Working, kind of. 18.75 hours a week at the Science Library. It doesn't feel like real work because I leave at 12:15 every day. Soon I will be changing my schedule to 9:15 - 1:00 , which is dreamy, except that we're not sure if we can survive with me only earning half a salaray. But what job have you ever done that wouldn't have been improved by a 50% reduction in hours? I love that aspect of it, but worry about the costs I incur by being home in the afternoon. Heat is expensive here - our house is freezing except for right next to the heaters/coal fire. It's the weirdest thing I've ever had to live with. It's like we're living in the 19th century, hugging the fireplace and closing all the doors to get rid of drafts. I now permanently wear big socks and bigger slippers to keep warm and often don a hat for good measure. But on the plus side, when the sun comes out, which it does, it's super mega, luciously warm. That's why everyone wants a house with lots of sun here. Further north it's warmer out, but down here, it gets bloody cold! Of course, when I say cold, I mean 4 degrees Centigrade, but try that with no insulation or heating!

I'm a sap. So sue me.

Job's over. Back to a life of leisure. If I don't die of boredom first.

Booooring. I'm sitting at home these days, reading books, listening to old Forties songs, playing endless games of FreeCell and watching tapes of Friends and Sex and the City. I thought I'd be able to handle being unemployed, but it's different when there are no houseguests and the big guy is working. I do have kitten company, though! We have two new kittens: Sausage and Mr. Smooth. Pictures will follow eventually. They are both dark brown, but Sausage is long-haired. Rosemary, our cat we brought from London, is not impressed and either hides out or hisses menacingly. Never mind. We think she may come around one day. Otherwise, the big news is that we can't get a mortgage so the house-hunting has ground to a halt. We went to see the mortgage advisor because we found a place we reeeeeally liked, but they'd changed the allowances and since I wasn't working, we couldn't afford anything. If I was to work full-time, we could afford a mansion basically, and if I work part-time, we can afford a normal place. So now I've got an interview for a job (library assistant at the Science Library), half-time. I like the idea of it. I think I could manage that. I'd been saying I really wanted to be unemployed so I could have some time to myself, but actually it's just like when I worked at home in London. I get bored and lonely. I like the idea of being with people for half of the day and then having the rest of the time to do whatever... write, sand and varnish shelves, read, talk on the phone with my mom, etc. I remember years ago I had the near-perfect half-time job working at Bailey-Coy books in Seattle. I wrote in my journal in the mornings and then rode my bike from Queen Anne to Capital Hill and worked the evening shift. Got to watch most of Seattle turn up to scope the rest of gay Seattle while I sold them books. It was great. Well, this time I'll be handling inter-library loans for science geeks, but we'll be able to afford a mortgage! Like that would have ever happened in Seattle - ha! Anyway, fingers crossed. The interview is next Wednesday.

The problem with living in NZ is that Xanga figures no one's awake now and they do server maintenance.

Recently, it seems like every time I've gone to write an entry here, the servers were down for maintenance. Because of course all decent people are asleep at this hour, I suppose. Never mind. It's strange enough having to remember that it's yesterday everywhere else in the world. I keep going to the Guardian and Observer websites to read the weekend news a day too early. Never mind again. Life is so different here. I used to have a job that was vaguely challenging, but which I hated, working with techies that I like but couldn't fully relate to. Now I'm working in a library full of really groovy, lefty women - which is awesome - doing really mind-numbingly easy work. It feels like when I worked at the deli at The Wedge, a really hip food co-op in Minneapolis. Everyone I woked with seemed to be an artist or in a band, so we had a fun time together even though we spent our days scooping salads up for people. It's probably self-serve by now. Save about ten salaries right there. Although it's somehow much more appealing when it's behind glass and someone else has to serve it to you. Scooping it up yourself takes all the charm out of it, I've noticed. It's not quite like that at the library though. People can't order their own interloan books (books from other libraries) because all libraries have to keep careful record of which book is which and who is responsible for it at that precise moment. Everyone holds their breath until the mail arrives. Or they would if there weren't literally thousands of our books in transit at any one time. There was a good story of the time we returned a book to the Library of Congress and the freight company that delivered it claimed there was no one there to receive it at 3pm on a Wednesday. As if the LOC were a little rinky-dink place that was deserted most of the time. Turns out there's a company that opens all their mail.  I think all the American government departments started doing that after the last anthrax scare. That way someone else's employees get poisoned, I guess.

Guess who opens the mail in our department? That's right, old Anthrax Hands herself.