So, okay, I've worn the new pants (the Capris) out of the house twice now. Once to walk over to lunch, once to go to the complex management office to sign a new lease. ($34 rent increase!) I was--cringing. Both times.

I swore to myself if I bought them I'd wear them, but I don't know. I may be getting on toward geezerdom in years but I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around the sight of myself dressed toward geezerdom.

Ah, well.

No interviews this week, except one phone interview from an agency.

Don't get me wrong--I take even a phone interview as encouraging. Especially when, as this place did, they call back for clarification on certain points. That means that they're at least really considering you, right? She called back because their client had some questions about my resume, which was very encouraging. (It's less encouraging that I haven't heard back from her since, though.)

As the R.C. points out, I'm getting three times the play on my resume submissions this time, which means I've finally got the resume tweaked correctly. Now all I need is someone willing to hire me even though I'm not 25 any more. (I don't get this age-discrimination in hiring thing. It's not like anyone signs on and becomes a life-long employee of most companies any more. People job-hop every couple of years. My resume shows I stay for an average of five years at most jobs, making me one of the most astonishingly stable employees you could have.)

What I really want is for someone to call up and say, "We'll hire you for as much money as you said you wanted and we want you to start in two weeks." That way I both have employment and I have a brief interval when I can finally relax and enjoy some of this time off. (After all, starting over means no vacation time for six months or more.)

Speaking of geezerdom, I need a haircut. I'm going to bypass the cheap-but-not-talented stylist I've been using to go back to Mr. One-Hour-Minimum-and-Mortgage-Your-House guy. I begrudge the time he needs to give me a cut (even when I'm unemployed and have all the time one could want) but he does a good job.

I'm squirming a bit though. I have to explain to him why I haven't been to see him for the last eight months, after seeing him regularly for eight years.

What else is new?

Well, I have friends I'm supposed to be contacting that I haven't been. I have housecleaning I told myself I needed to do that I haven't done.

The R.C., after months of debate and indecision, wandered out the other day and came home with a GameBoy DS and a new game or two. What with one thing and another, it reignited my own love for playing video games and we've been switching off machines and games ever since.

She's playing the new HP DS game. I'm working on that one but I'm also using the GB Advance to work my way through the Zelda Minish Cap game. She's had it forever, but I never got around to playing it.

Now that I am, I'm giving thanks once again for walkthroughs.

(I remember, back in the dark ages when GB was new, you had to call a phone number and pay by the minute to get help if you were stuck.* Then there was an official walkthrough book and life was good. Later, there were many more games, not all with official books, but by then there was the internet and Game Geeks rushing to be the first ones to finish a game so they could post walkthroughs online, and life was really good.)

I like to think that my fondness for the GameBoy suggests that I am not some kind of Luddite (in spite of still resisting the lure of Firefox and letting my html skills nearly atrophy) and that I am, as my resume claims, comfortable with technology.

Summer o'Gardening-wise, I will not be being replaced by a pod-person at any time in the near future. For some reason the budding pods (or whatever) on my bromeliad have wilted. The plant itself seems happy enough, though. One of my mixed planting pots on the porch has developed some weird kind of mange, though. And I whacked a pot full of marigolds against a shelf the other day and broke off half the plant.

"Green thumb" isn't the first thing I think of when I'm thinking of my own skill-set.

There was something else I meant to blog about, but I've forgotten what it was.

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* At that point, when the phone tips failed us, I'd sneak the GB into my office and take it to the tech support department when no one was watching. There was always some Game Geek there who could figure out the tricks and get us past hard parts.