In which the business community of eastern Oklahoma relents and provides our hero with a job.

This is a slightly retouched photo of the building that houses my new office. I've taken the logo off the crown of the building to preserve a modicum of corporate anonymity. You can't see in this picture, but I'm on the ground floor under the cupola down in front. I have one very busy window I can look out of. There's a good deal of coming and going outside.

It's a hotel, if you couldn't tell, and I'm one of the new sales managers. This means I sell the meeting space, and I also sell blocks of rooms to groups who are passing through town. If I can combine the two things, then so much the better. I wear a tie, sometimes even a suit, though things here are generally much more casual than at some of the bigger hotels and in some of the bigger cities, and I can get away with much more. The occasional open collared shirt, for instance. Perhaps khakis.

I was hired on Monday of last week, and started on Wednesday. It's a salaried job, rather than based on a commission (thank sweet jesus), and comes with amenities like a 401k, insurances of various stripes, the requisite vacation days, and free food in the restaurant. I get to order, tip, and just sign my name on the final bill. This is -- almost as much as the regular salary part -- the best part of the job to date. I'm expected to treat clients to lunch, if possible. They expect me to do this.

Now that I've landed on a relatively steady island of employment here in Oklahoma, I can look back and actually count the days I was adrift. Considering that the last day of my job in Chicago was October 19, 2007, and I was given the offer here in OK last Monday February 25, that adds up to four months and one week of sporadic employment. The "sporadic" designation comes solely from the generosity of my former employer, who payed me to do consulting work on the web for them in dribs and drabs.

I think you can agree, though, that 4 months+ is a fuck of a long time. It sure felt like it from here. It wasn't for lack of trying, though there were times that I'll admit that sometimes a day or two would limp past and I couldn't even begin to think about tweaking or retweaking my poorly functioning resume. Or overwriting my letter of introduction --again -- into something either far too formal or insultingly familiar, just for variety's sake. Or shuffling through the local paper's appalling job database and hoping against hope that my queries would bring back something less depressing than "call center representative."

I'd had so little success here that I was beginning to think that the proverbial job market was telling me that I wasn't marketable at all. Or rather, that my rather rarified set of skills (independent film producer? check. long-time barkeep? check. Client Services Manager at a . . . whatkindofplaceisthat? check.) was, in the end, unexplainable to anyone who didn't already know me. Which is the entirety of our new fair city. I'd begun to get this sick feeling that my worth as a worker had been grossly inflated in Chicago, and here I was getting a sense of my true value, which was essentially bupkiss.

But someone at my hotel made an obviously rash decision and took me on. From their point of view, anyway, it looks rash and risky. From my point of view, they gave me a hell of a break, and hence well get my sustained best efforts. That is, until I can be convinced that I'm a touch more marketable here than when I started out.

Nu Shooz*

I don't know the exact date that I took up running, but it was about a year ago. My wife and I had just quit smoking (her for good; me, limpingly), and she suggested we inch our way into running a 5k. The 5k in question was the Y ME breast cancer awareness run. Being the preparedness junky that she is (and, not incoincedentally, an ex-girl scout), she sussed out an excellent resource for ex-smokers who want to start running, the Couch to 5k program. And it's not just for ex-smokers, it's for anyone who's currently on a couch, which, in our country, is a much larger quorum.

Anyhow, we got fitted for shoes. The Couch to 5k program says you should have some good ones, and the knock offs at the Target shoe section don't qualify. You need a light shoe, and one that has room for your foot to spread, and one that can breathe. There're other criteria, but I was still a newbie, and could absorb only so much expert information.

At the suggestion of the running store guy -- a runner himself, lean and owlish at the same time, and not altogether comfortable with people -- I bought a pair of Asics Gel 2120. I ran em up and down outside the store. It was late winter in Chicago, and I remember dodging mounds of sidewalk ice. I taking deep frigid breaths (still a novelty for newly clear lungs). Felt good, so far as I knew. The Asics sure as hell beat my Target specials.

So I ran my first 5k, and then ran two more last year. I don't have an odometer but figure I've put about 250 miles of training and on those Asics. Lots of road grease. Lots of treadmill rubber.

This Christmas, using a generous gift card from my Pa, I raided the shelves of the local Sports Authority and came up with another deeply discounted pair of Asics. Turns out the Gel 2130 line is shouldering out the old guard -- among which my shoes belong -- and they were mostly giving them away to make room on the shelfs.

So all this is to say, Happy New Year. Look at the wear and tear on 07's pair, look at how gray and frayed. They're a touch collapsed. Compare with the 08 model, which is blindingly white, plump and healthy. I can't tell you that I have a necessarily rosy outlook for the year, or that I'm constructing a bulwark of resolutions to make then one by one fail at. But let's just say that if I can make those shiny new 08's look even a little like the 07's, we can consider it a small-scale victory for will power, optimism, and the absence of the much-mourned Camel Lights hard pack.

*80's hippie-pop band, known in certain circles -- mostly my circles -- for their top forty hit, "I Can't Wait."

Style Sheet

If you're someone who happens upon this blog, it's worth knowing some quick basics.  Apart, that is, from the fact that it's totally and completely new.  

First, as far as subject goes, we're going to be leaving that to the Fates for now.  My wife, who has the family experience with this sort of thing, has suggested that I approach blogging by choosing a topic to explore, thereby delimiting my vast options and putting my slacker impulses within a nice fenced backyard.  Don't let the vast white space of an Unfilled Blog deter you from writing is the logic; trick yourself into forward movement by making the goal smaller and bite-sized.  

She's a smarty, if you couldn't tell, and expert at getting herself to do stuff.   

As per my husbandly contract, I'll be genially ignoring my wife's advice.   I'll be plunging headlong into it without stricture.  Let's repeat that overused Nike mantra and get on with it.  We'll see how long it works.  I've got a record of about 50-50 in ignoring my wife's advice.  She's smart and conservative; I'm heedless but willing to fail and double back.  So if you check back here one day and I've rechristened this thing Crochet:Cricket, don't blame me.  You'll know my wife was right.  

Also, as to title, there's no good meaning for it right now.  I liked the picture of the Wicker Mastiff, and figured a reminder of both bite and bark might be useful for a hollow dog.  Comparing what's real and what's just noise.  It somewhat relates to what my life is like right now, but it's also good reminder for my life in general.  As you'll see, I'm a 
bit of a yapper.  The teeth, though, not so big.