The State of the Union

Life has been pretty busy lately. Work has been particularly baneful over the last month. The board is intent on driving my boss crazy and bordering on abusive behavior towards him all while tying the hands of the staff with mundane policies. They seem to enamored with John Carver's Policy Governance, yet they don't want to commit to adopting it. Carver insists that the practice cannot be taken unless it is used in its entirety. Instead they are skipping out on the spirit of the model, which is to give staff much latitude within general, yet firm policies. The result is that staff morale is as low as it has ever been.

On the positive side I have applied for a new job. I'm applying to be the executive director at a county historical society about twenty miles from here. I'm not thrilled about the drive, but I'm not going to get ahead of myself and think about those things. I have twice applied for similar positions at similar organizations in the last year and a half. Once I made it to the final three candidates and was told that I was ultimately lacking in experience and that I would make somebody a great director "some day." It was disappointing, but at the same time I wasn't very enamored with the organization. The second position was one I really got my hopes up for. It seemed like a good fit and I was very excited butI never even got a telephone call back. I later learned they had an internal candidate, but still, my ego took a beating over the lack of even an interview. We'll see if "someday" is today over the next few weeks. I know that the organizations I just applied to is looking at having the new director in place by December.

My hated masters program has been okay this semester. I'm taking an economics class, which is very fun, until I actually have an assignment due.

But my friends Joe and Elizabeth are on my mind tonight. They have been dating for about a year and a half and to say that it has been a volatile relationship is an understatement. I may go into more later, but ultimately she is rather unstable and the relationship is falling apart even though they have engaged to marry at least one and a half times (yeah, I'm confused too). Last night when I dropped my friend Mike off at his apartment we had an impromptu conversation that last through three listens of the new Sicbay album. Mike told me that he is worried that in the likely eventuality that Joe and Elizabeth break up that she just may try to physically harm him. Honestly, the thought hadn't occurred to me until he brought it up. I was much more concerned about what she might do to herself. She is a cutter and was diagnosed with mild psychosis of some kind earlier in the year. But maybe I'm naive. Maybe she would do something. Part of what has delayed the likely break-up is the fact that they live together and that Joe doesn't know where to go or if he could afford an apartment on his own. I'm sure he could find something as he just got a pretty big promotion at his job. I think I'm going to offer our spare bedroom to him as a temporary shelter while he secures his own apartment. Ms. stu and I discussed this today and she thought that would be just fine.

Yet I'm tired of getting involved in the all of it. I was asked by both of them on numerous occasions for advice in last several months. It was all ignored. I swore I would wash my hands off the whole affair, and yet here I am trying to rescue both of them, just like I always do.