I don't know whether it was my inability to say what recent product discovery excited me, but something in my phone interview with Tracey, the Wegmans recruiter, determined that I was not a good match for any of their available jobs.
Nor have I heard back from Home Depot after my in-person interview there. Ditto with the gas-pumping job at the Wawa convinience store, which never even offered an e-interview.
Yesterday, I finished the latest rewrite of the youth novel. So now I'm free to go back out in the job marketplace. Perhaps I'll hang out in the Home Depot parking lot, where some folks apparently go to find work. But I sincerely doubt that I have the energy to compete with younger men trying to feed families in Central America, nor would I want to deny them just because I'm white and local. There should be better reasons to get work.
I saw a help-wanted sign in a diner. I didn't apply, expecting that it would be minimum wage. Even if that's the best I could do, I couldn't earn enough to pay for gas to get to the job.
I'd really like to earn enough money to be able to visit daughter Nancy in Hawaii and her family. I've tried in the past few years to do that once a year. This year, the air fare is at least 50 percent higher than last year and that has already caused me to postpone the trip.
I try to imagine the hardship that unemployment inflicts on folks less fortunate than I. I ran into a neighbor whom I seldom get to talk with. He had lost his job as a welder at a trucking company a few years back. He told me that while he was able to get another job quickly, he took a $5 an hour pay cut that he has never been able to recoup. His wife cleans houses, so she took on a few more jobs to make ends meet. They have twin daughters in college. Student loans and scholarships are easing the burden, but still.
So I have much to be thankful for, and while the job search continues, I'll avoid the threat of becoming stir crazy.
There's always yard work to do right here at home.