that money doesn’t solve problems.  I’d like to test these theories.  Give me a bunch of money, and I’ll spend it and let you know if I’m happy and no longer have as many problems.  I’ll be your experiment.

Maybe money doesn’t buy happiness, but it can sure buy things that make me happy.  At least for a while.  When I get tired of one happy thing, and it no longer amuses me, I’ll simply buy another and be happy all over again.  Give me enough money, and I’m sure I can buy a certain amount of happiness that will last me a good long time.  I have no problem being a guinea pig in the testing of these theories.  Give me big wads of cash and let me loose.  I’ll get back to you with the results (eventually).

For the second day in a row, I’ve been rained out of work.  It’s not supposed to rain here in the desert, but someone forgot to tell somebody, because it’s been raining for the better part of a week now.  Even my boss, who has lived here his entire life, says he’s never seen weather like this in Utah ever before.  It’s some kind of fluke weather system that won’t go away.  Because my job depends on it NOT raining, I’ve essentially been out of work now this entire week.  This is not a good thing.

I hope Utah is enjoying this nice rainy season.  It’s not that we couldn’t always use more water, it’s just that it has come at a most inconvenient time.  In the meantime, anyone know where I can get some money?

I don’t normally plug products or services here, (except mine… buy my stuff!) but I gotta tell you, I had some seriously good ice cream this week and I just had to share.

My good friend Erin introduced me to a place in Utah county called Sub Zero.  It’s ice cream, but instead of pre-made flavors or frozen marble slabs, they actually mix different kinds of creams and toppings together in a bowl and then shoot it with liquid nitrogen to freeze it instantly, just like we all did in science class back in high school.  It an interesting process to watch, and the resulting ice cream is super delicious.  It’s about the same price as a Cold Stone or Marble Slab too, so no worries there.

There are advantages to the method.  The combinations are practically endless.  You can combine flavors, like chocolate and vanilla, or strawberry, or raspberry, or caramel, or fudge, or banana, or anything else you can imagine.  You can get more interesting flavors too, like bubble gum, or Mountain Dew.  Pretty much anything you can pour into a bowl can become a flavor.  Also, the mix-ins are just as interesting.  More than being just “mixed in”, they actually become part of the whole, because they’re added when the mixture is still a liquid cream.  They also have several qualities of cream, and can even use rice milk in case you’re intolerant.  They pretty much thought of everything.

After everything is mixed, they hit it with a couple of blasts of liquid nitrogen at 20 degrees below zero.  This results in ice cream that has an extremely smooth texture, because the faster you freeze it, the less water enters the mix and the ice cream is all the more pure.  Water in the mix makes ice crystals, which you’ll find in any ice cream you buy at the store.  Not so with Sub Zero, because they freeze it so fast.  The snack becomes a delicious, creamy delight in whatever sort of flavor combination you can imagine.  It is yum at negative twenty.

Right now, there’s only a handful of places, all in Utah with the exceptions of Idaho Falls and whereverthehell Rexburg, Idaho might be.  Judging by my taste buds and the popularity the place is gaining, I think there will soon be many more.