Everyone keep your fingers crossed. I MAY get to do the re-lighting ceremony for the Trenton Makes Bridge, everyone’s favorite bridge!

**UPDATE**
I got the job!

Looking for a new diet? Try getting a horrible sore throat! Look at me! I’ve lost almost 8 pounds on this amazing new diet!

So, yeah. Last Tuesday I got this incredible sore throat accompanied by a massive headache and soreness through my whole body. Turned out I was running a very high fever. By Thursday, the fever was gone but the sore throat remained. Now, we’ve all had sore throats before, but this one was…the only way to describe it is to say it was pure agony. It wasn’t even just when I swallowed. It was constant pain, that was only amplified when I swallowed. Or tried to eat or drink ANYTHING. Even as it gradually started to lessen over the following days, I could not even drink water without a burning sensation lingering in my throat for several minutes after each sip. And so, without the benefit of food for nearly a week, I lost a bit of weight.

Thankfully, it seems to be fading. And not a moment too soon, because when you can’t really do anything else because you can’t talk, eat, or drink anything (and therefore also don’t feel like leaving the house), you watch a lot of TV. And on TV there are a lot of commercials. For food. It’s torture when you are really hungry but are not capable of eating anything due to the pain. I’ve been dying for Taco Bell, pizza, Subway…all manner of foods. Tonight, I am happy to say, I had some pizza. It was heaven.

I expect to be putting those 8 pounds back on any day now…

I suppose it was only a matter of time. We started out with a free checking out account at Summit Bank back when we first moved back to New Jersey. Summit got bought out by Fleet Bank, and they maintained our free checking account status. But Fleet has now been bought out by Bank of America, and they do not wish to be as kind. Instead, they are planning to charge us $12 per month if we don’t keep at least $500 in our checking account. As for my business account at their bank? That requires a $1000 daily balance or I will be charged a $15 per month fee. In addition, they plan to charge me $.15 per $100 over $5000 that I deposit in a month. Well, I’m sorry, but that’s completely unacceptable. They want to charge me if I don’t have enough money in my account, and then charge me when I DO put money in there?

Fuck you, Bank of America. I’ll take my business elsewhere.

Did you ever think you were being punished because of good things that have happened to you? I guess you could call it karma, because I’m a believer in that. I’ve just noticed that when things seem to be going good in my life (i.e. I’m getting a lot of work and/or feeling stable financially), something bad inevitably ends up happening. I’m not really complaining. It’s sort of a balancing act. It keeps me on track and from getting too far ahead of myself. It’s sort of a reminder not to get too cocky or too proud or think that everything is finally settled. In the end, the cosmos seem to be giving me a pretty good bounce, so I’m willing to accept the bad along with the good.

WOO HOO! Ali’s brother-in-law, Dave, is coming home from Iraq today!

I suppose I’ve never really had a “real” job. I mean, maybe for a year or two, but not for the length of time that most people would have a job. As a teenager, I never had that “first job”. I never worked at the mall or in the fast food restaurant. My very first job was working for my friend’s mother, and I didn’t take that job until my senior year of high school. It started out as an office helper job and turned into doing some computer work. I pretty much came and went as I wanted and got paid, at the time, reasonably well for it. After that I went to work at Great Adventure. Now, okay, I still had to show up every day and do my job, but I’d still hardly call that a “real” job. I mean, it’s Great Adventure. Half the time it was more like play than work. Then, in college, I worked part-time in the box office at George Street Playhouse. Again, I hardly consider that to be a real job. I mean, it’s the box office. I don’t know….that didn’t strike me as work.

So, I guess my first “real” job was when I was in Connecticut and went to work for Advanced Lighting and Sound Solutions. This was basically my first real job because it was my first full time job. It was the first job that I had to go to every day, where I sat in an office (most of the time) and did my job and then went home. I was there for less than a year. Then we moved back to NJ, and I went to work for BML Stage Lighting. My job there was similar to my job at ALSS, except that I was ONLY in the office. That lasted a little over a year before I couldn’t take it anymore and moved on to Circuit Lighting. That lasted a few months before they fired me. And that’s it. After that I did some temp work which, much like my first job, mostly involved me coming and going as I pleased. Now I work full-time for myself.

I’m sure there’s a lesson in there if we look hard enough. First, I never had the early impetus to hold a job. Force your kids to get a job. Now, this is not my parents’ fault. They tried to get me to get a job, but I didn’t want to get one until I could get myself there, hence not having a job until senior year. I think the more important lesson, though, is that I’ve gotten to where I am through a series of conscious and unconscious choices. I never WANTED a real job, and so I made choices that led me to not having one. Here’s the important part, though…it worked.

I consider myself extremely fortunate to be where I am. I work my own schedule (for the most part), do what I want to do with my days (for the most part), and make a good living doing it. That was by choice. My point is that it’s possible, and that if you are unhappy with what you are doing, you need to make a choice to change it. It may not be easy and it probably won’t be quick, but you DO have a choice. I guess that’s the lesson.

…for whatever that’s worth, anyway. Just something I was thinking about today.

My friend Stacey is having a birthday today. Stacey rocks. You’d be wise to agree.