Minding The Gap

Few things bother me more than being handed a resume rife with unexplained gaps. Its foolish, its unprofessional and (quite frankly) its just plain stupid. I mean, seriously: do you really want me to guess what you were doing from September 2002 to March 2003?

Prison?

Rehab?

Riding cross-country on a unicycle so you could "find yourself"?

Or worse yet: maybe you got fired for incompetence from your last job and it took you six months, a name change and a few different time-zones to land your next one. That's the killer!

The answer, of course, is quite simple: explain the gaps and tell the truth. And having gone nearly two months without a blog entry, I feel I should do the same.

All of my writing time toward the end of October was spent laboring over a short story I submitted to a writing competition. I have never truly written a short story before, and quite frankly I was surprised with the manner by which the idea for the plot literally just popped into my head. People (i.e. my wife) have told me repeatedly over the years that I'm a tad long-winded, so keeping my story to 1,500 words was a challenge... but one I thoroughly enjoyed. I'll post my short story on here sometime after the contest closes.

The end of October was met with a most unusual occurrence here in Connecticut: snow. And no, not a few quick flurries to remind us that winter was just around the corner. What I'm talking about was a massive, February-esque nor'easter mere days before Halloween. Snow in and of itself is nothing new to those of us born and bred in New England - we have our snow-blowers and shovels ready at all times. But apparently the physics of heavy, wet snow falling on trees that still have their leaves is somewhat problematic... because my town looked like a hurricane hit it. Most of Connecticut was without power for six days; we were without power for ten. Thankfully, my in-laws live only a hour away and had power (and heat and hot water and an over-stocked fridge), so we packed-up the five kids and "moved" downstate for a week. Was it ideal? Not in the least. But it worked, and we were grateful... and I have a new-found appreciation for anyone who has to commute an hour to work every morning!

By the time our power had returned, I was engrossed in my friend's campaign for City Council - so that burned up a few more weeks. Then I finished my second set of revisions to a novel I wrote a few years back (more on that at a later date), and started researching agents with whom I could query it. Next thing I knew, it was Thanksgiving - and again, this being New England, the weather had skewed in the other direction, which meant it was 60-degrees and sunny outside when I adorned the front of our house with lights (which I have to admit came out pretty damn good this year).

Now its December - the single most magical, fanciful and chaotic month of the year. My kids are already high off of candy canes, while I'm already obsessed with squeezing every last drop out of the Christmas season.

Unfortunately, my fun-old-fashioned "Dogsled Ride to the North Pole" idea was already nixed by my wife.

Damn.