several things

i've several things to report today. first and foremost. kara got a new j-o-b. oh she's been looking for years, trying to get out of multicare, and she's finally done it. mostly. she got hired on as a legal assistant (or legal clerk?) for a defense attorney here in tacoma. she'll be working on the waterfront! she's going to learn a buttload, i am certain. among her varied duties will be interviewing clients, which will include alleged murderers. wow! how cool is that? i'm really very proud of her for landing this job. anyway, that's a 20-hour a week gig, maybe sometimes more, maybe sometimes less. so she's actually keeping her multicare legal-clerk job, but she'll be drastically cutting her hours (to 10 or 15 a week, probably), so that will make that situation considerably more palatable. plus she'll have stories for me about the killers and rapists and other violent offenders with whom she will be interacting. (i'm sure there might be some filing and clerical-type stuff she'll have to do as well, but that's part of the package.) it's really wonderful news. she starts that job on may 12, a week from today.

two. my dream of becoming a diener is stalling. i talked to one of multicare's pathologists as well as an autopsy technician ("autopsy technician," "autopsy assistant," and "diener" apparently all mean the same thing, but "diener" is considered derogatory, though i still like it) for pierce county last week. it's true that there's no formal training required to get started doing this macabre work, but job openings are quite rare. the multicare pathologist said he would call me the next time he does an autopsy, and i'll get to watch. unfortunately, multicare performs maybe 5 or 10 autopsies a year (most are sent to the county), so who knows when the next one will be? and if it's months down the road, who knows if he'll remember to contact me? in the meantime, however, there's little i can do to become a more attractive candidate.

three. maybe i'll get another bachelor's degree. in biology. and do whatever spawns from that. it's something i'm looking into.

four. maybe i'll become an invasive cardiovascular technician, and assist with cardiac catheterizations and even open-heart surgeries. of course we all know of my distaste for needles, and for flowing blood, so this on the surface sounds like a silly notion. still, i think the heart is a mighty cool little machine, and there's an informational session about the associate's degree program next week that i might attend, just for scuz.

five. i finished the yellow house (about van vogh and gauguin) and read factotum (a novel by charles bukowski). all told, 3 struggling artists, sort of. both books were good, actually, in extremely different ways. i'd never read bukowski before and he's very raw. but i liked the book. and yesterday i started reading brothers & keepers, a memoir by john edgar wideman and so far it's very good too, though i'm only on page 8.

six. my own writing stalled a little bit over the weekend, with my despondency over the diener news and glee over kara's achievement, but i'll get back into that this week.

seven. on friday i got a new driver's license, as my old one expires next week, and in the new photo i look like i just got goosed. yowza. also i look huge, so we're getting serious again about diet & exercise. at the moment we have low-fat burritos in the oven. actually, i think they're ready now.

eight. may 2nd was my sister jennifer's birthday, may 3rd was my aunt mollie's, and tomorrow is mom's. so happy birthday, blues and rothwell. many happy returns.