Blood, meet Stone.

Perversely, since I lost my job, the calls from telemarketers have escalated. At about 4:20 each day, I get a string of calls from people looking for money for causes ranging from global injustice to global warming, to paying for birth control for college girls who apparently never heard of condoms (PPFA and I still go head-to-head over that one), to breast cancer.

I still give nominally to the causes I care about, judiciously, because, well, I care about them and dammit, it's my right as an American to spend money I can ill afford. But there is a limit, and I need to remember that Charity Begins at Home.

Yes, I'm on the Do Not Call Registry, but as we know, if you've given to a cause, that gives them the right to hire fundraising companies to hound you until you are dead asking for more money. So if you give to a cause, they do the equivalent of writing your name on an internet nonprofit bathroom wall with "Gives Great Donation." The result is that when you give, you are harassed to give more.

Someone needs to talk to their marketing people about counter-incentives.

I am starting a list of charities I will stop giving to, and the letter I will send to them regarding why I refuse to give any more money. Most of the charities I support leave me the hell alone (thank you, World Wildlife Fund, Humane Farming, Nature Conservancy, Christian Children's Fund), aside from snail-mail campaigns, which are fine, but there are others (Amnesty International, Planned Parenthood Foundation of America) that are nothing more than jack-booted donation terrorists.

Also, the salespeople not affiliated with nonprofits have learned the same thing that I discovered when I tried to post a complaint on the DNC Registry: They don't follow up on individual complaints. Seriously; they state this plainly, for all of us (and the telemarkers) to see.

So here's what I do now: when I see a caller ID that indicates a telemarker, I answer, and the conversation goes something like this:

Me: "Hello?"

(Pause while autodialer alerts Actual Person that there's a bite on the hook)

Telemarketer: "May I please speak to JC?"

Me: "This is JC."

TM: "Great. How are you today?"

Me: "Unemployed."

TM (They have no script to prepare them for this, which is amazing. So they proceed to stumble.) "Oh. I'm..sorry to hear that...

Me: "That's OK. But I have no money to give right now, because I'm preoccupied with paying my mortgage and groceries. So please take me off of your list, and good luck with your cause."

Then I hang up.

I'm considering a counter-offensive, though. I'm considering asking THEM for money. For the JC Fund.

I like the sound of that.

Go, Me!!

Read another job posting for an office manager to work in a one-person office.

They want a team player.

She's a flay-yay-yay-yay-yame thrower...

Drove to Woodstock, IL today to attend a workshop on controlled, prescriptive prairie burns. Learned about back fires, head fires, burning conditions, protocol, equipment. We were supposed to participate in a burn after lunch, but the winds were too gusty.

So I have the basic idea of how to work on a burn. I know how to be a fire-slinger, water-person, flapper.

Not as exciting as you would think.

You know it's a sign of the times...

When your accountant sends you your tax paperwork to file, and affixes a Post-It with "Good luck with the job search!" on it.

OK, to insert some balance...

I went to the YMCA today to see whether I could suspend my membership for a few months while I job hunt. The woman asked to see my layoff proof. I showed her my unemployment registration with IDES, and she asked what I paid. I told her ($55.00), and she said, " NAAAAAAAAW, here's what you're going to do." She took out a form and said, "you're going to fill this out, and your monthly fee is going down to $19.00."

This past weekend, on the way back from my friend's farm, Farmer Lady, the young man from our permaculture course and I were all talking about this and that. She took us through the campus of Notre Dame (the boy and I weren't impressed; we both felt it looked like a sterile strip mall), and we talked about kids. I mentioned I'd had my tubes tied for my 38th birthday present to myself.

"Wait," said the boy. "How old are you?"

"45."

"Wow. I thought you were like, 30. You are so full of life."

I turned to Farmer Lady. "I love this boy."

Oh, and I ate at Cracker Barrel for the first time. Fried Okra. Fresh from the freezer.

And I'm going to have a nice big garden on a south-facing slope on Farmer Lady's land.

And 2009 continues...

Was walking in Evanston; had crossed Chicago Ave at Dempster, and was about four shops in when I heard the unmistakable WHAM! of a large metal object hitting another. Whirled around to see an ambulance hitting one car after another, each of which in turn spun and hit another, WHAM WHAM WHAM. It seemed to go on forever. I ran to the intersection where others were also running, and looked at a scene out of an action film: five cars and the ambulance were all over the intersection, facing in all directions. Debris and glass littered the street.

People ran to the cars to check on the passengers. I went to the open window of one where a young woman sat holding her head. There was no blood, but she was shaken up. I dialed 911 to find they were already on their way.

Several members of the crowd had gathered around the ambulance driver, who had apparently been driving recklessly. They were yelling at him (I never thought I'd hear a white person say "motherfucker" in Evanston), and he responded by screaming, "I DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD!" and becoming so combative that several men just pushed him to the ground and held him there for the police to arrive. He seemed deranged.

Nobody was killed, but several were taken to the hospital. It was a mess. Some people said that the ambulance had been stolen and was being followed by undercover cops at a distance,which doesn't sound entirely fantastic, and would explain the quick notification of emergency crews.

O Brave New World! That Pisses Me Off!

Job-hunting in this new era of technology goes something like this:

Before you can apply for any positions at Big Corporation/University, you need to register. OK. So you spend an hour uploading, entering, answering questions about skills and experience, giving references, responding to inane questions (Them: "describe a situation where you had to be resourceful to complete multiple tasks on a tight deadline." Me: "Every day for the last fifteen years. It's called Having a Job.") Pages of boxes to check, fields to fill in.

Then, after you have done all this, checked everything, and press Submit, the system tells you that there is a technical error, they can't process you, and you should contact technical assistance.