like old times

I'm blogging. Alloo. Someone just posted a spam comment on the post before this one, so I had to remember how to log in and delete it. I like my new blog, but I kinda miss this one, where I could write about anything. (The new one is worky.)

Yeah, that's all I've got right now, I think.

work blog, launched

Hey! In case I didn't catch you, dear reader, on my mass e-mail, my work blog has now launched. The URL is heymyfirstname.com, except instead of "myfirstname" it says my first name. If you do not know my first name...ok, I'm fairly certain I don't have any readers who don't know my first name. But if you are the one and only, leave a comment with your e-mail (you can delete it after you post it, I'll still see the comment) and I'll send it to you.

year

Sorry, I know that after a great burst of blog productivity I kind of stopped for a while there, but I realized there's just no way I'm going to make my quota and I kind of gave up. This year, there will not be 366 chunks o' towwas. It was just a rough year, you know? I mean, it's ending really well, but for a lot of the year I was pretty actively unhappy. There was a long stretch there where I slept on the couch most nights because I didn't want to go lie in bed and think about my day. I am more interested in blogging when I'm in a good mood.

I'm in a TOTALLY good mood now. Today I was at T.Hand's house and she asked, in a concerned voice, if I am really ok with being out of work. I am so ok. For example: no more stress-related digestive problems.

I was thinking the other day (as I painted polyurethane on a piece of my new home office) how darn lucky I am. I'm embarking on a really cool and exciting new phase of my career. I happen to be going into it in a very good financial position, in an apartment I love, with many excellent friends, relatives, and professional contacts on my side. Things are pretty darn good! I know freelancing will come with a whole new pile of stress, from new and interesting sources, and I know I'm feeling great right now 'cause I haven't really done any work in the last six weeks. But I'm optimistic about this new direction.

possum carolers

Look, possum carolers. That reminds me of the Christmas show performances at the zoo. Ver-r-r-r-ry energetic and maybe just a dab crazy.

I have a thing against forced audience participation. (A strong thing. A big thing. Perhaps, one might say, a hatred. Or at least a vehement objection.) I'm not really a participator myself, beyond singing, and having someone try to make you participate when you don't want to is just yucky. It's embarrassing at best, and at worst, it can feel like being the object of a power trip. (I find the glare/eye-roll approach works at fending off this kind of thing.)

In the Christmas show, we invite audience members to participate, and if someone isn't feeling it, that's cool, we love them anyway. But in smaller shows, I think we have to be really careful not to edge toward coercion. Like I said, *I* felt silly doing 12 Days of Christmas in a gift shop, and I was in costume and was thus licensed to be silly. I get how a random passerby wouldn't want to do it. In fact, I was impressed by the few who did try to follow along with the movements.

A lot of people who weren't doing the movements were singing along, or at least moving their mouths. And, hey, some people just enjoyed/tolerated us as background music while they chatted, and that's cool, too. It wasn't like they'd paid to sit in an auditorium and party with us - they were trying to buy souvenirs/eat french fries. And they weren't actively throwing things at us, either. So it's all good.

status updates

Through Facebook, I have discovered a fascinating new skill: writing status updates. If you are not on Facebook [coughGRRBEARcough] you may not be familiar with this art form. The Facebook status update is a sentence, starting with your name, with a limit of...I don't know, but it's not all that long. You hafta be pithy.

It turns out people really like my status updates. I mean, maybe everybody hears this, but it's happened several times recently: I run into someone I'm friends with on Facebook but don't know all that well, who never leaves comments or anything, and at some point in the conversation they'll tell me how much they enjoy reading my status updates. It's happened enough that I'm starting to believe them.

Two hours ago I posted:
[towwas] temporarily knows three verses of Silent Night, Joy to the World, and Deck the Hall. Should I use these skills for good...or eeeevillll?
It has 11 comments now. And they're funny.

On Tuesday:
[towwas] can't keep Guinea and Guinea-Bissau straight in her head.
That one has a hilarious mix of joke comments (other things with "Guinea," like "Guinea pig") and explanations of the relationship between Guinea and Guinea-Bissau that might actually help me remember the difference in the future.

This has to be a marketable skill, right? I mean, the obvious choice is a non-anonymous blog, but I would want it to be a blog read by 426 very funny people I know personally, and I'm not sure that the google ads would add up to a living. Any other ideas?

social life: not dead

I should note that, although I am not spending money, I still like to be invited to events that require spending money. Don't totally cross me off your social lists.

finances

I have a decent amount of savings, so getting laid off is not an immediate financial emergency. But it does mean I'm living off a bank account that's only going in one direction, so I'd like to slow its rate of depletion. This has led to my new fiscal policy: Don't spend money.

It's actually kind of liberating. There's a number of activities I can cross right off my list. Shopping, for example. Most concerts and movies. Going out for drinks.

Sure, I'm still spending money on food, Netflix, and other necessities. But basically, this gives me very easy criteria for deciding what to do. Does it involve money? Yeah, I think I'll skip it. I imagine I'll start reintroducing spending eventually, as I get income, but for now I'm ok with being cheap.

sleep

In recent years, I've gotten good at getting up at the same time every day. Even on weekends, I've usually been up and poking around by 8 or so. I figured that getting up at 7:15 during the week and 10 on weekends means you just completely confuse your brain and get jetlag Monday morning. I felt pretty darn virtuous for being all adult and apparently having grown out of sleeping late.

Yeah. Now that my schedule isn't ruled by business hours, I'm lucky if I drag myself out of bed before 10. It's every day of the week, so I'm still consistent, but wow, so not getting up in the morning these days.

On the plus side, it means I do more stuff around 11, 12 at night, when my brain is awake.

list

Things I wouldn't mind having for Christmas:

* fold-up scissors that I can throw in a bag and carry around with my knitting and not worry that they'll stab something. Something like this.
* a digital watch that is not thoroughly unattractive (i.e. face smaller than a tin can), resists water, and can count down three minutes.
* Wall-E on DVD.
* world peace.
* a gift certificate to this yarn store.
* this songbook.

[to be continued as I think of other stuff]
* a gift certificate to this yoga studio.
* Mary Chapin Carpenter's new Christmas album.
* of course I want this calendar.
* tickets to West Side Story.
* tickets to Les Miz at the Signature Theatre.

P.S. My mom says to tell you this list is for her, so don't go buying me things on it.

uptick in blogging

I just did the math and I'd have to write 62 (now, 61) posts between now and the end of the year to average one a day for 2008. (For a total of 86 posts in December.) Man...I just don't know that I have 61 more things to say. I'm not sure what I'm saying is entertaining enough to be worth the effort.

I'm pretty sure that even if I *do* accomplish that, my goal for this blog for 2009 will be more like one a week.

books, books, books

So in addition to my only-in-my-brain knitting memoir, I'm actually working on pitching a real live book idea. And I just sent a link to this blog to the editor I'm working with, so everybody wave! Hi S.Stra! If things go according to plan, I'll start a brand-new blog on the book topic soon. You all have to come read it and leave funny comments, ok? Extra exciting: That blog will be under my REAL NAME. I KNOW. SHOCKING.

lookin good

I think to match last year's feat (and the year before) I'd have to blog like three times a day for the rest of the year. Don't hold your breath. I mean, I'll give it a shot, but there could be a lot of boring posts.

Hey, I'm a freelance writer now. Check that out. I was in an excellent position when I got laid off - I have an embarrassingly large amount saved and in an easily-mobilized account (as opposed to my retirement savings, which I'm not touching), no family to support, reasonable rent, and yay, thank Congress for COBRA. And whenever I called a former boss or other nice person to tell them I'd been laid off, they'd say something like, "Great! Can you freelance for me?" So I'm going to give this freelance thing a shot. The savings and other circumstances mean that I don't have to panic for several months. And things had been so lousy at work for so long that I'd thought all the way through the worst-case scenario, and let me tell you, it isn't that bad.

So in the last few weeks, I've pitched a book (!), talked about many story ideas with an editor of a Big Magazine (some of the involving international travel), signed up to write a bunch of quizzes for a website, interviewed for an insane ocean adventure, and generally had a lot of exciting tastes of what my life could be now that I'm free. (Free!)

glasses and dirty clothes

I lost my glasses five or six weeks ago. I figured they were somewhere in my apartment, but I hadn't seen them, and my old glasses weren't exactly the right prescription, and I'd never used my vision benefit that's about to run out, so finally this week I ordered a new pair.

Then last night She Gre e-mailed me: "There are some glasses in the laundry room, those aren't yours....are they?"

Yeah, they were. If you're doing the math at home, that means I haven't been to the laundry room in five or six weeks. In my defense, it's been a stressful month. Also, I did wash a load of socks, underwear, and t-shirts at my parents' house once a few weeks ago. And it's the time of year when you wear winter clothes some days and summer clothes other days, so it takes a long time to run out. But...still.

feeeelings

My feelings about getting laid off have gotten somewhat more complicated. The happy is still there, and the millions of ideas about what to do next, but now there's the sad, too - I'm not going to be able to walk over to Mr.S's office any time I want to tell someone about a really exciting interview I just did or talk through an idea or find out what I missed on Project Runway. I won't be able to go to J.Ber's office to complain about my stories and talk about knitting. (I'll still hang out with Barkley.) There's no cafeteria in my house.

I'm still kind of disappointed that the dream job at the dream employer didn't work out. And, looking forward, I'm daunted by the task of writing enough pieces to make up my income, and wondering if I can even make enough money to subsist on - let alone support my expensive travel habit.

I've also had time for my brain to start popping out weird little tidbits about the reality of freelancing. I'm going to have to pay for phone calls, including international calls. If I need notebooks, I have to buy notebooks. Everything in my office is coming home and staying here, not moving out into another office. I need a better home phone. What the heck am I going to do with all my business cards from my employer? Oh shoot, I need new business cards. But first I need a website. How am I going to buy off the person who has my URL now? Should I get a phone that can do e-mail? Which one? Isn't data service expensive?

And so on. It's exhausting.

layoffs

Yesterday we got a message from the editor-in-chief announcing a mandatory staff meeting this morning at 11:30. Rumors started flying. My section is so small, we figured they couldn't lay anyone off. And I heard they were telling people before the meeting, so when I hadn't heard by 11 this morning, I figured I was safe. I told Miss Shirley by IM that it looked like I wasn't getting laid off. Actual excerpt of conversation:

11:03 AM me: I was halfway hoping I would be. :) make up my mind for me.
Miss Shirley: oh no! that puts someone else in charge of your life
it sucks but you should make those choices
11:04 AM me: yeah, whatever. :)
Miss Shirley: lol

About 15 minutes later I got a phone call, went down to HR, and learned from my boss's boss that my position was being eliminated. I came home, put on pajamas, and made many, many phone calls. Also I took a walk and went to lunch with She Gre. And S.Ball came over to hang out in the evening.

I'm really pretty cheerful. Something will work out. I have a good cushion of savings. I'm sure there are times of abject panic up ahead, but I hope they are few.

366 this year

The last few years I've managed to post exactly 365 items on my blog - one per day. (Some days with zero and some days with five, of course.) Today is the 314th day of 2008 and this is post 295...so I'm totally behind! I'm spending way too much time on facebook and obsessive knitting and stuff.

whew

This has been a big week, my friends. I stayed home sick three days. (And only worked a few hours on the other two days.) I finished knitting one project, started another, and went shopping for yarn three times. Or was it four? S.Ball, She Gre, Chatty, Ogram, and my parents came over at various times to keep me company.

Finally, yesterday I wrote a polite, reasonable 1250-word e-mail to the person who I think has primary responsibility for my misery of the last four months explaining exactly how I have been feeling and exactly what behavior and actions by that person have led to my feeling this way. So far, response to the e-mail (from that person and the next person up the management chain) has been good.

This is no fun, people, and I don't know where it's going to lead. But I feel super tough and awesome for actually standing up to the meanie. Rawr. And today I got my appetite back. I hadn't seen it in a while.

ok, little miss only barely knows how to read

Next to my keyboard at home right now I have a list of evidence that I'm a good writer.

1. [person at radio network] referred to me as "our best intern" several years after I'd been there, to someone who didn't know me.

2. [radio god] used one of my stories in a speech as his example of how people should tell stories about science.

3. [wildly successful freelancer and book author] picked one of my stories (ok, the same story) for an anthology.

4. Little Miss likes me, and she's smart.

Under normal circumstances, this might be considered bragging, but I really need this list somewhere where I can see it right now.

UPDATE, 11:58: Ok, I found another one, from an editor I've written for a few times, so please indulge me: "Seriously, though, and not just because I like you personally or want to be nice -- you are one of the most talented writers I've ever worked with." And "...whatever happens, don't let anybody make you think you're a boring writer -- that's crazy talk!"

(Although I realize one could argue that this particular post is boring. Sorry bout that. It's mostly for me. Feel free to place your own requests for affirmation in the comments and I'll tell you why you're awesome. Already did it for Z.Dog, and he didn't even ask.)

darts

Last night I went to a birthday party. I was so not in the mood. I even considered calling in "sick" - I did feel a bit feverish but I think that was just because it was so hot out. The party was for my coworker Barkley, and I knew it was going to mostly be her friends from college, and making conversation in a noisy bar is one of my least favorite things in the world. But I like Barkley, and I'd RSVP'd yes, and you never know, I could suddenly decide I like bars, noise, and strangers.

It turned out to be awesome! Someone else I work with was there with a friend of hers, and she suggested darts. Turns out, none of the three of us who were playing knew how to keep score. In the beginning, we weren't even all that good at hitting the board. So we came up with our own scoring, which I will record here because I think it's funny.

Hit the wall: 1 point.
Hit the board: 2 points. (There are three darts, so by far the most common score was 6.)
Hit the red middle of the bullseye: 1500.

At some point one of the guys playing on the middle board explained the scoring, and we smiled and nodded and had no idea what he was talking about.

We kept adding rules as we thought of them. (Ok, it was mostly me.)
Green outer part of the bullseye: 500.
Red elsewhere on the board: 100.
Green elsewhere on the board: 50.
Two of your darts end up touching: double your score.
Hit one of the letters on the board: its value in Scrabble.
Hit inside a closed loop of one of the numbers: the value of the number.
Get a dart to stick straight up in the floor: 5.
Hit outside the metal circle but still on the board: 10.

It's possible that this is the most fun I've ever had in a bar. When I left home I told myself I only had to go for an hour and I'd make it home in time for Saturday Night Live. I got there at 8:45 and didn't leave til after 11:30. (So I had to watch this online today.)

Also: There were cupcakes.

bloom of youth

The cashiers at the grocery store by Miss Shirley's house never card me when I buy wine. I'm insulted. It's right there on my last receipt - "Customer ID Verified - Visual Approval." I assume that means "looks old." (Even if it means the dude lied about checking my ID - that still means "looks old.")