Staring failure in the face at 3am.

Before

Christmas!

3 lbs lighter

Housework by "Weekend Warriors"

The highs and lows. Surprisingly dramatic.

I've been in hiding - well, at work and in hiding. This time because I had a job interview coming up and I needed to prepare. God knows I asked everyone I could think of for advice about what I should or could read up on. I spent hours and hours and hours at it. I don't want to dwell on it but it would have ticked a number of boxes for me. One, I think it would have been really interesting. Two, it was part-time enough so I could easily carry on with the other things I'm doing. Three, it was permanent and well-paid enough so I could stop worrying about money - at least in an acute way.

The interview was yesterday.
I've accumulated a lot of nursing experience but I'd never had this particular role before, so what I was shakiest on was the nuts and bolts of what I'd actually be doing on a day to day basis.
And to cut a long story short the questions in the interview focused particularly on that - the nuts and bolts of what I'd actually be doing everyday. I did my best but by the time I got out the room the life had kind of drained out of me. You can only get so far on "I imagine I'd be..." I won't know for sure until Monday but I'm pretty sure I know for sure now that I'm not getting it.

Oh well. I was tired and I had other things I had to do so I went and did them. I had a fair evening. Dinner's always good, and me and Peter recently watched The Bridge series 2 and were entertained enough to think we'd watch Series One, so we've been getting it sent via Love Film. The main entertainment is watching Saga stumble her way through human interactions, logically correct and socially so wrong...

I was knackered and went to bed early and slept until 2.44am when I awoke. I spent the next hour or so getting reacquainted with the massive insecurity of my job situation which I'd pushed aside in order to focus on this interview. At the moment, on the nurse bank, I'm doing pretty well - I have shifts booked up 3 weeks in advance. This is actually the furthest ahead I've been able to see while working on the bank. Often it's just a shift or two and after that the abyss...nothing. The abyss usually retreats just ahead of you, but in 2011 I hit a spell of 6 weeks without earning anything at all. That was when I took the job at the Sexual Health Clinic. Better to have some kind of certainty than none. That ended up being debatable.
The massive uncertainty gives me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

But slowly I was able to unpick it. There's no such thing as "job security". Or you have job security and then you get a cancer diagnosis and die or get run over by a bus. Or you have job security and you get shot by dissidents or your heart pops when you're out for a nice run. There is no security, there is no security, there is no security. This mantra, and the sound of the rain falling, got me back off to sleep.

Today I was tired, but I wanted to run 15 miles if possible. There was an easterly blowing so I thought to run out and into it, round the Musselburgh lagoons and back with the wind behind. As I couldn't be bothered taking any fuel I thought I'd make it one of these runs when you deliberately deplete your carbohydrate store. I can't remember why you would want to do this but I'm sure it's good for you.

Running is such a good thing. Three miles into it I was happy and everything was falling philosophically into place. My current uncertainty seemed like just a part of the story, not the depressing denouement it had seemed earlier. There was a head-wind but the wind was quite warm so it was pleasant. There were lots of other runners out and pelotons of  cyclist scooting by. By 12 miles I was pretty damn hungry and I had my cash-line along but laziness came to my rescue. Could I be bothered to go into Portobello and go scavenging for food? No I couldn't. Easier to just put myself in a trance and keep going, which I did.

When I got home there were a pile of books arrived from Amazon. I've got a very minor and inexpensive 2nd hand book habit I've developed. Quite often books arrive from the USA that I've totally forgotten I'd ordered. The one I'm on at the moment is by Kurt Vonnegut's son, Mark, who had some kind of psychotic episode before getting better and training as a doctor. I haven't read much of it yet so can't tell you more than that. I haven't even opened the three packages that arrived today yet, but I suspect they are going to be about running. My dissertation is taking me deeper into a period in the 70s in the US when running seemed like the panacea for all mental health problems. Maybe I'll start a revival.

Something weird happened to the Garmin today. If you look at the screenshot of the Garmin Connect page above you'll see that I scooted, not once, but many times, up to 42,000 feet and above today. No wonder it seemed like such a roller coaster ride.

Yep.