I last went to New York City about twenty years ago. My father took me there for a weekend; I was still, in my teenage wisdom, planning to become the next Meryl Streep, and needed to go to an audition in Manhattan to secure a spot in a prestigious summer theater program. (I was accepted and went and had a great time and went on to win several Oscars. Well, maybe not that last part.) We ate a lot of good food and I spent a couple of hours sitting slack-jawed with wonder at a Broadway show, and best of all, I had my Daddy to protect me from the vermin of the city. Now I will only have Chris to...
Way back when I decided to freelance, I was thinking that it would solve a host of problems for me. It would solve the money problem (the problem being, I didn't have any). It would solve the attention span problem (the problem being, I don't really have one, and Oh! Look! Something shiny over there!). It would solve the playing office problem (the problem being, I have trouble playing nicely with others day in and day out, particularly when the others are treating me poorly). What I didn't realize at the time was that I would now look around at the rest of you who work at conventional jobs...
This will be short so that I can hunker down in bed and pursue my new favorite hobby, which is sleeping. (Sleeping is also my old favorite hobby, and inbetween the old and the new is a hobby I don't get to pursue often enough and also can't talk about here without causing several people close to me experience spontaneous immolation.) The good news is that the toothearache has gone away. The bad news is that it was, apparently, a harbinger of something awry in the sinuses. Now I just have a yucky cold. Summer is officially over! So I was all curled up on the couch, tonight, with the kids....
Yesterday I took the kids to the grocery store to buy some food. Because I'm crazy like that. As we pushed our cart past the customer service desk, a woman reached out and put her hand on my arm. Her eyes were glued to my chest. (As has been established in previous posts, there is hardly anything hypnotic about my chest. But I WAS wearing my boob-enhancing Fussy shirt.) "Are you a writer?" she asked. "Yes, I am," I answered. For a split second it occurred to me that this would be one of those monumental moments of my life---I'd responded without a second thought, as I should---and I found...
I've been trying to pretend it wasn't a big deal, that I'm unbothered, and I didn't need to talk about it. I have this misguided belief, sometimes, that the RIGHT thing should by definition be the EASY thing; discontent becomes a sign of weakness, in my system, if the choice was correct. But then, you know, there's the whole thing where I don't even like porridge but you are damn well going to have to listen to me complain about it if the temperature is off. It's part of my charm. So. Um. It's time to tell you the thing about the thing, I think. There's something kind of exciting happening...
I am just now coming off of the Christmas vacation slash Christmas holiday slash back to school slash Monkey's birthday slash everyone getting back into the swing of working LULL that I was so enjoying. Well, I was enjoying parts of it. Namely, the part where I didn't have to do very much work, because just about everything was either wrapped up before the holiday or on hold until the new year. The part where I sat down with my bills and my checkbook and a noticeably absent stack of invoices to send out, that part wasn't so great. Also the part where the children seemed to believe that every...
I got to play grown-up today, the key word being "play" because it's all an act. Sometimes I think I overestimate my awkwardness, or overstate how casually I tend to dress when I'm working at home and only going out to take the kids to school. And then, I have a morning like today, when I put on my big girl clothes because I have a business meeting! I take the kids to school and every parent and teacher with whom I normally exchange a "good morning" or "cold today!" does a double take and asks me who died. By the third or fourth person, I'm seriously rethinking the theory that no one knows...
Remember last week when I mentioned going off Unemployment? No, I did not take another full-time job. But I have officially surpassed what I qualify for in Unemployment, purely on freelance contracts. For those keeping score at home, I started this little adventure in earnest approximately 6 weeks ago. Pardon me while I give myself a pat on the back. And a cookie. Speaking of cookies, I hope you'll come visit me at one of my newest gigs.
First things first: Get your own delicious, dusty brains here. Now that that's out of the way, I thought you'd all like to share in the excitement that is today's letter from my friendly neighborhood Unemployment Office. Remember all those fun "workshops" I get to go to? Well, they wanted to let me know that the wait for more thrill-a-minute instruction is almost over--I have been summoned to appear for a workshop on Interviewing on October 25th. Failure to appear may result in immediate termination of my benefits, as well as hair loss, cavities, and the inability to do anything other than...
