I’ve never had a hard time learning the nuts and bolts of how to perform a new job. Plunk me down with a manual, or show me how to do something once or twice, and I’m usually good to go.

Where I usually struggle is all the soft stuff: how to read the social norms and the hierarchy of the new place I’m in. Even in a small workplace, there are “go to” people. Then there are folks who don’t want to bother with a new person no matter what. There are the gossipers, and there are the rabble rousers. There are proper channels to go through for certain things, whether it’s time off, office supplies, or meeting arrangement.

I don’t make new friends easily either. I can do it, but it’s hard and I usually stumble a fair bit. Working a new job is like that too. I’m aces at getting the job done; it’s all the other extraneous office “stuff” that I have difficulty with. Don’t even get me started about the topic of Office Politics. That’s a subject I just don’t even understand! Why expend all that energy and time? Ugh. I deal with Office Politics by the “Staying Out of It” method. I just try to get along with everyone, even people I don’t especially like on a personal level.

I’m getting to the point at the New Job where I’ve been shown how to do the basics of the actual “work” part of the day. I’ve stumbled a little with the social stuff, but I’m navigating that as best as I can. I have a tough time making mistakes, but owning up to them and putting them behind me seems to be the best way to handle them.

Apparently being an adult and taking responsibility for one’s actions seems to be the right thing to do. Huh! Who woulda thunk it?

There is no better inspiration for artistic expression than love lost. Everyone can easily relate to the raw feelings of being done wrong.

I’m not sure what went on in the personal lives of the guys in Local H recently, but whatever it was, it was bad. But from the very bad comes the very good Twelve Angry Months.

The two man band of Local H take the listener through twelve tracks of, presumably, twelve months of processing the end of a relationship. There’s dark humor, there’s anger, there’s bitterness, and there’s the minutia that we all go through during the end of a long term relationship. The album drew me in from the first track, entitled January, The One With “Kid.” It’s a ditty in which the protagonist is trying to get some of his music back:

Give me my Zeppelin CDs
You know you took ‘em, I know you did
Where’s my Pretenders record
You know the one, the one with “Kid”

Where’s all my AC/DCs
My Interpol, my Libertines
Where’s all my Kyuss records
You never liked ‘em until you met me

Sensations, frustrations, barbed wire for coronations
My “Heart of Glass” 12-inch is scratched
No matter what it’s costing
Make sure you leave with nothing
Won’t stand and watch you gut our home

When I was separating from my first husband, we had to take an entire afternoon to untangle our massive cd collection. I remember the day well- it was a sunny, warm, late spring day. There were stacks of discs everywhere. There was a tussle over Collective Soul’s Dosage. Lordy. Was that really necessary? We were cordial at the beginning of the afternoon, but by the end of the day, I was getting Neil Young discs shoved at me.

Of course, that was the first of many afternoons of splitting items. But there was something about the music that, if you’ll pardon the pun, really hit a chord. I remember looking wistfully at The Best of Booker T and the MG’s, thinking about how we’d put that on as background music whenever people came over. Yah, not anymore. That disc didn’t end up in the Lisa box. But of course, I never liked ‘em till I met him, so…it wasn’t mine to take.

So, Local H took me back to that June afternoon in 1999. They took me back to other places, other breakups, other times, in other tracks. There’s the undercurrent of hurt in the heavy guitars. There’s a snarkiness that I especially appreciate. There’s hope and loss. The Big Album about heartache in 2008, Kanye West’s 808’s and Heartbreaks* did this too, but there’s something more contemplative about Local H’s approach. And, they’re actually singing fairly well, which I really appreciate.

I’m featuring this album in the inaugural post of “Musical Mondays” because I like it, and I’m pretty sure most folks missed it in 2008.

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*For the record, I love Kanye’s latest album. But it’s so raw, I’ve only been able to listen to it about three times all the way through. I hurt for the man. He had a rough year.

Since I no longer have my frustrating job search to fill the pages of my blog, I’ve been thinking about what I want to write about going forward. I’ve spent a lot of time bitchin’ and moanin’ about my lot in life, so I’ve decided to be a little more positive and feature stuff I love.

I also need a little more structure in my posting schedule, otherwise…shit ain’t gonna get written. Seriously. I like some structure. I love Microsoft Excel. ‘Nuff said.

Anyhow… I love music. I have varied tastes. On my beloved Sansa Fuze there’s a messy mishmash of all kinds of stuff. 80’s pop, Willie Nelson and Asleep at the Wheel, Nick Drake, Kanye West are all hangin’ out. I’ll listen to just about anything once, except opera. I don’t get opera at all.

Starting this week, I’ll be writing a music-themed post on Mondays, under the header “Musical Mondays.” I know, brilliant! Hey, someone has to go for the obvious. It might as well be me.

I’ve been listening to some good stuff lately, and I want to write about it. I’m no musical critic, that’s for sure. I’m not going to be able to say, “Oh…this is reminiscent of Frank Black in his Black Francis stage, with a shade of mid 90’s Morrissey, and a smattering of Tom Tom Club.” Heck, I just made that up! And I don’t even know what that means.

So there you go. I’m launching a weekly amateur music feature. It’s old hat to many, but new to me. I’m looking forward to listening carefully and writing about what I hear.

I’m about three weeks into my new job, and I must say, I’m still enjoying it.

It has definite advantages over, oh, all the employment I had in 2008. My Boss is decidedly un-crazy, and a good manager of people. This is a joyous change from my last perma-Boss, from Green Nonprofit. The work is interesting, but not especially challenging. That’s OK. I’ll take steady and important and not-that-hard, as long as there’s a decent paycheck, a pleasant workplace, and good benefits.

Now that I am making a little more money and budgeting (oh Quicken, how I love thee) for 2009, I am wowed by how hard 2008 was. I’m planning a few purchases that I had planned for in 2008, but have had to put off. None of them are terribly exciting or large: paint for the upstairs bedrooms, a new mattress/ box spring, some edging for the garden beds. It feels good to be able to think about and actually plan little projects for the house. Last year, all I could do was look around my mostly empty home and wistfully daydream.I just held on for dear life, paying the mortgage, and hoping that all my hard work at looking for a new job would pay off.

It has, thus far.

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*Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
--Emily Dickinson

I’ve been viewing myself as an Underemployed Temp Worker for so long that it’s going to be difficult to change my mindset. Also, my job search struggles have been good blog fodder for a long, long time.

A lot of stuff has been on hold for the past year. There are a few home improvement tasks, simple things like painting and hanging curtains, that have just had to wait. I’ve not taken any real vacation since fall of 2006, when I visited my mother. Sure, I took a week off to move in 2007 and was not working for about 6 weeks in early 2008, but those hardly count as “vacation.”

I’ve been in this holding pattern for a long time, searching for jobs, stressing about money, worrying. My new opportunity won’t fix all that ails me, but it’ll go a long way toward reducing my stress and boosting my esteem. It’s been hard to be told “no, we don’t want you” repeatedly over the past year. I’ve learned humility and some patience, but the cost has been high.

I’m looking forward to some time where I can actually enjoy my life instead of merely grinding it out, trudging through it day by day. There’s not been a whole lot of that recently. Some of that has to do with the depression I suffer from, which doesn’t get any better in the dead of  Michigan winter (and doesn’t get better when someone has no insurance and needs meds, but that’s another post entirely). A lot of it just has to do with how I am wired. I just find it hard to let go and let loose and have a little fun, when I’ve had so much hanging over my head. I’ve had to be uber responsible, and you know… that can be a real drag.

I really only have one New Year’s Resolution. It is to engage in activities that will enrich and invigorate me. I’m not sure what those will be, quite yet. I’d like to exercise more. I miss some creative things I used to do like crafting and drawing. I’m very interested in going back to school. I love to garden and grow stuff. I want to carve out time and energy to explore some of those things again.

I’m going to have plenty of time to think about these things over the next few days. We’re going to be getting some more snow, and I find shoveling snow from the driveway very contemplative.

It had been 310 days since I had lost my full time, benefitted gig. I’d been on 32 face to face interviews and numerous phone screens. I estimate I’ve answered the “What are your weaknesses” interview question over 50 times.

Finally, it all paid off. I was offered a job on Friday.

The pay is good. The employer is actually thriving in this tight economy. The benefits are amazing. O health insurance, how I have missed thee. (sniffle) I really, really like my prospective boss. I think I’ll be able to learn a lot from her. This job is a departure from my previous career path, which is scary but  exciting. It will point me in the right direction when I go back for a Master’s Degree later this year.

Oh yes, tuition reimbursement… come to Lisa.

It really hasn’t sunk in yet. I got the call on my cell phone on Friday afternoon while at my temp gig. My coworkers were ecstatic. They were clapping in glee and hugging the stuffing outta me. They have seen me schlepping my suit and heels and hose to work so that I could change mid-day to go to interviews. They have listened to me tell job search war stories, laughing politely and occasionally groaning and saying,” Lisa you didn’t really say that, did you?” I think they were as ready for me to move on as I was.

Today is the first Sunday in a year that I haven’t searched the local want ads online.

Today is the first day in a long time that I feel hopeful. It feels good.

Read this one:

The Courage of Detroit, by Mitch Albom (via Sports Illustrated)

But it’s time to untie Detroit. Because we may be a few steps behind the rest of the country, but we’re a few steps ahead of it too. And what’s happening to us may happen to you.

Do you think if your main industry sails away to foreign countries, if the tax base of your city dries up, you won’t have crumbling houses and men sleeping on church floors too? Do you think if we become a country that makes nothing, that builds nothing, that only services and outsources, that we will hold our place on the economic totem pole? Detroit may be suffering the worst from this semi-Depression, but we sure didn’t invent it. And we can’t stop it from spreading. We can only do what we do. Survive.

And yet we’re better at that than most places.