Rust Belt Haus Frau

I have a job?

I’ve been living the midwestern dream for about 8 years. Unemployed, freelancing gigs interrupted by the truly weird job job, bizarre weather, inexplicable election results. The usual.

Anyways. I managed to get a job last week in my field. I even get to work at home and no, I’m not a phone sex operator. That stuff got outsourced.

My previous job involved working in a cube farm with a lot a few creative people. They managed to create a lot of stellar office gossip. Who’s going to generate vicious office gossip if I’m the only person in my office?

What persona should I adopt? I’m not interested in adopting the most popular persona of my previous office job: Atkins dieting, coffee drenched, crazy cat lady. Being the office floozie could be a challenge. The kindly flake? As evidenced last week after an accidental mobile phone butt dial, I am really good at talking to myself.

Do I have to decorate my desk with photos of my children? I can look 1 foot to either side and see evidence of their existence. A pile of Legos, dirty socks, a fat dog, a neurotic dog.

Maybe I’ll just ask the next magazine salesperson who wanders up to our house, looking to turn their lives around. I’m sure they’ll know.

WWI

Home for the holidays. My father showed me his grandfather’s dog tags from WWI. Calvin Grubb, of Rural Retreat, VA was stationed somewhere in France.

I grew up in a theme park.

My, how times have changed in E. Tennessee. Moonshine has been replaced with monkeys and meth.

Meh.

The elections are over the grownups can get back to their normal schedule of blaming, scheming and blocking. I have a story to write and a list of domestic delights waiting.

My favoritest song ever.

AP vs MLA

Fifth graders use MLA. I prefer AP.

School project.

Yes. I’ve been itching to toss my weekend into a fire stoked by a school project. Also, my favorite person is not feeling well. Remember those weekends lost to fun vices?

August Rodin, Gates of Hell. Rodin Museum, Philadelphia

Nepotism writes

The head of an ad agency has a great idea. His precious niece really, really, really wants to be a copywriter and he would like to give her a big break. She went to a progressive school that doesn’t believe in letter grades.

The result is this ad campaign.

On inquisitive people.

I took a part-time job at a place that shall remain nameless as people can be vindictive. It’s also temporary. This is good for everybody. I’m always impressed by the questions I am asked during my time at the job.

• Are you married?

• How many children do you have?

• Why did you wait so long in between children?

• You have a funny accent. Where are you from?

• Do you really know what you’re doing?

• Do you teach here? (I resisted the urge to explain the close relation between adjunct teaching and sharecropping.)

I am Southern and polite most of the time.

Totally worth the bar of soap.

Who hasn’t felt this way at some point in their life? (Yeah, I know everybody else has already posted this on their own pithy blog.)

I envy the fool that has a desk job.

I left the lucrative world of textbook publishing almost a decade ago to pursue the womanly arts and hone my complaining. During that time the job market changed.  A lot. Did you know Dayton, OH is not a hotbed of employment for writer/editors? Neither did I as I was being artfully womanly and such.

I freelance, I snag work when I can find it and I scheme.

I’m struggling through a story. Having spent the past hour handing out snacks, demanding the completion of homework, and shoving dogs outside to barkbarkbark has left me thrashed. Soon, I’ll have to move my laptop from the dining table to serve food that will most likely be rejected. I hated my desk job then but the idea of a desk job now seems so appealing right now. I’m sure I’ll come to in a bit.