Wants

I'm working five days a week now. The job itself pays very well and includes full benefits, even at my part-time status. And it's easy. Monkey work, really. Ok, perhaps a step above monkey. Maybe a trained monkey.

The problem is...I'm in a cube. I've never considered myself to be a "cubie" - as they affectionately refer to themselves here at this company. I'm in a cube, doing something that is completely uninspiring and/or interesting. Which has me thinking...

If I'm going to be spending time apart from my family, I should at least be doing something I'm passionate about. Something that I'd do with or without a paycheck and health insurance attached to it.

And so now I'm pondering the possibility of going back to school...yet again. Because I know that what my heart wants, is to teach writing. To be facilitating workshops and encouraging college students or MFA'ers, to be actually using my MFA degree myself.

What I need is a low-residency or distance learning PhD program that will still allow me to be a mother and "cubie" in the meantime. I've found a couple, have inquired. Will see what's to come...

And then some nights

The hotel business surprises you.

Tonight, for example, instead of drunk business men lingering at your front desk while you try to count your quarters - you look up to see someone you've seen many, many times before. Someone who makes your face almost instantly burst into a smile of recognition - of "Hey! How've you been?"

But you don't. Because, if you're like me, you realize before you can even get that stupid grin off your face that this man is someone that you only "know" through your television screen. He's a sort of periphery actor - the kind that reminds you of someone you think you might know, or of a place you think you might have been.

Or, at least he is for me. This is probably because he must've been embedded in my subconscious at an early age with his guest starring roles on shows like Growing Pains and 90210. And, of course, he later was the awesomely bad, drunk, pot smoking, poet bully in Grosse Pointe Blank (a modern classic, in my opinion.) And most recently he was Ana Lucia's partner (and the detective interrogating Hurley) on Lost (my favorite guilty pleasure.)

Apparently, he's in town working on a new Disney production with Bruce Willis. And he and a couple of other actors walked, rather than taking a cab, the mile to the Chili's down the street for dinner. Good for them.

Of course, I'm still here, counting quarter's, waiting for my shift to be over.

But, a two minute brush with 'fame' sure beats spending a night listening to a drunk story...or worse, five hours of nothing.

Status

So here's the shape of things. It's nine-thirty on a Friday and I'm working. And by working, I of course mean binging on dark chocolate (PMS), playing Scrabulous online and occasionally hunkering down and taking out the red pen on the never-ending editing project I (stupidly) accepted for way too little money.

Oh, and I check people in. Four so far tonight. No interesting customer's tonight though. No one lingering to talk about anything more than where they can get the best pizza locally, and how late do they deliver?

My son stuck his head in the toilet yesterday, after peeing.

I have no idea what goes through his little mind, how it brings him to these conclusions. I just don't see how, even a preschooler, can come to the conclusion that yes, absolutely, dunking my clean little face into a potty of pee is definitely the most logical thing to do at this moment. And then I'll go and climb up on Mommy's lap and hug her with my damp little hands and tell her all about it.

So yeah. Work isn't so tough. Aside from that editing project. I haven't spoken of it much, won't go into the gory details. But it's there. And it's a beast.

My alma mater is writing a profile about me for their quarterly publication. They contacted me a couple of months ago to ask if I'd be willing to be interviewed, as someone who is successful in their given field. I agreed, quite flattered and feeling a tad like a sham. I gave them the names of several of my close friends, fellow alums, who are just as creative and successful with their gifts than me. Moreso, even.

Still, they emailed the questions yesterday and I spent last night at work agonizing over how to best explain myself and my work. I'm very uncomfortable in the spotlight, much more now than I was when I was a student at this same school.

Even doing this whole 365 photo project on Flickr, I'm having trouble with having self-portraits up there. It's too much focus on me. I toy around with the idea of shutting it all down, daily. This blog too sometimes. Not that I update it nearly as much as I should anymore, but still. It's shadows of my life, out there, open to the eyes of the world. Very vulnerable, I think. Much like those pictures I keep taking. Not that they're all of me, because they're not. I would never do that sort of challenge (though many, many Flickerites do) - but even taking just "a photo a day" often leaves me scrambling at the end of the day for a subject to snap.

And when in doubt, there I am.

So

A guy walks into a bar...

Or actually, a hotel lobby where we sell beer and wine, though he is clearly not in need of either. The only thing he needs is a shower, a breath mint and a good night's sleep. But instead of any of those things, he decides to stand up at the front desk and tell me his idea for a movie.

Fantastic.

It's an hour until the end of my shift and I was stupid enough to tell the man that I have a degree in writing. When will I learn to lie to the people who ask me questions about myself? What's that? You want to know my story? I actually dropped out of high school, have four children and am working fifty hour weeks to pay for my raging addiction to nasal spray.

But no. Instead I stand, smiling until it hurts, and listen to drunk men talk (to themselves mostly), nodding appropriately.

Tonight's gentleman points out his wedding ring no less than ten times and assures me constantly that he has never strayed.

Really? High five, man. You want a sticker? I might have one with our logo on it.

Anyway, he goes on to tell me, in riveting detail, the opening scenes for his movie idea. Which is basically Lost in Translation, only set in New Orleans. And, since he's drunk and my time is just about up, I'm honest with him when I tell him that, Yes, it has been done before.

It's not always like this. There are some guests who come in (and who are generally sober) that I genuinely look forward to chatting with. One such guest came down to the desk twice last night, but was too polite to stick around after he checked on his next reservation, not wanting to interrupt my conversation with sketchfest-here's-my-movie-idea-man.

But enough about work.

Home life has been good. In an attempt to trim my daughter's bangs from dangling over her whole face, I've officially given her a mullet (in case the God given one that she had was not bad enough.) It wouldn't be so bad, if we didn't already live in a part of Southern NH where mullet's are considered a part of local culture. (On a good day in the summer you might even spy a rat-tail.)

Writing-wise, things are going well. The piece that I was asked to rewrite a few weeks ago was accepted. So, that's three pieces coming out in the next few months. Not a bad start to the new year. I'll let you know when things are out (some will even be available online...)

Editing-wise, things are slow. I'm behind on my biggest project, partly due to the cold that tore through my house, but also because I was thrown a couple of curve balls (ok, the same person who requested that I write a letter on plagiarism for her about a year ago, asked me if I could basically whip up an entire thesis for her...due this week. Obviously, this was a no go. But she is family, so I'm trying to help as much as possible, without being responsible for any form of cheating.)

And now that I'm officially rambling - I'm going to stop. Will return with more concise thoughts later. Sooner than later.

Pimping

I may have officially crossed into the realm of pimping myself out. Or at the very least, I have certainly allowed my creative services to be pimped. And I'm not ashamed to admit, I think that I liked it.

I was asked to write an "about me" for someone else. Specifically, it was for a friend...who also happens to be my boss. And the "about me" article was for her online dating profile. And I worked on it while at work, with her giddy, giggling, blessing. So, in a sense, I was being paid to 'get idea's' from other people's online profiles (oh - my - goodness - was that fun) and then try to construct a witty, eye catching profile for her, sure to ensnare Mr. Right (or at least not Mr. Extremely Wrong - which I do worry may be a possibility after seeing some scary profile pictures.)

I also got my first glimpse into the world of online dating, which ultimately became more like a glimpse at how far removed I am from my 'peers.' Not because am married and they're single or because they're looking for relationships online (hello, I am happily married, yet still reach out to stranger's via the blogosphere, because we're human and connecting with other humans is, well, a very human thing to do...) but because these people don't use real words. There are thirty-something's out there using those little text messaging abbreviations that drive me completely insane. LOL. BFF. IDK. (Texting drives me nuts to begin with. Who can press those little buttons anyhow? And why even go through the trouble pressing them when you can just call the person and speak in the time it takes you to send the message?)

In any event, that night I went home and sat down at my own computer and tried to write something, anything, but my brain was acting like sludge. (A side effect of having spent my work hours reading online dating profiles...I think so too.)

In the morning, I finally pulled out something for my friend. Something so sweet and witty and silly that it could only exist in an atmosphere that appreciates the sugarcoated and airbrushed. I worried after I sent it, the same way I worry whenever I'm waiting to hear back from an editor about a story. I worried about wording, pacing, did I make sense? Was it enough? Was it too much?

She loved it. It took her all of a minute to shoot me an email back exclaiming that I rock.

And I thought - really? Is this on a very minuscule scale how it would feel if I 'pimped' my creativity out, if I wrote in the style of some unnamed big author's who have their latest novels everywhere and couch cushions waiting for them on Oprah? Would it be so hard to stop sweating the threads of constructing sound literature (trying to weave the plots and subplots of stories together like threads) - to stop caring so much and just write.

Write fluff. Get paid. And feel...meh? Slightly satisfied to have made someone else happy. Not entirely unhappy myself. A little underused, perhaps. Slightly "I sold out-ish." But, not bad.

Maybe there's room for (some) fluff. Not that I think I could read it myself. But from what this week has taught me, someone else might. And they might even pay me for it.

Office Space

I'm at "my" office today. Terribly busy, I assure you.

Things accomplished thus far:

Applied for no less than five jobs on Monster.

Emailed the saga of our unemployment hearings to friends.

Finalized our plans for gametime.

Went to the grocery store to buy a salad for lunch.

Returned with salad, seltzer water...and a bag of fat free chocolate mint cookies.

Read the packaging on the bag as I polished off the cookies.

Went to their website and ordered twenty bucks worth of fat free chocolate-chocolate chip cookies. (Yes, they're really that good...and good for you too.)

And now I'm contemplating spending more time in the blogosphere.

I might be overpaid for this.

The Overnight

Things to do while working the graveyard shift...

Nibble the dark chocolate from the outside of about a dozen miniature peppermint patties (discarding the insides)
Re-read the Lorrie Moore book you've brought with you (since you've already read every magazine and Popcorn Factory catalog already at the desk...)

Jog around the back offices. Do jumping-jacks, squats and a few elbows and toes.

Write, what you can (without the use of Word, it's difficult)

Read anything even remotely readable online (Did you know that a man sold his son's $90 video game for $9,000 in an online auction? Or that apparently Jennifer Love Hewitt is overweight? Or that Guiliani is pulling political Ad's out of NH to focus on Florida?) Really. Read anything. At the very least, it keeps your mind from wandering too far.

Work, of course, as needed - but also make grocery lists, do online Christmas shopping, and start games of Scrabulous with any friends who might be willing to play with you (even better if they live in another part of the world...where it's already daylight and completely normal to be awake.)

Daydream about how nice it will be to not be working while the rest of the world is sleeping. But not too much. Best not to get ahead of yourself.

And really, aside from the whole graveyard shiftiness of the whole scenario, how bad is it to get paid to do (virtually) nothing?

Pieces

This morning my daughter ate a fistfull of yellow sheet cake for breakfast...which she grabbed herself from the top of our garbage pail. (Not my proudest moment as a mother, as I reached down to take the cake from her clenched little fist and ask her where it came from and she raced indignantly to the trash and pointed and yelled "Look! Look! Look!" - like it was my fault for tempting her with sweet sweet garbage to begin with.)

We went to my high school reunion last weekend. Meh. It was as I had suspected - small and strange, seeing people from the fringes of my past (none of the people I would have considered myself to be "close" with during high school attended...) There wasn't much for conversation, mostly people drank and we all stood around waiting for it to be over. But it was a childless night out with my husband, which is always a treat.

The Elm (Eureka Literary Magazine) has accepted a story of mine for their upcoming issue.

My son is a vocabulary machine lately - which is excellent (especially considering that we were concerned he was practicing to be a mime only a year ago at this time, when he outright refused to speak.)

Glimpses

The scene: It's evening at the front desk of the hotel where I'm spending most of my nights as of late. The crotchety woman who serves our nightly social is looking up the weather channel at our front desk computers and telling me about the temperature in Montana. (20 degrees for a high)

She turns to me and says, "you look pale."

I nod and shrug. Not the first time I'd noticed that myself.

"No, really," she insists.

"Yeah. I'm kind of pale."

"What, you getting your period or something?"

"No, Crotchety Woman," I assure her, "I'm actually just very pale. Worse in the winter."

"Oh," she says and turns back to the monitor, back to the gray skies and cold air of Montana. "Pale face."

What Happened

It's been a month now since I was here - children napping, typing away on the computer, juggling a game or two of scrabbulous between paragraphs - and then the phone rang, it was my husband, but he only gave me three words. Three words before hanging up, before I was on the floor, on my knees. Pray for me.

I prayed until I was reduced to repeating myself over and over like a skipping record. I paced around the house. I peeked in on my children. I called my mother. We prayed. She began pacing. The Boss began stirring and so I hung up the phone and smoothed my nerves and went to hug him and ask him what he'd like for lunch. Crustless sandwich? Ravioli? Something normal. Something to suggest that this was an ordinary day. That his father always calls to ask for prayer and then hangs up.

And so we left the bedroom together, The Boss and I, and walked into the kitchen and there was my husband in the living room. At lunchtime on a Monday. My husband with red-rimmed eyes and a look of disbelief. My husband, fired.

It's strange, how life can spin you around like that, shaking loose everything you'd held onto as secure. Strange how life can decide it's time for a change long before you're ready. Not that there's ever a time when a young family is prepared to have their provider stop, um, providing.

So, this past month I've had to accept that my part-time job(s) are now "official" jobs. That although neither of the jobs I have do anything more than pay (a few of the many) bills. Neither are things I would put on my resume. Neither are steps in my "career" - yet I'm trapped. Forty hours a week spent doing jobs that high school kids do during the summer, working for fresh-out-of-college supervisor's who are six years my junior.

Don't misread me. I am grateful that we already had something in place when this happened. That I only needed to up my hours, not find a job altogether. I'm grateful that my bosses do pay me better than the average employee. And I'm especially grateful that this whirlwind of stress didn't touch ground until after I finished grad school. For all of these things I am grateful. And for the work that I trust God is doing in all of this situation, I am grateful. I'm thanking him in advance for how He is going to use this as a force of good in my husband's life and career.

But yes, I'm stressed and tired and snippy and miserable whenever I have to leave my kids. And after only a few weeks of this, I can safely say that I'll be more than ready to relinquish the title of breadwinner to my husband whenever he is able to assume it.

My August

It's the damp end of the season, the month when the hair on the back of your neck clings to your skin. Everything sticks, even the air to your skin, your skin to your skin, the bend of your elbow, knees. All of it, a tangled mess of wet heat by the end of the month.

It occurred to me today as I ran a cloth over the counter top and watched bare-legged children race up and down the street through the window over the sink, that I haven't spent nearly enough time outside this season. That the season itself hasn't mattered as much as it should. A few BBQ's, evenings spent smelling like insect repellent and still slapping the suckers from my arms, neck, cheeks, while trying to cut chicken breast into pre-school sized bites - but otherwise, it might as well been March or October, the way that I've wasted the summer away. Working some. Typing not nearly as much as I should. Dragging myself through the mundane without paying much more attention to the glorious season outside, save for the occasional complaint that it's too hot, too humid, too...August-like.

At work, it's air conditioned, which is nice as I'm forced to dress in a standard issue sweater and pair of pleated navy slacks - the entire ensemble designed to create a uniform shapelessness amongst the women on the staff. I look like a light blue square, like a puffed-up pastel after-dinner mint, with a smile, of course.

I think about the time I'm missing at home while I wait for the minutes to blink by on the digital clock. 6:30, they might be on the deck, cooking out, swatting bugs. 7:30, probably bath time. I imagine my son giggling and asking for Lila to play in the tub too.

The sixty-year old woman beside me has a sour face and is quick to assure me that she is in fact the keeper of all knowledge. From tollbooths to organic cooking to opening restaurants in the mountains of Montana. She knows it all. Does it all. I make the mistake of telling her that I write. She does too, of course. Her ghostwriter has already told her that her story is a guaranteed best seller.

I sigh and steal a glance at the clock. 8:30, my husband is probably reading the Bible to The Boss and tucking him in. Lila, already asleep beneath the hum of the air conditioner in our room. While I stand and listen to an argument as it erupts with me in the middle, holding a slip of paper, scanning it like it holds some sort of solution to the discussion that's whizzing around my head.

The customer at the counter assures me, as soon as Ms. Sour Face has turned her back, that I have been wonderful and she will be letting the manager know that. I blink and think to say that I really don't care one way or the other. She could tell them that I cursed them all out for all I care. I'm not even really here.

9:00, he's probably sitting beneath the ceiling fan in his recliner. I'd like to think, perhaps, beginning the countdown to my arrival home, but I know that there's probably a game on, either sports or video, and that he'll be either sleeping or mid-level when I do eventually get to leave, driving through the dense night air, making my way home.