After School Snack

Well, really it's lunch, but it is after school, my first day of school, my first round-trip to class and back. Toasted white tuna sandwich with lettuce and sweet relish and an orange.

Bliss.

And even more synchronous, my textbook for today's class arrived in the mail this morning already, so I can do the reading assigned before the next class on Wednesday. Is this perfect OR WHAT? My Intro to Archaeology prof is a funny woman who manages to keep her reading glasses hovering above the very end of her nose and they never slide off. About 40 students in all, three over 40 years old, and only two cell phones rang during class. Prof showed some slides at the end of the class period, and then it was suddenly over. Sixty five minutes, syllabus in hand, I went and activated my student email account, then headed home. I'm also seeing new shoes in my future, because it is quite a hike from the bus top to campus and all my Birks need re-soles.

I know it's goofy to be this excited about undergraduate classes, but getting to this humble place has been a 25 year journey. Bringing lots of baggage along. Yes, I'll get a job doing something, I reassured Betty, and gave up trying to explain why I'm majoring in Anthropology. She thinks I'm going to do Forensic Science like on television. Whatever. It's my money, I'm not going to worry about who gets it or not. Everyone else I know is thrilled for me, and that warms my heart so much, my enthusiasm is contagious, my face glows with it. "I got a fever, babies!" says my inner Christopher Walken. Say no more.

Chop wood, carry water. That's what you do before you are enlightened, and what you resume doing after you are enlightened. So today, I'm doing laundry and washing dishes, while reading my text between loads of clothes and dishes. I'll try not to be a total spaz and call everyone to twitter about class. But as I went over the Hawthorne Bridge this morning, it dawned on me how many of my deepest life wishes have come true in the last couple years. Big BIG wishes, major Life's Dream types. Going back to school, to get an upper college degree---in motion again. Meeting Robert Plant in person---September 2005. Having my own bookstore---done. Being a writer---varying degrees of consistency, but happening. What's left? Well, going to Provence is huge. And large-canvas painting. Singing in public. Creating a permanent grand-scale garden with a varietal bamboo grove and tea house. Finding a great guy. I think that's about it. And I think they all look doable from here, because the really big ones at the top of the list are checked off already. Holy shit! So so cool.

Tomorrow morning is Intro to Biological Anthropology, and Asian Women's Studies, a senior level class. Hominids, neolithic tool makers, the beginning of art. Asian cultures to prehistory and the roles of women in it. No wonder I can hardly sleep at night, I feel incendiary about this stuff. "So why aren't you taking any business classes?" Betty wanted to know. There's no fire there for me, it's a bucket of someone else's cold ashes, not even mine. Finally, I'll quit explaining, it should be evident to everyone by now.

The Actively Waiting Game

Absolute flurry of activity since Monday, and now I am on pins and needles, wondering, waiting, carrying my phone to the powder room so I at least hear it ringing, checking email 17 times an hour---no it's not the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes, I'm waiting for word from some of the many applications I've been submitting, and still applying while I'm waiting.

My friend Steven has helped me do a breakthrough with this process, by reminding me of some staggeringly obvious things about Working: A: If you don't like it, quit soon.
B: If you need to work ASAP, it's okay to take
another retail job and keep looking for
a new job while you're earning money.
C: There's a million office jobs that will allow you
to leave the job at the office, to go home and
do the art, writing, craft pursuits that you
have re-prioritized as essential to your new,
non-B.store manager Life.
D: You had a great sabbatical, keep your values.
E: Get serious about your money & your worth.

Whew! Is he a pal or what? I've promised him a fine dining experience at our favorite local restaurant Venerable Quandry as soon as it is feasible for me, and probably some more stops at Pok-Pok nearby.

I've already checked phone and email twice while writing the above, this is madness.

So, part of the Re-invention Process for me is also remembering the interview process from the side of the table I am now on, and being warm, engaging, disarmingly competent, using just enough corp-speak to sound like I know what I'm talking about but not so much to sound like a Dilbert cartoon, and find out what the holiday scheduling will be like---I'd still like to figure out a way to get in a four day stint to FLA for Christmas, or at least get a few days off. My new priorities are showing.

I also need to make a list of all the places I've applied to, after 12 you can start to forget. This is when it really hits me that I haven't applied cold for a job in over 10 years, and before that, there was a lot of 'he knows my friend, who worked for them, who dated her' kind of thing. How often is too often to call to check on your app? My rule was if they call more than once every other day, that's too often. If I didn't respond within a week, it meant I was not interested in setting up an interview with the applicant. But the County, State and City hiring procedures are based on a cut-off application date, so if someone applies right after the job was posted, the waiting period may be three or four weeks until the hiring manager even looks at the applications. Now that I am the applicant, it gets me growling, grrrrrr.

My booth is still operating, but I had to re-evaluate the profit vs expenses aspect of it, and since I always knew at least a part-time job was in my future, I decided to do something full-time that was less interfering to my personal life than retail management, and secure benefits, too. Once I gather some more capital funds to invest in the project, I'll see greater returns, and besides, it's still a blast and very creative. In fact, I feel like I'm just getting started with it, so taking the pressure off of it to be my sole income source opens it up to more whimsical and funky ideas, just in time for the Holidays. Overall, all is good with Groovy Rhubarb. I have so many cool sweaters to sell, and things made from old sweaters that I felted and fabricated into new items. My great-aunt Meta would be so proud (and 112 years old) to see my craftiness, and she would know that she was the greatest contributor to this obsession I have, Auntie's influence lives on.

Official Blog Day Official Post

My favorite blogger has stopped blogging, and I'm concerned.

But I don't want to be a nudge, so I'll just hash it out here, in my safe little blogspot.

This esteemed person has put years into building this blog, has thousands of readers, hits and links, hundreds of posts, topics and famous persons who read it...and it's fizzling it seems due to situations beyond their control, and I'm getting frantic that all that work will be lost to the ethers.

Reading this blog re-started my own blog engine last year, after I had already given up on one that was pious and book review-based, and I couldn't keep at it in my free time because it was just more work, at home and that killed the thrill of doing it. This inspiring bloggerperson set the spark to the gasoline that was forgotten, and I was ignited to write again.

So I'm kinda worried, and how can I help out?

And how does one end a blog, anyway, if one wants to be done with it? A formal, Fare-Thee-Well posting, with a connecting link to someone similar for your avid readers to try instead of you? A quick and brutal, "F-you, I'm outta here!" and eternal silence? Delete the whole thing at your server page with no peep, evermore? Like breaking off a starter-phase romance that you just don't have the time or energy to hand-hold at all, "Look, it's not you, it's me, and you deserve some blog who can better meet your needs, I'm just not in a good place right now, no it's nothing to do with you (but it does, you're drippy) I just need some space and maybe started this without being really clear about what I want yadda dabba doo" and it's over before the drinks even get to the table? TMI, I know.

Maybe some anonymous reader (who happens to know the blogger's location) could send them some incredibly decadent chocolate somethings, with a teeny note that says "Get writing soon" and a smiley face.

Or a new laptop.

Not that I am in any position to manage anyone else's life (my own is barely managed) but sometimes a person has an insight, and it can't be too nosy to pass it along, right? With cookies or cuppycakes? Or that lively young stripper who works at---never mind, it was just a thought.

Nobel Prize for Literature: Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing interview

Gosh what a lot of carping about her winning this year, some of the comments are so snipping (Harold Bloom, of course) and almost sophomoric, I was laughing in my coffee this morning.

"Unreadable" Harold said. When has that ever stopped someone from winning the prize?

And I have to confess that when I tried to read "Love, Again" this summer, I put it down and walked past it for a week or two, then finally tossed it into the next bag of books to sell at my booth.

It's still there.

And I gave it a really genuine try, but the fault is entirely my own. After a long stint of reading only magazines this spring, Doris' book was not appropriate for me to pick up then, I hadn't yet adjusted my language cortex vocabulary back to books and British English. She never had a chance. But I've fixed it now, and will pick her up again. And the new War and Peace translation I've been waiting 20 years for.

But I've loved reading about her in the online articles, of which there are the usual slew after her win. The link above is an interview from a few years ago that I liked the best; honest, just crabby enough, and unapologetic. Don't mess with a woman who wants to write, you're going to get hurt.
Doris on P.C.
Doris Wins Nobel

Beer With Bookseller Chick

Finally, a chance to get caught up with the most famous Portland blogger and also my pal and former assistant manager Linsey. Her celebrity status making even brief tete-a-tetes difficult to manage, and getting through her entourage with a message being almost impossible, it was a delight to be IM'd by L.J. Schmidt herself yesterday morning. You may also know her from her brilliant contribution to the 2007 Writers' Handbook, chumming with Erica Jong, Neil Gaiman, et al. Being so genuinely happy for her keeps me from wanting to pull her hair and teeth out with jealousy. (Jealous writers, a lethal gang indeed!)

Bringing some humble home-grown tomatoes as a feeble tribute, I spied her tall and willowy self on her way to the Bagdad and we grabbed a table on the sidewalk and proceeded to drink beer. This now being late afternoon, I should add. No bodyguards, no entourage, just we two and keepin' it real talk about life, the universe, and employment status, books, and how life is better after 25. I let her go on at length about that, agreeing with her but not wanting to be a wet blanket about the crowding 50 part of this new wisdom she's gained. There's wisdom in Hefeweisen, too, and you can get wiser and still drive home in a couple hours.

We picked the Bagdad because we are both doggie-watchers, and there's so many cute dogs walking down Hawthorne on nice sunny days, and we are both dog-less. *sigh* When she isn't doing a Houdini to get out of her bra while stuck in traffic, or shooting blue comicbook covers with friends from Darkhorse, my friend is looking for some post-retail gainful employment in the publishing industry, preferably here on the West Coast. We both had to laugh about how picky we've become after having some time off, "No nights, no weekends, no holidays, no cold-calling, no commute," and realized this will probably mean inventing some kind of work situation and maybe a limited part-time thing for moms with kids in school.

"Another round, please" as our illustrated waiter-man swept by, a DEVO shirt and faux-hawk de rigeur. He was nice and patient with our three hour squat. The woman behind us with bright cherry hair was flirting with him, and two amazingly clean and ruggedly-handsome men in their 30s sat down together, but my gay-dar wasn't working. They looked and smelled good, so I guess it didn't matter, really. We were there for the parade.

Again, Linsey and I decided we should start a business together, but with no capital and lots of ideas, it's a tad early to draw up a business plan. She doesn't want to return to modeling, and I don't want to be a boss lady anymore. I am not a Border Collie type now. We both hope that the writing thing will come through somehow, as Julia and Natalie say, "Keep writing, no matter what, keep writing!" so we both do. That thing about the money...it may be temping in our futures, a nice office-y thing for a few months at a time that we leave behind at 5:30 so we can go home and hermit ourselves with everything else we need to do that actually feeds our souls.

For me, for now, that's okay, I did a stint with The Corporate Thing already, but Linsey is early on her ascent arc and the heavens are before her. The COOL and BIG job is ahead of her, so I'm going to dust off the reference letters template I drafted earlier this spring for her, and find that logo stationery I stashed somewhere in February.

Good thing I left my entourage at home, so that none of them could see my softer side and use it against me later; projecting all this ruthless talent is hard work.

Now That We're Famous...

The next morning, here we all go to blog about the Portland Bloggers get-together last night at KATU-TV.

Actually, the station had a nice table of food and drinks, and I want to estimate almost 60 people came, and I would have enjoyed it more if one of my pals had gone with me, but no.
They were probably afraid it was going to be too much like a Star Trek convention, Dork Factor 11, Mr Sulu! I chatted with some people who didn't put their blog names on their name tags, so Alison from where? was nice, and Steve from where? was just getting his feet wet with writing, and Brad from where? hoped KATU would do this again sometime, and Kat from where? wanted pictures... I sound like I'm kvetching, but it was fun to watch all the guys make like weathermen in front of the green screen and give their outrageous forecasts to their "viewers" off-camera---"By mid-afternoon, it will begin raining frogs in Medford, and hailing locusts in Klamath Falls, Armageddon at 11." The shrimp was good.

And I have some pictures of us milling about in the News Studio, people making like Chevy Chase at the news desk, beer in hand---and I realized I can't get them out of my camera. No picture mail in my Plan. Along with the gift bag, souvenirs of an evening of shy writers talking to shy writers about writing. Funny. Good thing there was alcohol.

Either Writing, or Not-Writing

Being so impressionable, I must admit to a certain ennui about blogging when my bookmarked list of favorite bloggers are not posting, thinking, "Wow, we of similar genius and brilliance must all be on the same no-blog-today page, and I didn't even get the memo---cool."

And, NO, I am not reading that dreaded doorstopper of a book that just came out which shall remain title-less in this space. Ee-gads, perish the thought!

I have been reading, and not magazines, some titles I found through our esteemed Multnomah County Library system, on Hollywood before the Decency Codes were enacted, pre-1938 films.
There is "Complicated Women" featuring the amazing sirens of the time, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, Kay Francis, Norma Shearer, Louise Brooks, Clara Bow, Joan Blondell, Jean Harlow, even Loretta Young and Myrna Loy. There's another title I am waiting to be returned, about the male actors in this pre-code era, and another one with huge photographs called, "Sin in Soft Focus" putting it all together. I can blame this all on finally getting the cable package with Turner Classic Movies, where you can start in the 1930s and not emerge until sometime the next day. So it has compelled me to begin reading again, perhaps finally warming up enough to read the new non-fiction Barbara Kingsolver book, "Animal Vegetable Miracle," the new novel "The Blood of Roses" about a young girl in Afghanistan (I think) who makes carpets, and another book on the new physics wave/particle field emanations theory. Summer will be over shortly.

Tomatoes have begun coming in, the SunGold and the SunSugar cherry toms, bright orange when fully ripe, and so sweet they are barely a vegetable, more like a tiny plum. The heat two weeks ago was great for the toms, but wiped out my marigolds and forced them to seed and they died all at once. Scattering seeds where the parent plant expired will hopefully return a few sprouts before November and frost, plus I replaced a few because I missed the sunny globes on the porch step planters. How can basil die so easily? Just a few days of heat, they were watered every day---I may have to cheat and buy a few big plants like I did last year from Trader Joe's. I was eating peas from my neighbors' garden this morning, and they said the patch was done for the summer. Ha! Before they left town, that is. And the pods are tender and as edible as the peas inside. Now, about the three ripe figs about to fall off the fig tree, purple as black grapes and soft---might have to bring those home. They have about 200 new green ones on their way to ripe, they won't miss these. Fig leaves, all jokes aside, are actually very elegant and beautiful, I'd never seen a real one so closely before, what a great woodcut or rubbing it would make. All jokes aside.

This is a week almost every year that I would have taken for vacation time from the store. I believe there was almost an unacknowledged agreement with myself about the bookends of February 1st--- being the first date of being jobless and also the announcement of the release of the 7th and final volume of that dreaded book, that would be occurring with accompanying frenzy on--- July 21st. A weird kind of stasis, purgatory-lite, now that That Book is out and done, not worked through like the past ten years of my work life (paperbacks, remember!) I feel absolutely free of it. A big book retail ritual that I missed completely! Imagine what being on the other side of a book retail Holiday Season will feel like? Giddiness is overtaking me. Kind of like when ending a relationship, just getting through the first set of holidays by marking little anniversaries, you really begin to let go for real. Two years on, you don't even remember to remember. Usually.

Absolutely Boggled!

Pulling myself away from the two boxes of BUTTONS that arrived this morning to share with y'all my utter rhapsodic bliss and new flowsy determination to launch the new money-making thing.

My trip to the Thrift Emporium yesterday was very worthwhile, and I browsed there for an hour, to "get a read" on the place and the people there, and the shoppers. I am now on the contact list for the owner/manager to call me, since it is nearing the end of the month, some people decide not to renew at the last minute, and they have sudden openings. The used record store that used to be two doors down closed after Christmas, and I think it is perfect for me to segue on in with all my vinyl and used books, since the place also used to be a used book and mag store. This is very exciting, dare I say.

And as my pal Jolie reminded me, look out yard salers, Laura will be blitzing you and making off with goodies!! Oh what fun!

But the buttons... Within an hour, I had started sorting all the Bakelite ones from the mother of pearl ones, and tossing the bone, wood, rubber, and metal ones in little piles in a flat box.
The mother of pearls began a nice cozy soak in some warm Mrs Meyers' and water, and the bed is layered with beach towels for them all to dry in the spring breeze coming in the south windows. (sounds like a great place to spend an afternoon to me) I've already been dreaming up the way to card some of them up to wholesale to stores and sell on my soon to launch Etsy site. I'm using them for lots of things besides fastening layers of clothes together, as you may imagine. Like beads, some sort of past life thing makes me value buttons like primitive money, trade currency, circulate and value, hoard then sell. I'm a crow, they sparkle, feel good in my hand, look good on a string, and I wanna just pounce and fly away with them.

Perhaps I'm being naive, but this feels like the right thing for me to be doing right now. The ultimate irony of a Worst Case Scenario being realized in January, and the screeching end of a 10+ years commitment like being dumped for a younger woman is, I look around and see only good as a result. I do terribly miss Linsey and some of my peeps, and the day to day intelligent and goofy fun we had, but almost everyone has gone on to greater glory, and that is a delight to me. I had wanted this to be the summer fer shure that I got out of there, but being termed was better, just more of a shock and adjustment period. Re-entry to my real life has taken me most of three months, really. And there was that pay off... (gracias, Spiritu Mejor!)

Almost everyday I sit down here and write something, either blog, essay around, business plan mission statement type of thing, or another list of story ideas. Almost everyday, I go outside and check out the tomato blossoms, pull some weeds, water herbs, smell roses, put in a new plant, check out my neighbors' plantings. Free Wi-Fi has hit my neighborhood, my cellphone is fun, the gym is nearby, I walk to the Daily Grind for some veggies. Late spring, great apartment, fabulous folks nearby, great dogs and friendly cats, grills in the evening, and I am so in gratitude that the push to reach here has actually led me here, where I dreamed and intended to wind up. Is this a mid-life thing? I think so. Two months ago it dawned on me I just didn't care anymore about a title, a corporate identity or status, whether I was promoted or passed over, listened to by muckity-mucks or unheard, valued and retained, or just a number and let go. It doesn't matter to me. It felt so good to let it all go, and be happy where I am, doing what I choose to do from here, loving my Portland Life, feeling more genuine than I have in .... years and years and years.
I've got 15 basil plants going on my back porch to plant in about a week, the tomatoes are staked or caged, the lavender and sage, creeping thyme and echinacea are filling out in the rock garden, and I found a nice Thai basil plant to add to the collection. And now the buttons...
Nothin' but smiles from me.

Caught in the Time Travel Capsule

Whoa, Bill & Ted have nothing on me the last few days...

Everyone posting writing gigs wants content samples, can you imagine? The audacity!

And as everyone knows, who's worked a time & soul demanding job, sometimes you need to dust off the archives and go digging. For actual pieces to use, or portions to lift and update, or even brilliant ideas you had that could benefit from your more mature and present voice. Technology reference updating, pop culture excising, music and world events tweaking, all necessitating re-reading piles and sheafs of stuff. And I got sucked into the spinning time capsule all day yesterday and most of today. And I didn't get to the bottom of the trunk of paper, so the flip side of this is that I need to use the trunk for something else and make this archive labeled and accessible. Then later finish to the bottom. New coffee table trunk, move the archives to the office studio. And print out the discs of stuff from the last 8 years that aren't journals.

For not being a writer, I have amassed a serious amount of writing. It's not all journals. Some of it's even fairly good. Linsey, I need to borrow your labeling p-touch machine.

The weather forecast for this week had been sunny, clear and in the mid 70's, and I was thinking of the laptop on the porch in the afternoon, cold bevs, not much inside time this week. It hasn't happened, it's been in the 50s & 60s, gets sunny and warm for an hour or so late in the afternoon, so I've been able to work inside and also catch porch time late in the day. No need to crack the taskmaster's whip, I get it all done, it's just timing. Because it's been so long since I wrote for hours and hours, I'd forgotten how fast the days go by. I kinda like this. But hours and hours add up to days and days, another week has gone by, and when my neighbor asks me what exotic plans I've had on my sabbatical, I have to shrug and say, "none". It's true. And I'm okay with it, the sense of accomplishment is amazing and very underrated. In retail, you make a list at the beginning of your week, and if you get three things on it done, you feel successful. Needing to start new lists is intoxicating, it just makes me feel ready, for whatever is ahead. All those little gnats of tasks to do instead of your "work" are already done, and you're _______.
(writing, painting, mailing off, selling, producing, making calls, replying, etc.) Living. It's good.

And I thought I was such a needle-pro

Perusing some of the blogs mentioned on the Craft site, I found a link to Poppalina and this amazing article of needle working madness, (only) twin-bed size says the creator, and I'm struck speechless. Usually giving knitting a pass over the warmer months, I had been assembling some ideas for crochet and cool cotton---which is what you need to make this "baby" blanket. The woman behind this work of art is named Shula, and she's in Australia with her daughter Mym, and she "whipped this up" with leftover cotton yarn from other projects. See her website for more and close up pics of this feat of brilliance. Shula covers more than needle arts, and the first few posts of May cover her mom's suicide many years ago, but she's an amazing artist and mom, covers a lot in her blog, and there's many other voices to read there, too. Don't be shy, zip off down under & be impressed. Now.


I found out today about the Mt. Tabor Art Walk on May 19-20, Saturday and Sunday. It's free, and takes you and your art-loving pals on a great tour of one of the finest nooks of this part of Southeast, and there's more info at Mt. Tabor Art Walk. I picked up a brochure at the new art supply store here on Hawthorne called Muse Art and Design and I'm so glad I can walk to such a well-stocked shop and get lost there. When on the way to Portland Pet Supply for Science Diet for the boys, I get to feed my art freak, too. The shop has lots of art-toys as well as the serious materials, in all price ranges, as well as art supplies for the kiddles and beginners. I needed a table easel, the metal tripod one got lost in one of the moves. Now I have absolutely no excuse to not paint. 'Cause the 'no easel' one was working for me for a while.

There was a great lead on a writing job, "edgy" and "be a personality for us" and "RAW" were repeated a few times...I'm sure that was a whiff of testosterone I caught there...5 to 10 cents a word, oh yeah, "GONZO" was in there many times. I love this whole idea, and am happy Jolie sent it to me, but somehow I only want to do this if it's aimed at women, or at least a broader spectrum of the population than the younger segment of the extreme sports cult. Am I prejudiced? Generalizing? Age-ist? Gyno-centric? Should I be so picky, nookin' per a yob n' all? I mean to ask one of my many celebrity friends who wrote their way to the top while I was slinging a nametag and cashiering, oh the humanity. There was a great conversation I had with a former employee about the difference between just doing your own thing and someone happens to notice and you hit big, OR, you do whatever you think will make you break through the pack, and then do your own thing to greater compensation and glory. Yes, it was Jeff, and it was probably between coats of wite-out on the dashboard geisha's face, but we really knocked this point around a while. We finally came to the conclusion that you should just do your own thing, but sleep with people who will promote you before you break up with them. I really liked that guy. "Yer young, ya got yer health," I'd say to him, "emulate if you must, to learn some technical parameters, but at some point you have to strike out and do your own twisted vision," and he'd snort and say, "Yeah, and wind up living back in the House of Gothic Lesbians again and asking you for my old job back," and that actually did happen. I miss him sometimes.

Trying on yet another template style...if anything looks too weird, please let me know. I had a request that the font size was small for a colored background, so...I love the color block styles, but as in the DK books that became the Google style, the more white space, the easier it is to read. And the pictures have more zing. Ding-a-ding ding.

My work at home friends are laughing at me

Almost two weeks into this (a-hem) sabbatical, and I was crawling the walls yesterday. You know how this is, checking your emails at least every 30 minutes, taking your cordless phone with you to the bathroom, hovering by the front windows to spy the first gray hair of your postal worker, finally, being able to tell the difference between the engine roar of the FedEx, UPS, DHL, and the overnight FedEx trucks as they accelerate up the hill past your house. I can hear the chirp of the phone in the kitchen of the lady downstairs.

I get dressed, have breakfast, drink a second cup of coffee, then assess my list of projects to manage for the day. Decide which can be done while listening to very loud music, which can be done while drinking beer, (or combined), which are punishments and which are rewards, and which can be blown off. After telling my pal that I'm at a loss living without a sense of urgency, she suggested doing some of the fun stuff first as punishment.

She is a wise-ass, and I just couldn't force myself to do it. I scoured the bathroom, moved wall-units to vacuum, and then watched a marathon of "Mythbusters". However, I truly am at the point where I cannot watch any more television. Help me, I can't even read.

No secrets that this is a mid-life career crisis. I love all these articles about the new workplace, the no-office office, the tele-commute, the online hookup to home office, the laptop/blackberry wireless universe, be your own Human resource. Cool. I'm down.

Now what? Where's the money? I can do almost anything. Do I need an agent? (enter sabbatical insights here) Oh, it's so clear to me now, here I go...

One of the downsides of being a Renaissance Woman in training is that it's just so hard to choose.

It's easier to say what I don't want to do, but that sounds way too much like sniveling and whining to me, along with the chorus of "You should feel lucky that you can do (skill) and take any opening there is, you---you---poser!"

Annie Lamott is the earthly saint still living that I burn a candle to frequently. And she says that she had to write, because otherwise she was unemployable. If only I had been such a hold-out, but no. When surveying the lush and verdant lay of the Land of Work, the trail that seduces me immediately is the triple-diamond-rated, angels fear to hike, Writer's Life. The one I've been flirting with all my life, but still run from like a 6th grader at the Junior High dance.
Sort of how the thing I want to do the most with my life is a punishment, and so I do the stupid tasks instead; I clean the bathroom instead of paint the landscape. The perfection-thing. So stupid, and the tasks will never ever be done, because like the Golden Gate bridge, once the fresh paint-job is done, the crew just starts over on the side they started.

So to spin a finer point on this, I surveyed my laughing friends for some insider secrets of the work-at-home life, what is the Wisdom of the Home Worker, the Tao of the Desk, how the F do you do this? What leap of mindset is necessary, and how many times did you blow it before succeeding?

"Well-----" they each begin, and I can hear the creak of them leaning back in their at-home desk chair, "first you have to have a cell phone, so you can take work calls while you're driving, at your kid's school parking lot, or on your back porch with your laptop."

Check---cell phone.

"You already have a computer and all the accoutrements (my word) to do business, get some cards printed with all your info, but first decide what you're going to do. What are you going to do?"

Shit. There's that again. "Hey, that's why I'm calling you in the middle of your at-home workday, I need answers! Give me some love here, my friend, you know me, what looks good to you? Be the JOB PSYCHIC, like I was for you!"

It just cannot be a coincidence that they each seem to get an important email at this point, and suggest that maybe I should take a few more days to relax and maybe get loaded or something.
Then they laugh and hang up.

And how come it takes certain people so damn long to post on their blog, anyway??? It's not like they're working, and have anything else to do? Forget it, I already got the mail, no severance check yet. Maybe the reason the Writer's Life is not in my cards is because one of my friends certainly would have driven or flown to my house and banged my head on the wall for me by now. Or any minute now. I better go look outside.