The only source of knowledge is experience.
Albert Einstein

La La, How the life goes on
John Lennon & Paul McCartney

You know, I'm gonna stop apologizing for taking so long between posts. Apparently, I'm immune to my own shaming so it's kinda pointless. Suffice it to say, however, that this time it was due to some technical difficulties and leave it at that. (That said, I really do want to post more frequently.)

This one's just going to be a quick life update but, during the aforementioned delay, I've been formulating my thoughts for a meatier (meteor?) post which will happen soon. That's right. Sometimes there are actual thought processes that go into these incoherent ramblings. Who knew, huh?

From the "I Can't Believe It's Not Cancer" department: So far so good. Due to some scheduling mix-ups and then transportation snafus, I canceled my latest CT scan earlier this month. I think I have one scheduled in September but I haven't confirmed that yet. The scheduling system seems very inconsistent and, since different departments are authorized to see different parts of my record, I've gotten mixed responses depending on whom I'm talking to.

If I have one complaint about how the overall experience has been handled, it's that communication of things like that have been a mixed bag and sometimes the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing, even though it's supposed to be a team of various departments all working together. Having worked in healthcare, I realize that there are government regulations involved and that always chucks a monkey wrench into whatever machinery it touches, but something like scheduling should be pretty straightforward. I'm currently working with three individual doctors (surgeon, radiation, and chemo) and two other departments (CT and Voice/swallow) so keeping it all organized can be tricky. As some of them drop out of the mix in the not-too-distant future my hope is that it will get a little easier.

From the "Shouldering the Responsibility" department: The shoulder still hurts but not as bad as it once did. Physical therapy helped quite a bit with the range of motion. I haven't actually gone to the PT clinic for a while but I'm still doing some of the exercises at home. Probably — well, no, not probably — definitely not as much or as often as I should be but enough to maintain. Some days I just don't feel like it and I have earned the right to be a little bit of a grumpy old man about it. So there.

I had the MRI done and it basically turned up………… a big bunch of nuthin'. So I decided to be done with that particular Dr. Orthoguy and got a referral to a shoulder specialist. I would have already had that appointment but the automotive issue previously referred to in passing caused a reschedule of that as well. Beginning of August, here we come. I just want some sort of answer. I'm OK with it if this is going to be my new normal but I want to know that. And I want to ask some questions about what the implications of that are. Limitations? Prohibitions? Etc? Or, if there are other options, I want to know that as well. What I don't want is to pay an office visit for the privilege of waiting for 45 minutes for the doctor to spend 5 minutes to tell me that he really has no idea what's wrong. (But I'm not bitter or anything…)

From the "Pssst… Hey, Buddy. Wanna buy a job?" department: I mentioned last time that I decided not to follow up on the initial job possibility in favor of a better one later. Well, the better one — actually the one that the first one reports to — did become available shortly thereafter. And I applied for it. But I did so knowing that I most likely wouldn't take it. Weird, I know, but there was a method behind that particular slice of madness. There were so many pieces that had to fall in place for anything to work out. Just because I applied didn't mean I would get an interview. Just because I got an interview didn't mean I would get an offer. And just because I got an offer didn't mean I would accept it.

The more I looked into it, the more I realized that I really wasn't very excited about the job itself. It's a decent job to be sure. Maybe even more than decent. But I already have a more than decent job. For all of its frustrations, my current job is a pretty good fit for me and I like where I work and the people I work with. That's a pretty big deal these days. I have the skills necessary to have done the other job, sure, but it's not really what I do. So there's no motivation there.

Financially, the top of their pay range — it's a state government position so they have to disclose the range publicly — would have been a slight increase. But the cost of living in the area would also have been a bit higher so let's call that a wash. So no motivation there either.

So what motivation was left? Let's all say it together, class. "Len!"

That's right. The only reason to even consider it was because it would put me near her. And, at this point anyway, that's no reason to uproot my whole life and relocate. Now make no mistake. If she and I get to the point where we build our friendship or whatever this thing is for a while and both decide that we want to take it to the next level, then I'm looking for a job — any job — to get me as close to her as I can be. But we're not there. And maybe we never will be. So, as much as I would like to be the lead in a romcom and throw all sensibility out the window and go there on a whim to prove my love and show up at her office in a tuxedo with three dozen red roses and have her be overcome with emotion and say something stupid like, "You had me at 'I'm jobless and homeless but I'm here'" and have everything turn out great and covered in rainbows and unicorn poop and live happily ever after, well…… I don't really have to finish that sentence, do I? Didn't think so.

But I applied for the job anyway for two reasons. First, it's been quite a while since I've gone through the whole job interview process. And much longer since I've done so in an unknown environment. My last two job interviews were both in familiar settings with people I knew and situations I was comfortable with. So I valued the experience of going headlong into one just for the practice. Second, I've learned that you always have the conversation because you never know what might happen, right? They could have presented me with an amazing opportunity that I simply couldn't pass up. But not if I never applied. Or Len could have reached the point in the interim where she decided she was ready to move forward and that would have changed the whole picture. But I needed to be in the process.

As expected, neither of those things happened, of course, or I would have written about it already. But it didn't hurt anything to allow for the possibility. As it turns out, I never got called for an interview which doesn't really surprise me. Like I said, while I could have done the job it isn't really a good fit and I'm sure there were applicants who are better suited for it.

Oh well. It is what it is. Ob La Di, Ob La Da. Life goes on.