2004-08-21 - 12:35 p.m.

hello there!

life has a funny way of making decisions for you, doesn't it?

i didn't get the Guideposts job, after all. and i suppose it was good that i was suffering from a massive head cold when i got the news, because i couldn't rightly process it.

although afterwards i did have an odd moment, standing there in the wreck of our living room in my limp-from-the-day linen pants and my top-which-felt-too-small-from-jim's-laundry-ministrations, where i felt very sorry for myself, and rather as if no one wanted me.

jim says that it's not that they didn't want me, it's that i wasn't a good fit, but i frankly can't really see the diff.

i guess it's that, if you've been told by your friends that you're the type of person who could talk people into anything, and that everyone instantly takes a liking to you (a fact i know is patently untrue, anyway), then being told that "it just wasn't a right fit" doesn't feel all that good anyhow.

couple that with having parents who tell you you can't do anything, which makes you even more prone to believing the people who say nice things about you, and you have one very messy picture. sigh.

the thing is, though, i did feel very trapped for a little while after i got the news, as if i could foresee no real way out, and then i suddenly realized that this was actually a good thing.

i don't think i want to work for people anymore, you see.

Santa Fe kate is convinced that i should go back to freelancing. but i no longer feel like i can report. i got really tired of writing about the things that people did when i so badly wanted to just do them myself. everything i wrote about i wanted to do, and that just gets exhausting. you have to write about the people to pay the bills. you have to keep on discovering cool new things to do with life, none of which you can do because you are too busy *writing* about them, which is just punk-ass stupid.

there is one thing i am good at, and i am worried as all git-out that i have ruined that for life.

i am good at transferring my own experiences onto the page in a way that people will react to them and feel not quite so alone, or maybe a little happier, a little different, for having read about it. the thing is, the fiasco with the Christian Science Monitor, where i wrote an incredible essay, only to have it wrenched out of my hands due to an unrelenting and misguided parental unit, and then put back into the pages (thereby exacerbating the editors), and then having to pull it because of what i saw as a written gaffe and they saw as a deliberate attempt to obfuscate and elevate the story to publishable rank, has sort of sullied my name with that very reputable publication. which was the site of my primary write-so-people-feel-better-and-good-or-whatever things. agh.

anyway. i suppose i am feeling angst. i suppose it's less than angst. i think it's raw fear. i think it's fright at having to go through the query process again, of finding editors who love your work so much that they'll take a telephone call from you in a heartbeat and will read your stuff first out of sheer pleasure of reading your work.

what an amazing feeling.

what a rare feeling, i should say. it's one i earned, and then squandered, for lack of practise. for lack of care in one phrase, one i didn't even notice until i had read the thing over twelve times. after it'd been through the editing wringer.

christ.

there's nothing to do but start over, i guess.

day-to-day, as my financial advisor says, is easy. it is something you can just pretty much do with your eyes closed. i do my job--see people, prep for presentations, give them well, take folks out to dinner, a show, and cocktails--and i will be okay, with plenty of time to spare during the day for tasks and movements more important to the business of fulfilling a life's dream of work in the pages of a book.

god. what a crazy, punk-ass, lame life. 60 hours a week i do this, folks.

still, there are few of us who are so lucky that we can strike the right chord on the first try. i suppose i ought to be thankful to at least be on the correct road, and making enough moulas to keep all my various follies up and running. (sorta.)

jim is in rhode island this weekend. charlotte is coming into town from DC for a weekend of apartment hunting, and i get to have dinner with her tonight, which will be very cool. peggy and i are taking the train into town to meet her and we will also see kristin later on tonight. other than that, i have no plans other than to try and get myself back on physical track. what a nice feeling. oh and i guess i should make an attempt to clean up our pigsty, too. it's nice to be at home for the weekend, though.

okay, folks. thanks for reading. geez this was one long pity-party, eh?

 

 

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