Is there a 12-step program that can help me? I was looking for a word today. I couldn’t remember the exact word, but I remembered that it started with logo and it meant something about being focussed on words.

I thought I’d blogged about it. So I looked on my blog, but I was scanning. I couldn’t find it.

I looked through m-w.com for all words starting with logo…but I didn’t find it.

I googled “lover of words”. I found a logophile’s lament. I only read the first two paragraphs before I realized that I HAVE THIS affliction. I HAVE EXACTLY this affliction.

Hello. My name is Jennifer. I am a logophile.

PS: I found my word: Logomachist. It was buried in the entry about fornicating frogs.

Ok. Ok. I say. I guess that’s it. You know the rule. I was referring to the time we were eating dinner in Chena Luna and he told me about his friend who’d broken up with the girlfriend sometime last year, but after a few months, they were back together again.

Well–I told him then. With me. You can only break up with me once. That’s the rule. I’ve learned my lesson. I know what it’ s like to be in and out–and back in again–and back out again. And up and down on that roller coaster. And whatever. I don’t do that anymore. I don’t need orchestrated drama in my life.

I phone him a few hours later to get further clarification and closure. Can you articulate it? I ask. Can you articulate why you don’t have those feelings? Because I wish somebody could explain it. I tell him. I’ve heard it before. The last time was after a 12-year relationship.

I wonder what it is? What am I doing so that things never work out? I wonder because as my housemate correctly points out: the only constant in my relationships is me. AND my relationships always seem to turn out the same way–whether they are three months or 12 years. There is a constant that is consistently producing the same results.

And I think about this piece of advice Alan gave me once.

I think I need to make better decisions. Better decisions about who I let into my life. Better decisions about how I let them in. I guess the only thing I can say now is so very cliche: Live and learn Jennifer. Live and learn.

On that note, I’m going to work in my garden.

I’m normally a pretty smart person. Really, I am. I just don’t have a whole lot of common sense sometimes. I have a hot tub in my back yard that I haven’t hooked up yet. During the winter here, there was an awful lot of rain, and the tub was filling up. I felt I needed to empty it, but I couldn’t find a drain valve.

Charlie mentions that I could just siphon out the water. Wow. I think. Easy, low-tech solution. When he leaves, I look around for a hose to siphon out the water. The only thing I find is the hose on the ShopVac. AND that is huge. Three inches in diameter at least. I put one end in the rain-filled tub and I huff and suck on the other end–to get the water flowing.

And it does. And the water gushes out of the 3-inch diameter hose. And the tub empties really fast. I was feeling pretty pleased that I’d gotten it going. I wasn’t necessarily going to tell anyone about it. I don’t know if that’s something I want people to know about me: I can siphon rain water through a ShopVac hose 3-inches in diameter. But, now I’m blogging about it. So I guess it’s out there.

Except, after a certain bit, the water stops flowing. I realize I need the exit end to be lower than the entry end, and the ShopVac hose is just too short. I look around for another hose. I find bit of irrigation tubing buried in the back of the garden shed. Great I think. It’s the right length and is a bit more manageable in diameter.

I return to the hot tub and stick the end into the bottom. I huff and suck on the other end to get the water going again. EXCEPT. EXCEPT. This time, the hose has been in the bottom of the garden shed for far too long. I suck something other than water through the hose. It’s either a spider or a spider’s web. I don’t know.

I vomit.

And a neon three-dimensional L appears over my head again.

From my Mum today:

Hi All,
Guess what we had in the driveway this morning? A big bull moose! Dad went out the back door to get a picture of it. When he saw Dad approaching , he turned and left and went up the road, cutting through the park just beyond our fence line. Dad got a photo of him on the road.

Then when we left for town, there was a car stopped down the road, and a lady was walking around. We stopped to check on her. Apparently she had a flat tire, so was waiting for her husband to come. But she had seen the moose up on the pond in front of her house at the top of the hill of Fireweed Drive.

Two weeks ago, Albert called Ken over to his place behind our place, and he got two photos of moose then in their yard.

We had seen two moose (cow and a yearling) quite a while ago, munching on bushes near the house by the mail boxes .

So when I have some time, I will send a photo. I am trying to get some binding on my postcard wallhanging so want to finish it. I have another class to go to tonight too. .

Jim (my brother-in-law), I tried writing to you yesterday, but the message failed. Hope you get this one. How high is the snow at your place? Are you tired of winter yet? Did you get your new truck?

Ours is melting!

Bye for now

Love Mum

I had an interview last summer with a local company. I’d contracted for them in 2001 and 2002, but this interview was for a full-time position. I was a fit. I knew the engineering team. I knew the technology. I know technical writing. However, I also knew I wanted something more than being, “just a writer”. I wanted a lead position. I’ve been “just a writer” since 1996. I wanted a position with some responsibility where I can learn and grow and help others grow.

Regardless that it wasn’t a lead position, I had an interview. It was with a series of people. By the third hour, I was very tired. I also felt that they’d asked me the same questions and I was just repeating myself. The team I would be working with interviewed me last. I may now have been in my fifth hour of interview.

This guy just didn’t like me. He felt my blog wasn’t professional. Duh! It’s a personal blog. He was also testing me too I think. He said that there would be long hours if I took the job and how did I feel about that? I said, well this company isn’t really a startup, so why the long hours? He said the company had doubled its product portfolio in the last year and added engineering resources, but they still struggled in Tech Pubs.

I asked if he’d talked to his manager about that. He implied that would be the easy way out. That—you should just tough it out—suck it up. That was just the way it is in this industry: long hours.

I said I’d given my life to startups for the last seven years for little or no return. But, I’d do what I could do as well as I could in any given timeframe. That is all I could say.

I asked if I were hired, could I go on a training course like the customers—learn about the product the way the customer learns about the product. He looked horrified. Like I’d just asked the impossible. He said they would never waste resources like that on a writer. Personally, I felt that was a really efficient way for somebody to get up-to-speed on a technical product. Train them. Better yet, train them from the customer perspective, not the engineering perspective. Ridiculous. He scoffed.

The next guy was the last guy in the list of people who interviewed me. I was at the very end of my attention span and the very end of a tedious day. I asked him what he thought of the long hours.

He thought about it for a moment and said: Yeah. There are long hours. I find though, that I can use my wife as a guideline. I’ve learned to recognize when I work too much. And then I make adjustments.

A bit dumbfounded, I said (rather matter-of-factly): Well. I don’t have a wife. I don’t have somebody to cook for me or clean for me or do my shopping or do my laundry. I have to do that all myself AND I have to work full-time to support myself in California. I’m not willing to put in more hours to make a company more successful than I can make myself.

I think this interview is over.

And I left the building.

She swears by texting. She txts people all the time. It’s the best way she says, especially if you’re fighting with your boyfriend. It takes you all that time to compose that message on the keypad…then you can read it over before you send it…make sure it’s exactly what u wnt 2 say…then–only then–you send it.

How’s the make-up text? I ask.

Conor looked at me in the kitchen the other day. Who are you? he asked. Who are you? He looked directly at me, expecting an answer.

I was startled by such a direct question from a five-year-old. I was speechless. I had an existential moment. Who am I? I wondered. Really? Who am I? How do I explain myself to this five-year-old?

After a few days of reflection, I finally realized that he’d asked me who I was in relation to him. I couldn’t answer him then, but I probably could now.

I am Jennifer I’d say. I am your mom’s friend. You guys needed a place to stay last November and I needed people to stay in my house. So–now you’re here. And I’m here.

But, his question still perplexes me. I’m still thinking about it. Who are you?

Maybe the question should be: Who do you want to be?

I guess I’d better get on that.