May 26, 2005
In as much as any writing day is typical, today is weird. Is that an incoherent starting sentence, or what? Well, it's an atypical day.

After having been essentially vehicle-less for 10 days, I got my car back yesterday, and today needed to run some errands. But first, my oldest son received a principal's award at school, so we attended a "breakfast" for it. Then I biked home, grabbed the mail to go out, got the dog settled, grabbed a broken pool skimmer and took off on errands. Post office, credit union, copy shop, then drove to a pool place to buy a new skimmer for the pool. Back home, checked the mail, hadn't come, so I rushed to my office, wrote a check, prepped something that needed to go out, grabbed the dog and ran out to drop off the mail and take the dog for a walk. And in the interim, the mail had come. (No checks today, damn, but two articles were published). I really wanted those mail things to go out today so they can get to their destination the day after Memorial Day or even earlier, so I dragged the dog into the car and headed off to the post office. Then we went over to a park and walked through the woods.

By the time I got home it was time to eat, then sort through all the e-mail I haven't gotten to, apply for a writing gig or two, then figure out what to do. I know Friday's going to be impossible--no interviews are going to happen the Friday before a 3-day weekend, so maybe I'll just spend the rest of today working on the Pitchfork re-write and leave the writing of the podiatry e-appointments article for tomorrow. Decisions, decisions.

Which makes me think of a thought I had while hunting for the pool place. I had applied for a writing/editing gig that allowed for telecommuting yesterday, and they came back today with a whole series of editing tests for me to take. But the problem was, part of their contract is you can't take on any freelancing assignments if you work for them. I've got several long-term freelancing gigs I'm unlikely to give up--and am contracted for in one case anyway--and I told them no. It re-affirmed for me that I'm pretty happy what I'm doing, even if I wish this month's pay were a bit better (but next month will be great). And driving around doing errands made me consider how thrilling it is to be in charge of your own schedule and not have to get permission from anybody to take some time off. Hell, I've got a far more unreasonable boss now than I ever did before, but I like him a lot better.

Ah, life.
Best,
Mark Terry