Back Here

At first, I continued with my usual pattern of writing two thirds of a blog post and then trailing off, or thinking it was too long and rambly and wtf was the point, or I got tired and went to bed, thinking I'd finish it the next day, but no. Then, in early November, I thought, oh, I can do that blog post-a-day thing that all the Kids These Days are doing. Then I thought, wait, better idea, given how busy November is going to be, how about if I NOT blog in November, not even start posts, and then get back to it later, maybe in December. Which seemed like a way to take a break from this without giving it up entirely. So, even though it's not December, here I am, finally, again.

The Busy isn't over yet, either; two of the proposals are done, but the really huge big one that's due on the 15th isn't done yet--fuck, it's not even started yet--and everything is made more difficult by the necessity of bringing three people up to speed (new overlord, new over-overlord, and new finance overlord). Whatevs; yes, I miss my boss, and yes, there's a lot to do, but the new overlords don't appear to be evil, so it could be a whole lot worse.

One of the things that has been sort of interesting for me is that the Top Overlord kept asking what Made Me Happy, what kind of job would excite me, etc., and the Overlord has asked similar questions. What they both appear to be getting at is that the current work I'm doing, while important and they're happy I'm doing it, doesn't appear to . . . fully utilize my talents. And, on some level, I suppose that's true, but it doesn't seem very important to me.

For one thing, I don't particularly look for capital-H-happiness from my job. I took a stab at that--twice in my life, actually--and neither worked out, so I'm content to be working on the side of good rather than evil, doing work that's useful to the organization, and generally working with people I like. And that'll get you pretty far. Yes, I know, it flies in the face of the "do what you love" mantra that professional advice-givers like to chant, but I really don't think that many people get to do what they love AND get paid a living wage for it AND have a balanced life. So, really, I'm getting two out of three, and I at least like what I do, so it's a win.

For another thing, though, the "comma in every paycheck/no sacks of flour" aspect has continued to be absolutely crucial, even nearly three years after I hoisted my last sack of flour. (Yes, my last day was December 29, I think, 2007, and I started this job in February 08.) I would not have predicted it, but that episode in my life seems to have permanently rearranged the way I think about the world. Even though I've been insanely busy, and am going to be even more insanely busy for the next two weeks, still no sacks of flour and still a comma. Some of it is probably age, and some of it is a kind of resignation--as I've said to a few people, if you go by the evidence, then it appears that I do not get to Do What I Love in this lifetime--but it's been quite persistent. So be it.

Meanwhile, I spent all day yesterday baking cookies for beer school. We were going to be tasting holiday beers, which usually have a lot of spices added to them, so I decided to make cookies that focused on the simple ingredients in beer. One was a ginger cookie, mostly because I love ginger and look for excuses to use it. A second was a cookie that used barley flour, malted milk, and malted barley syrup, so you could get the barley flavor that grounds most beers; a third cookie used the same dough but added chocolate chunks, so it tasted like malted milk balls. The last one was a simple whole wheat cookie, which I glazed with orange; reminiscent of the fruit that often gets added to wheat beers. King Arthur adds orange juice to a lot of the whole wheat recipes, including this cookie one (apparently the flavor helps cut the tannins in the wheat), so I figured this would work. They were all pretty good (the ginger ones and the malted milk ball ones were pretty awesome), and I think people were entertained by the effort, so it was all good.

There are multiple other subjects I could mention--the new Bruce box set; other cooking or baking adventures; the CSA share--but I think we're going to stick with a training-wheels post for today.