While it is true that I can be high-strung, I am not manic, nor manic-depressive, nor even moody. I am pretty even-keeled. The keel is not very mellow -- I am too intense for that -- but it is at least consistent. I am determined and focused, if we are being polite, or I am obsessive and fixated, if we are being mean.

Thus my recent career and education craziness has been completely out of character. I am ready to return to my familiar, trustworthy craziness. This desperate grasping-at-straws frenzy needs to stop.

Unemployment. It makes you do funny things.

I shall start this discussion with a reminder to the HR people at the local libraries and bookstores: I have a perfectly functional MLS and I'd gratefully take a job with you. You all have my resume. Drop me a line.

Meanwhile, I need a job, or I need to go back to school, or both. For several years I've been toying with the idea of getting some sort of green job -- managing forests or farming vegetables or rehabilitating wild animals or doing something, anything, to do nice things for the planet. And that is still what I want to do when I grow up. That, and I want to write novels for a living. It could happen. It could.

But right now, in this horrid economy, I do not have the education and experience to slide into a green career, not in any obvious way. I could take out a ton of loans and get another degree, but I am terrified that I still wouldn't be able to find a job. I'd be in exactly the same place I am now, only with a lot more debt. I'm going to start volunteering with a green organization soon, though. Don't know which one, but it's going to happen.

I also recently toyed with the idea of becoming a yoga instructor. My yoga instructor from Williamsburg (hi, Jennifer!) suggested it to me, and I think she might be on to something. I'd love to do the teacher training. I might even be able to earn money afterward. I am going to revisit the idea someday when I have a steady income. Right now, unfortunately, I can't justify spending the money.

To recap: I'd love a book-related job, but I can't find one right now; I'd love to get a green job, but I can't figure out how to do that right now; and I'd love to become a yoga instructor, but I can't afford it right now.

So what can I do right now? I can fret over a variety of different financial doomsday scenarios. I am getting really good at that. As a gift to friends and family, I will fretfully concoct a financial doomsday scenario, tailored specifically to you and your circumstances, for a modest consulting fee.

Also, I can get myself certified as a substitute teacher. That's what I'll be doing next week. $150 for the training, the text, and the price of gas, and by 3:30 next Friday afternoon, I'll be qualified to sub here and in the next county. It may take a while for the calls to start coming in, but once they do, I'll be able to survive indefinitely on the income, especially when I combine it with my library writing gigs.

Oh, and this evening I started applying to grad school.

Eep! I feel like I'm 18 again. Between school applications and boys, it's just like being a teen.

(Quick aside: per longstanding policy here at The Lesbrarian, I do not write about my personal relationships, not unless the parties involved wind up in the crime section of the local paper. Suffice it to say that I have met a gentleman. I have met him a grand total of once, but it went well. He does not live in the same town, so it is not a formal relationship, and it might never be; but if it ends in fire, explosions, assault, grand theft, or terrorism, I shall dutifully report it here -- and if it doesn't end like that, it was never a proper relationship to begin with, if you ask me.)

When I was 18, I believed that my intelligence, determination, attitude, and flexibility would be enough to lead me toward fulfilling employment, no matter what I studied in college. I fantasize nowadays about finding my eighteen-year-old self and boxing her in the ear. She was insufferable.

Now I am a jaded 30, and I pretty much insist that any degree I pursue will result in a job. Furthermore, I strongly prefer that any degree I pursue be a distance ed degree. I don't want to have to drop my classes, even if a fulltime job comes along, even if a fulltime job in another location comes along.

At any rate, this evening I started applying for a distance ed graduate program at one of the state schools. It's for a master's degree/teacher licensure in special ed. Two or three semesters, relatively affordable, and I'd be all kinds of employable afterwards. (I would also be more employable as a librarian, especially in the public and school media sectors.) Just as importantly, it's the kind of job that I think I'd enjoy. We can all agree that someone needs to travel back in time to shake some sense into the 18-year-old Jessica, but even the world-weary 30-year-old version insists on not hating her job.

I wouldn't be starting until the fall semester. I've got some time to submit my application, and some time to change my mind. I will say, however, that it's been a long while since I've been this pleased with a possible career/education combo. It seems to strike the right balance of personal happiness, viability, and affordability. For those of you wondering where in the hell this degree idea came from ("Special ed? SPECIAL ED? Is she out of her bleeding mind?") I will expand on my thoughts later. For now I'm just pleased that the frenetic scarperings of the past few weeks have quieted down.

Some people are good at painting landscapes or growing orchids or restoring old cars. My hobby is finding abusive people and forming relationships with them. Since I've already got a ton of experience with abusive romantic relationships, I thought it might be nice to add some variety, so I decided to seek out abuse in the workplace.

I have a natural talent for that, too, it seems. I've had unpleasant bosses before, but this was the first time I've ever had a boss who didn't pay me for the work I did. That's abuse on a whole new level. He even tried to get me to do free work on my days off. On top of that he was condescending, churlish, and petty.

By the by, if anyone reading this is appalled that I'm joking about abusive relationships, then this is probably not the website for you. Gallows humor is the norm around here. It's how I cope.

I'm not going to offer details about the job I just left. All you need to know is that it lasted a week. I quit today, and while it ought to have been a liberating process, it was extremely unpleasant. Even my resignation letter was fair game for nasty little criticisms.

I've been dwelling on it all weekend. Strike that; I have not been dwelling on anything. "Dwell" is such a passive verb. I have been actively obsessing over this stupid job, to the point where I yelled "QUIT FUCKING THINKING ABOUT IT ALREADY, OKAY?", which startled the cats but otherwise had no obvious effect. My stomach is still filled with butterflies and I can feel the lingering fight-or-flight chemicals chewing on my nerves.

In the movies, this is the point where the heroine goes out and restores her spirits with some mindless casual sex, only it never works like that in real life and anyway I don't know the right people for that sort of thing. Alternately, we could pan in on the heroine venting her frustrations by getting in some practice at the shooting range or by demolishing a punching bag, but the problem with those scenarios is that I don't own a gun or a punching bag. Which is a shame, now that I reflect on it.

I think tomorrow I'll find a mountain and hike it. That should take care of some of my frazzled feeling. I might need a different mountain than my normal one, though. My normal mountain is wonderful, and it's very close by, but its trail has too much horizontal and not enough vertical.

Ah well. Back to being unemployed. Sympathy now being accepted, though if it's all the same to you I'd rather have the weapons and the punching bags.

It's here! It's here at last! It is the 6th annual review of books, here at The Lesbrarian! I have been waiting for this post all year! Haven't you? OF COURSE YOU HAVE! On January first at midnight, when other people are drinking champagne and throwing confetti and frolicking, I am laboring to make sure that you have access to the minute details of my personal reading history. You just don't get service like that from people these days, nosiree.

2011 was a bittersweet book year. For the first three quarters I was reading like a demon. By the end of August it looked as though I would surpass all the previous records (130 books in 2006; 141 books in 2007; 83 books in 2008; 101 books in 2009; and 112 books in 2010). Only then I quit my job and moved to another state, which is the sort of thing that consumes all of one's free time. And then once I got settled, I found out what it's like to be a regular person-- not a librarian, just a normal civilian. Normal people, I discovered to my regret and horror, normal people go to workplaces where they are not surrounded by books.

So, although I am content with this year's respectable grand total of 128 books, I am just a little bit melancholy knowing that it could have been a lot higher.

(I always get sentimental at the new year. Don't you?)

Total books read, cover-to-cover: 128

Age levels:

• Adult: 115
• YA: 13
• Children's: 0. Whoops. I did mean to read that one about the bear and the hat. I'll put that on the list for 2012.

Books read that were published in 2011: about 40.

Nonfiction: 23

Fiction: 105

Genres: (as some books have more than one genre, total exceeds 128)

Nonfiction:

• Art: 1
• Business: 1
• History: 2
• Humor: 4
• Language: 1
• Political Science: 2
• Science: 11
• Social Science: 7
• Women's Nonfiction, which is a genre, dammit: 1

Fiction:

• Canonical/Classic: 1
• Crime: 14
• Fantasy: 37
• Historical Fiction: 4
• Horror: 14
• Humor: 5
• Literary Fiction: 6
• Mainstream/Popular: 11
• Mystery: 7
• Romance: 2 (one of which I enjoyed, to my great surprise; that would be One Day, by David Nicholls)
• Science Fiction: 7
• Superhero: 2
• Suspense/thriller:11
• Western: 1 (True Grit, which was good fun, and if I were the sort of person who watched movies I would see both versions)

Formats:

• Audiobooks: New! This is the first year I've listened to audiobooks. I'd still much, much rather read a book on a page, but that's very difficult to do while hiking, and I've learned that I can tolerate them pretty well if they are nonfiction. I listened to two books, The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan, and America's Women, by Gail Collins. And actually I listened to a third after I'd read it in print. Samuel L. Jackson's reading of Go the F*ck to Sleep is uproarious.
• Comics: 2 collections, both hysterical; Five Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth, by Matthew Inman, whom I intend to marry, and Dawn of the Bunny Suicides, by Andy Riley
• Graphic Novels: 32, of which 3 were nonfiction
• Novellas: 2
• Photo Collection: 1
• Picture Book: 2, both of which were adult spoofs: Go the F*ck to Sleep, by Adam Mansbach, and Pat the Zombie, by Aaron Ximm
• Short Story Collections: 3

Miscellaneous:

• Annual fat Russian novel: The Conquered City, by Victor Serge, which is the most incomprehensible Russian book I've ever read. Which is saying something.
• Re-reads: 13, including the entire 100 Bullets series
• Annual grammar book: How to Write a Sentence and How to Read One, by Stanley Fish

Authors: 86

New (to me) authors: 66

Best book of the year: The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear, both by Patrick Rothfuss. Storytelling does not get better than this.

Honorable mentions:

• Elmer, by Gerry Alanguilan
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
• Beasts of Burden, by Evan Dorkin
• In the Woods, by Tana French
• The Magician King, by Lev Grossman
• Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat, by Hal Herzog
• Joe Hill's Locke & Key series
• Five Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth, by Matthew Inman
• The Postmortal, by Drew Magary
• Eaarth, by Bill McKibben
• One Day, by David Nicholls
• The Hammer, by K. J. Parker
• The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan
• Snuff, by Terry Pratchett
• The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle, by Patrick Rothfuss
• REAMDE, by Neal Stephenson
• Griftopia, by Matt Taibbi
• Pride of Baghdad, by Brian K. Vaughan

Worst:

A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness, had weak prose and terrible dialogue and some pretty noticeable plot holes.

For your obsessive pleasure: Every single book I read! Sorted by author!