While the conjunction of the full moon and Jupiter recedes, celestial bodies are on my mind. Or maybe it’s just the sci-fi series I have been reading. As my husband’s planet spirals gently into a stable retirement orbit, my own comet leaves the aphelion of Mostly Home and accelerates toward the perihelion of Work with Benefits.

I am anxious to embrace this new challenge. It is not at all like diving into the Sun. There is far more uncertainty involved.

We now have record low unemployment in the US. Trump 2020! I swear I heard this week that one state is hiring prisoners pre-release, though I can’t re-create the tidbit. I should be able to find a job easily, you think?

You’d be wrong. I’m having to work at it, so to speak. It’s not much fun, so sometimes I analyze the situation instead. Turns out, I have a few issues:

• I need a job with medical insurance. I need that more than I need a salary. Trump 2020 not!
• I’d rather not work in the retail sector. That is by far the largest US employment sector, comprising 12% of the workforce with a median salary of $10 per hour. Not all of them get insurance.
• I live in a tourist destination, so lots of the jobs are seasonal, and lots of people want to live and work here. In April, unemployment in Santa Cruz County was 5.4%, while it was to 3.8% in California and 3.7% in the US.
• I don’t want to commute to San Jose.
• I’m oldish. Ok, I’m old. I’m applying for government jobs because they are less likely to have age discrimination.
• I’m well-educated. I had a twenty-year high tech career and moved on, a while ago. Now I would like a leave-it-at-the-office job. I want one that requires alertness and flexibility certainly, though I don’t care about title, prestige, or high wages, and I really am willing to do repetitive work.

Although it’s only a guess, I think this last one may be the crux. Employers may well think, why is this person seeking this sort of work? Why did she give up–or maybe lose?– the other sort? Those questions can be addressed in a manner I believe would be quite satisfactory, but only face-to-face. I’m not getting much in the way of interviews.

Shout out to the USPS, who would like to hire me! All I have to do is to work six- to seven-day weeks for an indefinite period that might be less than a year, and give up volunteer work, regularly-scheduled activities that start before 8 pm, weekends, vacation, and holidays. I would be walking ten miles a day, so I would be in shape, though probably in no shape to do much after work.

I may do that. For now, I’m still on a mission, exploring the final frontier.