(no subject)

Howie and Patrick came yesterday afternoon, earlier than I had expected, and put the returns on the stair rails. By then it was too late to communicate with the building inspector, but they promised to do that first things this morning. By 9:30, I'm told, there will have been enough time for the contractors to talk to the building inspector and for the building inspector to deal with his paperwork. I have asked the realtor to call Town Hall at 9:30 to ask about the status of all that-- I hate phone calls, and it would be harder for me to keep the edginess and emotion out of my voice. Then we see if this issue is over at that point, or if there has been some new fuck-up or if the building inspector has thought of something new to yell at me about.

So, current task, be patient until 9:30. Fingers crossed here.

(no subject)

Building permits CLOSED!!!!

I don't know what I want to be when I grow up

I know how to program computers. I've been in it for years, I'm moderately talented at it, I've probably used 20 or so different programming languages at some point or another. My strength, I think, is that I'm better than the average programmer at seeing the big picture, seeing the forest for the trees. Don't just write tons of functions; stop; what's the customer goal we are trying to address? So, I could be good at it if I gave a shit.

I'm in research but I'm not interested in research in this field any more. In light of the increasingly alarming things I've been reading about how things are going in the Anthropocene, interest in the question "why do we need to sleep?" feels like being interested in Shakespeare while in a foxhole, being shot at. I could imagine being absorbed in research if it were more related to pressing urgent questions, such as:

* How could we get our energy without fossil fuels?
* How do we re-forest the Earth?
* Does single-stream recycling increase or decrease the amount of aluminum recycled?
* Why is there so fucking much plastic in the ocean?
* Can we genetically engineer a microbe to eat the plastic in the ocean?

Switching fields to environmental science would require... more school? I like school (at the university-plus level). But am I too old for more school? As Vic's parent, am I too scattered for more school?

Things I'm probably qualified to do without major additional training that I actually feel like doing, (unlike programming):

* Canvassing my ass off for Elizabeth Warren
* Working as a "candy-striper" at NE Aquarium's sea turtle hospital
* Teaching people to sort their lunch trash properly at places that separate trash/recycling/compost
* Doing the leg-work that everyone else is to busy to do for Arisia, such as looking at meeting and Relaxacon venues

So, Elizabeth Warren, the New England Aquarium, Mothers out Front, and Arisia Corp. would all love it if I showed up and got to work, I'm sure. None of these organizations is likely to pay me any time soon, let alone give me health insurance.

Fuck. I need health insurance. But I don't want to get a real job. It's not that I don't want to work. Canvassing is really fucking hard work and then my idea for a change of pace from that involves getting elbow-deep in food waste trash or sick sea turtle poo. Clearly I'm not the laziest person around. Why is it that I can't think of any overlap between "work I want to do" and "work that pays"?