upside

I'm sitting at my computer, staring out the window, and although my view is of a tree with half its branches missing and of a parking lot, I like having a window near my desk - must be the natural light. There's a spider between the two panes of glass in the window. My cat paws at the spider every morning and has yet to figure out that she can't get to it. Today, I noticed that the spider is missing its front left leg. It seems not to mind this, though, and goes about its business.

After the cat paws unsuccessfully at the spider, she jumps down from the window sill and settles in for a long nap behind the curtain. I suspect this is because there is an air vent right above the window, and when the A/C is on, some of the air gets funneled down behind the curtains and keeps her cool. It's one of the few bitches about this condo - since I'm on the fifth floor, it gets quite stuffy and warm up here in the summer, even with A/C on.

I'm about to start my third writing assessment - it's for a company based in Chicago, and the parent company is based in NY, but the job would allow me to work from home, would give me a bit of a bump up in salary, and is similar to the job I just had. I don't think the assessment will be too hard - they sent me six articles on HIV meds adherence (or lack thereof), and I'm supposed to put together 15 slides that summarize why adherence is important for HIV patients. They've give me 10 days to do this, which is way more time than I'll need - the subsidiary in my former company only gave me 48 hours to do 10 slides on hypertension and write two 500-word articles on use of asthma meds in children. If the generous deadline and the writing assignment are indicative of the typical work of this NY/Chicago company, I just may have found heaven. Imagine being given ample time to research and write quality pieces. I had little of that at my last job.

It's also handy that one of my first assignments when I went to work for my former company six years ago was a huge AIDS paper that was all about meds and adherence - I remember there were more than 200 references for that paper, and it seemed to take forever to complete it. I was ready to pop open a bottle of champagne the day we got the galley proofs.

This afternoon, I got a call from yet another recruiter who found my resume on a job site. She has a prospective job for another company in NY for which I could also work from home, and she says they have an "urgent need." So that may be a fourth writing test.

In the meantime, I'm getting caught up on a lot of non-work things - I've been able to sleep in every day, I've finished reading two books and started a third this morning, I've not had to rush around in the mornings getting ready for work, I can stay in pajamas all day, I've had a decent breakfast every day, I've got the back of a sleeveless sweater knitted, and I've started knitting the front of it, I've got most of the stuff from my former office put away, I've gotten some spring cleaning and a ton of errands done, I've been able to take my dog for walks every day, I've got an outline for my script and I'm ready to start scriptfrenzy tomorrow, and I had a mid-day acupuncture treatment yesterday. Being booted out of the company does have some advantages.

I'm mostly over my anger about how the lay-off was handled, and the worry about finding another job hasn't set in yet. The acupunturist didn't even detect it in my pulses. If I've not found another job by the end of the summer, then I'll start worrying, as I've got enough in savings to float me for the summer - after that, things will get tight. I feel like I've got a huge burden off my shoulders, though the process to get that wasn't pleasant. Hindsight says it's all a good thing, even if I didn't see it or feel it while I was in it.