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Heeey! Sorry for the long absence, I was in a K~hole all last week. The national news was not pretty as you all know and personal news fit with that theme as well. I finally did get a notification about the one job I was waiting to hear about (negative) and there was a 2nd phone interview that I was looking forward to with another organization that was cancelled. Back to square one. This is getting ridiculous.

Anyhow, on a good note Prince was in Portland tonight. Of course I had to go. He had his 3rdEyeGirl backup band, a bare-bones affair with just a bass, guitar and drummer. The venue was smaller and the band was an intimate fit for the setting. But if you’re a longtime Prince fan you know his music comes with a lot of keyboards and background vocals, which were mostly absent with this setup. Still, the song lineup fit well, which I think went like this:

Let’s Go Crazy
Endorphinmachine
Screwdriver
She’s Always In My Hair
Dolphin
I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man
Guitar
Plectrum Electrum
Fixurlifeup
Colonized Mind
Bambi w/ Joshua Welton (cowbell)
2Y2D w/ Joshua Welton (cowbell, vox)
Cause And Effect
Sign O’ The Times
Forever In My Life
Purple Rain

Some dude with a cowbell. OK. And “Dolphin”? That was weird but I’ve never heard it live so it was fun. Anyway, he did offer a some old tunes, but the most alarming thing to me was the flat response from the audience. Flat as a pancake. Portland, I think you smoke too much weed. For a minute there I actually felt sorry for Prince. I mean, how do you not know the words to “She’s Always In My Hair,” “I Could Never Take The Place of Your Man,” and “Bambi”? They were rocking out to his new tracks but I counted maybe two people up by the stage who were going nuts to his old stuff. The audience was not really familiar with Prince but were there anyway for some unknown reason. Maybe it was the 8pm Gresham/Beaverton crowd and the 11pm show will rock out more, but it’s clear that while Portland does indie well, it does not know the funk.

Earlier this week Darth Jersey alerted me to my actor doppelgänger, woofy Canadian actor Geoff Gustafson. He was on a recent episode of Cult (which I’ve never watched) and was in Hot Tub Time Machine, a film with a ridiculous premise but was oddly endearing. I am flattered by Darth Jersey’s comparison but that doesn’t forgive the fact that he routinely kicks my butt at Words With Friends. I hear tell there are apps that will maximize your word strategy with the game and I often wonder…

In other doppelgänger news, I may go on a date soon with a guy who looks disturbingly like Durban Bud. I mean, he even purses his lips in all his profile photos. But of course I would never go on a date with a BrettCajun doppelgänger. Eeew…

I had a busy week starting my volunteer job. It’s only two afternoons a week but after six months of casually going out for coffee after waking up at 11am it’s a bit of an adjustment. We already had a violent “incident” there while I was working. Nobody was hurt but it was disturbing. I have encountered bouts of rage during rugby matches but when that happens during play you’re all kind of riled up at the same level of aggression so it doesn’t seem so bad during play. But when you’re sitting there answering phone calls and somebody flips out it’s another thing. I’ve already taken bloodborne pathogen training, and will soon get training in “de-escalation” for similar incidents, and training in identifying potential overdose patients. It is certainly unlike anything I’ve done before.

And I had a phone interview with a recruiter from a major outdoor clothing line in Portland. It seemed to go well and the recruiter and I chatted for a long time. By now I have a lot of interview questions down pat and did a lot of studying in advance. It’s a job I’d really be well suited for and am eager to hear back from them.

I had applied for that job independent of any contacts or leads, but later corresponded with two people who helped get my application on somebody’s desk at that company. Thank you loyal blog readers and you know who you are. Contacts are key, especially in a market where recruiters are getting hundreds of applicants. Earlier this spring I was chatting with a friend who was also looking for work who had been seeing a career coach. His coach confirmed the importance of leads and contacts over cold applications. He said something like 80% of jobs are found through networking so spend 80% of your time doing that and only 20% of your time responding to ads. And aggressively expand your contact list. It is essential to keep assembling your comprehensive list of acquaintances from all current and past associations. Do not leave anybody out. Through the graces of another blog reader I’ve also got some good leads from the Seattle area as well, and have been following up on those too.

But after three weeks I still haven’t heard a peep from the city job where I interviewed in person. This is the second instance in this region where an organization has invited me in their offices for an in-person interview where I never hear from them again, even after following up with brief messages of continued interest. I understand and am getting used to non-responses from initial online or email applications, but when you invite me into your house for a chat I expect a little more interaction later on. I don’t think it’s that I’m awful and abhorrent in the interviews either. I will remember this when I am on an interview committee and in charge of follow-up. Even if it’s disappointing news, it’s good to hear back from an interview committee. And it doesn’t take that long to get back to the eight people you spoke with for an hour each, no matter how busy you are.

I wonder if this behavior is part of what is interpreted as passive-aggressive in the Pacific Northwest. Rather than potentially disappoint someone, people here simply cease communication. That’s interpreted as Pacific Northwest Passive-Aggressive, but I call it conflict avoidance. People here don’t seem to know how to negotiate conflict, and/or are afraid to disappoint anyone. Sometimes people get disappointed, and that’s a part of life. It’s called communication.

Kiri and I went on a short overnight test hike to the Siouxon Trail in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington state. It was the first hike I did when I arrived to the Portland area, and is a lovely hike with two waterfalls and nice scenery. The photo on the left is from the trip in October, and the one on the right from last week. You can see the difference in spring stream flow. Click to embiggen:

This national forest includes the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, which also has tons of trails and interesting volcanic features.

I normally don’t try to start campfires, as I’ve seen wilderness campsites denuded of vegetation from too much wood gathering. But it was cold and clammy out so I gave it a try. Oregon wood is pretty much soaked through and it took an hour and a whole box of matches to light. So I think I will go back to my no campfire rule because it’s also too much effort. I have a camp stove for cooking and boiling water.

I also found out Grampaw Jimbo needs a new comfy camping mattress. My Ridgerest/Thermarest combo doesn’t do the trick anymore – I was sore all over from trying to sleep on it. Plus it takes too much space in my pack. Kiri had a large inflatable setup that takes 1/4 of the space that I want to buy. It’ll be worth it to get one of those instead.

Oh hi! The sun came out last week in Portland and everyone – including myself – went absolutely bonkers. The temperatures went beyond 70 and the sky was absolutely clear. When that happens you go outside no matter what and absorb as much sunlight as possible, because the next day is likely to be grey and dreary. But I think we actually had three solid days of wonderful sunlight. I hear tell it’s been a merciful winter and spring in terms of cloud cover and precipitation. I haven’t found it to be that much worse than winters in DC, which were almost as gloomy and certainly more grey. But then again I have the time to go outside every day even on cloudy days, which still helps with winter blues.

Before the bike ride on the sunny day where the above photo of Mt. Hood was taken, I went out snowboarding again with Kiri, on the slopes of the same mountain. Since it was the second trip of the season my body was in better shape and I had fun, but I still board on the safe side as an accident would be catastrophic. I suppose I could cloister myself in my room to be absolutely safe, but that wouldn’t be good in terms of mental health either. So I recreate. Lord knows I have the time for it. I don’t think I’ve been in this good shape in a while.

And I went hiking with some pals up the Columbia Gorge at Starvation Creek State Park, which had a lot of purdy views. Here’s me being bossy or making a point or something:

I had a chat with my friend who owns the house I’m living in about housing. They’re friends from DC and I’ve been able to crash at their place in a small room rent-free, although I do help out with the utilities. But it’s going on seven months and I was wondering “at what point am I imposing?” So I asked. They want to move forward with renovations by June, and will need the space I’m taking at the moment. So I gotta move on, job or not. I have some options. I’ve been avoiding temping in lieu of keeping up a focused job search for something that I really want to do and get paid well for, but little has come up.

I haven’t heard from the place where I interviewed last week, but it’s only been a week. I followed up with a nice thank-you note and continued interest in the position (and I really am interested in the position). So we’ll see. But it was three months between job interviews, which isn’t a promising rate.

“Give it a year,” someone said to me recently. I’d rather not have the second half of that year doing a job I don’t like, but it may become a necessity. I’ve been looking back to DC for Federal jobs like the one I left, but even those aren’t opening up due to government cutbacks. And I’d rather not move back, but if there’s work I might have to. I worked hard to forge a career path that I enjoy and pays well, and I don’t want to sully my resume with job experience at Dairy Queen or Kinko’s Copies.

I start my volunteer job next week at a homeless LGBT shelter in Portland that provides services and training to get the kids off the street. I will be working the front desk answering the phone and directing the clients to services available at the center and elsewhere in Portland. It took a couple months for them to put me in a position to fill. To give you an idea of the job market in Portland for just volunteer positions, here’s how it went: I went to an orientation session with 20 other people, mostly college-age kids looking to get some experience in social services to boost their resumes. All of them were attentive and eager to work. But all they could tell us in the orientation that all current volunteer positions had waiting lists. I filled out an extensive application with a background check, and went through two interviews, followed by a two-hour long training session, and another to follow. It was a more extensive process than a lot of positions I’ve filled for pay. So in other words, the job market is so bad in Portland the competition is stiff even for jobs without pay.

I had a job interview this week and I think it went well. It was the first interview since December and I think I did OK due to practice and simply being more relaxed about it. It was also for a job I’m well suited in public affairs which I did for four years in my last job. There are a lot of marketing jobs available in Portland supporting Nike, Adidas and Intel. I did some marketing work in the past and had some classes in it, but it’s really not my bag. Marketing is “you should buy this” whereas public affairs is changing the values, attitudes and beliefs instead of shopping habits. More like “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” I like doing that, especially if it’s about something I’m interested in, like invasive species, livestock and crop diseases, or managing your stormwater runoff.

It’s marriage equality week in the Nation’s Capital. Hopefully a lot of positive changes will happen. Frankly I’m surprised it’s all happening so fast, but of course I’m happy about it. Here’s what I posted on Facebook yesterday:

“I see the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is using the slogan “Every Child Deserves a Mom & Dad!” for their campaign against marriage equality this week. Well, maybe they’re partially correct with that byline. But then I think about my mom who – as a single lady – raised three boys by herself. All three of them went to college, two with advanced degrees. We did fine without two parents.

Then I think about all my partnered same-sex friends who have been together for ages, several of them together for far longer than some of my hetero friends. Many of them have children from their previous marriages, or have adopted. But in most states neither they nor their children benefit from the 1,138 Federal benefits most married couples get which include significant tax breaks, joint health insurance coverage, hospital visitation rights, and many others. This is what the hubub is about this week. “Suck It, NOM!” is my slogan.”

I went snowboarding at Mt. Hood Meadows this week with Kiri. I also have a ’stache now. Click to embiggen:

Strangely, the ’stache looks gingery without the rest of the beard. Or perhaps I’m turning ginger? That would be awesome.

This article about a resurgence of masc gay bros is pretty good – I mean from the point of being good investigative journalism. I’m not sold on ‘gaybros’ concept though, but the article is well-written. You should read it all the way through though before judging. The money quote is towards the end:

“As Michael Warner writes in The Trouble with Normal, ‘queers do not have the institutions for common memory and generational transmission around which straight culture is built. Every new wave of queer youth picks up something from its predecessors but also invents itself from scratch. Many are convinced that they have nothing to learn from old dykes and clones and trolls, and no institutions … ensure that this will happen.’ Take that with the generational void caused by AIDS, and you have a perfect recipe for a generation who rejects “gay culture” while knowing little, if anything, about it.”

I remember one of my first ventures into a gay bar in Madison, Wisconsin around the age of 20. As I leaned back against the wall defensively I recall thinking “I’m not like these people.” I eventually got over it. Granted, we don’t have to all embrace camp culture and RuPaul’s Drag Race, and our true interests, hobbies and lifestyles are our own. But I think being gay is special and it’s important to embrace being unique in a world that is predominantly heterosexual. We are different, and no amount of trying to pass as straight will change that. Modeling your life after a heterosexual male gender stereotype while eschewing a perceived stereotype of homosexuality seems like a waste of time, and rather dull to boot.

After being home in Wisconsin for a week I headed up to Minneapolis to the 2nd Annual Benefit 2 Celebrate Life concert with Sean Woolgatherer. I went to the first one last year and had a great time, and this show didn’t disappoint either. The show was held at First Avenue, where Purple Rain was filmed, and held as a fundraiser for the American Heart Association.

This year featured performances by Andre Cymone, a former protege of Prince. I was looking forward to hearing The Dance Electric, his biggest hit from that era. Sean took a nice video of the performance:

Lookin’ good at 54 Andre!

The other headliner for the show was Princess, a Prince tribute band featuring Maya Rudolph of SNL. Their coverage of tracks from 1999 and earlier tunes were eerily flawless:

It’s clear that Maya and Gretchen listened to a lot of Prince. They had every word down to the erotic screams and gasps. Review of the show, photos and setlist is here. It was good to get my R&B and funk fix in after a long hiatus. There are lots of alternative rock concerts in Portland but not a lot of funk that I know of.

It’s back to the grind in Portland, although the weather has been hitting the low 60s lately which is nice. No job leads during my absence but a volunteer job I interviewed for will start in April. It’s working the front desk at an LGBT homeless support center that does good work. Should be interesting and something to do.

I’m home in Wisconsin for a visit and came across this abomination:

The words “Cajun” and “cheese curds” should NEVER go together! It’s wrong! It’s Against God! It’s Against Scripture!

And there are…things watching me wherever I go. I can feel their eyes following me:

I drove from Minneapolis to my hometown in that snowstorm. It was quite harrowing for quite a long part of the trip, but eventually the snowstorm thinned out. But it snowed for almost 24 hours, making it necessary to go over mom’s driveway twice with the snowblower. And today I vacuumed up the basement. Mostly because there’s nothing else to do around here in the winter, which reminds me why I try to visit Wisconsin in the summer.

Getting off my butt and posting as ordered by Dr. Brett Cajun. Of course he also asked for a prostate exam with the consultation but I refused. I’d rather be probed by an alien. Same thing actually.

Anyway, it’s National Peace Corps Week and I posted an old pic of me on Facebook from when I served in Kazakstan. Seeing my fellow volunteers’ posts this week reminded me that I lived in Portland before I went to serve overseas.

The economic situation at that time was very similar to today. Clinton was making cutbacks in the government and federal job openings were hard to come by. I was set in my mind to be a park ranger at that time and was having difficulty finding full-time, permanent work in that field. I was working at Kinko’s Copies and an athletic club trying to make ends meet and it wasn’t working. Peace Corps service offered a degree of preferential hiring status with the federal government, although I don’t recommend you try Peace Corps for just that reason alone. Several of my friends from college had joined Peace Corps at the time and I thought it would be fun. The other part in the decision was job panic.

Looking back had I not done Peace Corps I may have set on a different career path, similar to the one I ended up with anyway. I was doing graphic design at Kinko’s and could have moved into that position had I not fled Portland so fast the first time. But hindsight is 20/20 as they say. The path that took me indirectly to DC was a good one, and I developed some good skills and a Master’s degree along the way.

Back then no one told me it might take dozens, if not hundreds of job applications to get a better job. I think I had sent out less than a dozen when I was in Portland the first time and was freaking out that I wasn’t getting any bites.

Fast forward to today, my job search is a little more focused. While I’ve widened my search to non-federal jobs in the area, I’m still trying to stay in my field of public affairs and social media. I’ve worked too hard to develop my career to drop it and take a job in another field. Plus it took me a long time to realize that’s what I like to do, and know what kinds of jobs I wouldn’t like to do. From past work experiences I know I can’t just go to work and fake it – I need to be interested in what I’m doing and then I enjoy doing what I do more.

Now with this sequester bullshit, there are few federal job openings, and I’ve noticed a dip in openings elsewhere too just like back in ‘95. Everyone is holding their purses tight and not hiring. There aren’t even job openings back in DC in what I did with my previous federal job.

The urge to freak out and flee again is strong. Security is a warm and welcoming thing, and I don’t have much of that these days. But I try to remind myself on a daily (if not hourly) basis to hold out and keep looking. 15 years later I hope I’ve learned some wisdom along the way, and that this wisdom pays back for a change.

The other day the lovely Dingo asked me to dig up a post I wrote when I was previously unemployed so he could send it to his newly unemployed friend. It was good to go back and read what I wrote in 2009:

It’s not the end of the world. You will survive. You will work again one day and you will regret it.

I’m such a ray of sunshine.

I wanted to tell the world about my Best Boo BrettCajun today!

Happy Valentine’s Day Boo! Ah Wuf Youuu!