It has been a long long long time coming, but I believe now is the moment to start looking for a job. Nothing major, at least not to start with. Part-time, maybe 15-hours a week, doing something that requires a desk and maybe a couple of assistants, and… lets say, eight weeks vacation.

The last time I pulled down a full-time salary was in 2001, after Telus bought Clearnet Communications for $6.6B. They called me a “Communications Coordinator”, but mostly I played video games at a restaurant near the Scarborough Town Centre, across the highway from the new Telus Mobility HQ. I lasted just over a year, spending most of my $48k/year in quarters playing virtual NASCAR before I left, right after signing a book deal to write about my family and their playful hijinks during the 70’s.

As I walked out the door of the newly minted Telus Mobility, they handed me a Nokia 5180 — which is still packed away somewhere in my basement, two month’s salary, plus my vacation pay, which I then mostly spent on hockey tickets, fresh bagels, rent, cigarettes and a whole lot of alcohol (mostly White Russians and Labatt’s Blue).

After two years of bussing around Southern Ontario, interviewing, writing, deleting, deleting then writing, then interviewing more people, then deleting and writing even more, I ended up living in my little brothers third-storey walk-up barely-heated apartment in Stratford. He was working fulltime at a local hotel, while I was left alone to write and delete and write and play GTA 3 on his brand new PS2.

Then I eventually moved back to Vankleek Hill to finish my little book project and, after another year of editing and deleting and writing, I deleted two entire years of edits in a tragic accident moving files from my ancient 486IBM to a much newer computer via one 3.5″ disk.

Whoopsie whoopsie and whoopsie. Two years later, due to an ongoing, and very debilitating lifelong health issue, I was accepted into the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). And the Book quietly died. Whoopsie.

Since officially, and finally, being recognized as having a permanent disability, I was still able to occasionally volunteer in Vankleek Hill. I helped my step-father rebuild / restore one of our village’s original ‘red brick’ building’s, and turn it into VKH’s first permanent museum.

I even helped create a new communications strategy for our local Art Gallery, the Arbor Gallery — that involved artist interviews inside the Gallery, lots of photos of the vernissage Events, and a rebuilt web presence including a dedicated blog, and Facebook page.

Then, in 2013, while taking a break from updating this site, I created the Vankleek Hill Amateur Photographers Club. At its most glorious it had more than twenty members, 500+ followers on Facebook, and another dedicated website.

For aboot a year, I was occasionally writing an opinion column for the North Bay-Nippissing News, for $20 per piece.

Around the same time, I also started freelancing for The Review, the largest newspaper between Montreal and Ottawa, by taking photos of the many many many large Events in the region… something I still do occasionally. I’ve also been a pretty successful Cookie Distributer for the past sixteen-years to my two sons, Victor and Quintin. But that’s pretty much it for the most recent version of my résumé. The older version of it was pretty cool, but that was a looooooooooong time ago, and I don’t think experience in b/w darkrooms is applicable anymore.

So now I’m looking for work. That’s right, actual employment. Something part-time, definitely nothing physical. At this point, thanks to some minor, but needed, tweaks to Ontario’s disability program, I’m able to work in Ontario for a salary under $1000/month without losing any of my benefits… realistically, however, I’d be looking for just a few hours per week to start. Speaking French is definitely an issue, as I cannot do that, and this region is 85% Francophone. What can I do..? To be honest, I’m not even really sure anymore.

I’m meeting with the ODSP specialist at the local Employment Services Centre (ESC) next week, to go over what they can do to assist me in finding employment… I know there are programs available through both the ESC and ODSP to pay for new (or used) equipment to help me get started, so there’s that. I’ve already submitted my old résumé to the ESC, so they can help me build a newer one.

…this is mostly a test to see where I am in my recovery, of if I am actually recovering, and to earn a bit of cash to spend on more Cookies for the kids. I have some ideas of my own that I want to explore, so we’ll see what happens over the next few weeks.

So, wish me luck.