Dear Alex:
1. I am not butch.
2. I do too update. See?
So, my plan is that this is going to be the best year ever. And I’m saying that not just because I’m an optimist, but because I’m the most irritatingly persistent person you will ever know, and therefore I’m determined. Heather and I have had the following conversation at least four or five times recently during mildly-dangerous moments:
H: No you wouldn’t. You’d be dead.
Me: No way! I’d be pissed. It would be a huge inconvenience. I have plans.
H: You’d be dead! You wouldn’t care!
Me: I’d be so mad about being dead, I’d come back and haunt the hell out of all of you. Just so you’d know how angry I was about it.
H: Fine.
Reason number one that my 30th year is shaping up to be the best: self-employment. Occasionally I’ll have a moment when I think, what the hell am i doing? i don’t have a job! But then I remember that I do actually work, and people often send me money for said work, and everyone is happy. It’s weird how it works out. However, yesterday, my ex-employer (with whom I am now contracting) and I had a slight disagreement about the relationship between me and the money they owe me. I felt that we were meant to be together; apparently, they did not. This issue was resolved via email without having to resort to threats, and ended with me deciding to drive over and pick up my check.
You know when you’re in meditation class, and the instructor tells you to imagine your special place1? Well, this office is the exactly opposite of that place. I couldn’t have been any happier to not work there anymore. It’s a little too spirit-crushing for my taste.
I drove my check over to their bank and cashed it, and for the span of about ten minutes while I drove over to my credit union, I was rich beyond my wildest dreams (as long as I pretended I was living in a third-world nation). Then I deposited the cash, and it converted back to fake-money status, the kind of funds you use for the really exciting stuff like paying the mortgage and car insurance. Dammit.
Later on, I went to see the debut of Nickel & Dimed, coincidentally also April’s onstage debut at the Guthrie Lab. I loved the book, and the show was a good representation, if a little too goofy at times. You probably already know this, but it bears repeating: for the love of all that is good, don’t shop at Wal-Mart. During intermission, a woman aimed her microphone in our direction:
Me: (pointing at Daniel) He would!!
So, he got to have his debut on public radio, and everyone was a winner. Afterwards, we went out in search of food in the mile between the Lab and his apartment. It took us four restaurants, but we finally found the holy grail of late-night bar food: the mushroom martini. The fact that we found it at a bar called Whitey’s doesn’t detract from its glory. It was that good.
So, um, fast-forward to the waking-up part this morning, which was harder than usual. I heard Heather get up, shower, call in sick, and get back in bed. I got up a while later and went for my walk, which was actually more of a stagger. I got coffee, came home, scared Heather awake at 11:30am, and told her my fantasy for the day: I wanted to get some food, take it to the lake, lay on a blanket, and read my book.
This is why self-employment is a beautiful thing.
A short while later, we were laying in the sun at Lake Calhoun. It was 87 degrees, and the breeze off the lake was perfect. I kept meaning to read, but got stuck staring at the dragonfly sitting on the tip of a bare branch in the tree above me, and the airplanes passing overhead. The dragonfly was sitting at a precise 90-degree angle to the airplanes, and he kept flying off in a big loop, then returning to exactly the same position. The sky was the kind of blue that we only get here for a few weeks in the summer, but which makes almost six months of winter completely worthwhile. There were four fratboy-types playing volleyball nearby (we determined that their names were Buddy, Guy, Dude, and Sully), but even their please-look-at-us antics weren’t enough to distract us from our mission: to do nothing, and to be really, stupidly happy about it. I said, “This is the best day of my life. I’m staying here forever.” And Heather said, “You’re turning red. Let’s go.”
I’m aware that at some point, self-employment may turn nightmarish and desperate, and I’m willing to accept that risk. I’m not going to regret a minute of it, either. I highly recommend that you try it sometime.
Jenni
1 Not that special place, pervert.