More jobbery

Still waiting for a suitable librarian job to open up. My criteria for suitability include the following:

1. Nearby location.
For Texas, this means less than one and a half hours away. If we lived in one of the bigger metropoli/ses, this wouldn't be an issue, but since we live close to a lot of middle-of-nowheres, I've seen mostly postings for 1.5+ hours. That's one way. Three hours on the road? I like to drive, yes. In fact, when A. and I first began seeing each other, he lived in a town four hours away. We took turns driving on the weekends, and man, that was hellish. But I think if we hadn't had a long distance relationship, we might not have stayed together. Or maybe we would have. It's hard to tell.* Anyway, it was too much driving. I could probably do it, but the salary would have to be better than what I make now to justify the increased gas costs. Judging from some of the job descriptions I've considered, that might be difficult to do.

2. Job title=librarian
Sound silly? I should probably be more open especially with the shitty economy, but I'm not going to drive three hours a day for a technician job, even if it pays more. If the title's something like "Library Manager(!)" pay and work are comparable to an MLS-required Librarian position, I'll get on that. But I've yet to see that offered in concordance with criterion number 1.

3. There is no number three.
HA. There's a serious dearth of jobs fitting 1 and 2. Everything's just too far away. I should probably just suck it up, buy a Prius and start applying to those out-of-the-way libraries. In the meantime, I spend a lot of time salivating over distant jobs I can't apply for, since A. and I will be remaining in Texas for at least another two, maybe three years. For instance, wouldn't you love to work at BLACKSTOCK COLLEGE?**

College Librarian (Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota)

Naturally I'm a little biased since it's Minnesota. Maybe I could work up some enthusiasm for a commute.

It's leftover Halloween candy week at work. It's good to keep the benefits in mind.









<sup>*I'm curious about this. Is it possible to foist fate on yourself? Did we convince ourselves that our love was a golden destined one protected by Eddie Murphy and we would not be thwarted by distance aka demons/negativity/those darn feuding Montagues and Capulets? Um. I mean, really. I think people in serious relationships overdramatise the miracle of Their Love all the time, and A. and I certainly exchanged many overwrought loving emails and phone calls regarding the unfair nature of our separation. But we're happily married now. So. Either it's all a sham and we don't want to admit it because we like the idea of our awesome love affair too much, or we were really fated to be together. I'm gonna go with the second, because a) I like the idea of our awesome love affair too much, b) he's A.!, and c) in the words of Kyle Reese, there's no fate but what we make. So not only can A. and I claim to be fated lovers, but we can pat ourselves on the back for making it happen. YEAH! (We'll high-five later.)

**Yeah, yeah, it wasn't completely or actually based on Carleton. Classics! English! Shakespeare! Janet! Thomas! Infuriating Nicholas! The Meeb! Agh. Read it if you haven't. Read it a couple times. It gets better with every re-read.</sup>