Well, it's been an eventful week. Unfortunately, I've been under the weather for almost all of it, so I didn't write much about it until now.

THANK GOD, the temp opportunity that Karla submitted my resume for some weeks ago has become available again. It's in the company where she works, and its job content is a LOT more along the lines of the office-support work that I would prefer to be doing. Plus, according to her, the atmosphere in this company is a million times nicer than the general vibe of the place where I'm working now.

To make a VERY long story short, after playing a bit of phone and e-mail tag with the lady who is looking to fill the position, I gave my notice to my temp service regarding the assignment at Nameless Nationwide Department Store and will be starting at the new position on Wednesday. The pay is a tiny bit lower, and the hours are a slightly shorter (a 7-hour day as opposed to an 8.5-hour day), but you know what? The extra bit I'm earning at Harridan Central is nowhere near enough combat pay to preserve what's left of my sanity. This job in the calling center is working my nerves, my morale, and my digestive tract because everything about it is so stressful. The commute is frightful, the job content is murder, and the people are still just as backbiting as ever. So I will be MORE than pleased to take the pay cut and shift on over to this new place, which is less than half the distance from my home. PLUS it has the possibility of becoming a temp-to-hire position, which I really like.

So, that's good. Thank God for giant favors, it seems like something is finally about to go RIGHT for me, job-wise, for the first time since the downsizing two and a half years ago.

In other news... that long post I'd planned to write last week was about my first time cantoring in my friend Joe M's church.

I sang at the parish where I grew up for close to 20 years, starting in 1980 when I was in high school and only ending when the new music director came in and pretty much dissolved the non-choir music ministry. The parish still has a choir, but the other parish music group, the one I belonged to, is no more. Fortunately, that was almost exactly at the time that we started to have ASL-interpreted Masses at my parish, so I just shifted from participating in music to assisting with the interpreting (and eventually taking over the duties once a month when the original 'terp left).

To make a long story short, between the music and the interpreting, standing in front of a congregation is not new to me. Even so, being the CANTOR at a Mass, the person who not only leads the singing but also cues the congregation to sing, was something I hadn't done before, and I did have a bit of nerves prior to the Mass. So much so that I had an "old habits die hard" moment when I went to teach the congregation the psalm.

Back in the Day, when I was playing guitar at Epiphany, we had the 10:30 AM Mass. So, prior to the Mass, of course, I would greet the people with "Good morning". Last week, when I sang at Joe M's church, it was for a Saturday EVENING Mass. As in, 5:30 PM. Guess what I said, without even realizing it, into the microphone last week? Yep. "Good morning!" LOL. Only when a few people got a smile out of it did I realize what I'd said. Oh, well... just as well that I got my brain cramp out of the way first thing, so I could forget about Being Perfect and just sing the Mass.

I think it went OK for a first time. I can think of some things I had a little trouble on, but for the most part I think it went all right. Nobody threw anything at me, anyway. ;o) And at least that congregation sings their hearts out... and I do mean they SING. LOUDLY. Which I really like. There's nothing more gratifying than leading a congregation singing and having them actually sing loudly enough that you can hear them over your own voice. That's when you know they're REALLY involved with the music, and with the Mass itself... and that's what the whole purpose of standing up there is.

OK, that's enough writing for now. I still have some stuff that happened TODAY that I'd like to post, but I'm so tired that I'll close this post now and write the other things later.