or
WHY AM I SO BUSY ALL THE TIME, NOW THAT I HAVE NOTHING TO DO…

The one-year anniversary of my self-imposed unemployment is fast approaching.  In one week I will celebrate the first of this annual event, in what I imagine to be many to come (I browse the jobs listings only casually, in case there is an opening for Slightly Motivated Curmudgeon or Opinion-Spouting Know-it-All).  In preparing for the big day, I am tempted to look back and ponder.  Actually, that’s not true.  In reality I’m tempted to forget I ever had a real job and have always spent my life in its current iteration, but after receiving my latest notice from COBRA regarding my health insurance benefits possibly expiring, I am tossed into the memoir game.

 

THE PLAN

 

I recall the giddiness of Summer 2008.  I vaguely feel the last remnants of anticipation, traces of motivation and the sweet aftertaste of delusions of grandeur as I stood on the verge of freedom.  I quit my job, a job I liked, was qualified for and at which I excelled.  I gave up “all that” to focus on more important things.  I was going to write great works, raise incredible children and improve my health and well-being.  I was going to concentrate on ME. 

 

Let me tell you something:  there is much less pressure when someone else is concentrating on ME.

 

THE REALITY

 

In the last year I have written…a bit.  In the last year I have spent endless hours with my incredible children, although taking any credit for the raising of or feeding/caring of them would be remiss.  I have gained and lost twenty pounds (I’d say “the same twenty pounds” but I suspect they are different pounds, since they seem to prefer residing in new places each time they re-appear – “An ankle!  We’ve never liked in a fat ankle before!”), and have torn a major tendon in my knee and had surgery on my right shoulder, so health and well-being is questionable.  I have concentrated – on internet social networking and losing all of my previous cooking skills.

 

BREAK IT DOWN

 

The Writing:

I don’t want to sound all couch-potato-y or slacker-like, so let me point out that I did actually meet a handful of deadlines, attain a few goals and kick some butt on a few writing fronts.  I showered, dressed and put my face on every single day, and often wore jewelry, the true sign of Not Wasting My Time.   The very day that I gave notice at my office, I also submitted a play for a staged reading in San Francisco.  “Ha!” I thought, “Today is clearly the first day of the rest of my life.  Surely this is how Sam Shepard started his illustrious (and overwhelmingly industrious) career.”  Over the next two months I apparently got a haircut, attended a bingo party and went to Laguna Seca for the MotoGP race, according to my detailed calendar.     However, my play was accepted, and by December was successfully staged (fabulous! wunderbar!), while I also brought a casserole to a block party, attended a same-sex wedding (no casserole required) and MC’d both a Halloween Carnival and Winter Holiday Parade.  January brought Punk Rock Bowling and March saw production of my “Big Love: The Bigfoot Musical” – a ten minute folk operetta.  Who’s the unemployed loser now!?   In addition to these completed projects, I also wrote two songs, the first scene of seven plays and the first paragraph of eleven essays, all of which are in turn hilarious, poignant, thought-provoking, insightful and barbed – some all at the same time.  I can’t wait to see how they turn out.  I wonder how that might happen.  (I also took a stab at short story writing, to no avail.  To tell you the truth it was kind of soppy, and I applaud the panel of reader-judges who rejected its inclusion in the project to which I was submitting.  Good call!)  I named my future memoir and anxiously await events to memoir-ize.

 

 

 

The Children:

Three children x lunches for an entire school year = Super Mom.  

This in itself must qualify me for some special place in mother-dom, or at least a barstool and a bottomless martini glass.  None of my children ate a single school lunch, no matter how hard I tried to convince them that for one day, one special hung-over or crampy or post-surgery day they could eat a shrink-wrapped hamburger or personal pizza provided by the kind people of the City of Santa Cruz.  They preferred my personal touches – bread and butter, seven Cheeze-Its, tap water in a thermos, formerly firm grapes.  Maybe they deserve the award for this.  Way to subsist!

Health and Well-Being:

I bought a lot of vitamins over the last twelve months.  I belonged to a gym.  I roller-skated.  I thought a lot about what I ate (I’m actually thinking about eating RIGHT NOW! Which is a totally different sentence than:  I’m actually thinking about eating right NOW.)  I have the fantastic good fortune to be involved in a sport that spouts body self-acceptance and empowerment as two of its basic tenets.  Huzzah!  Also, the more I practice this sport, the tighter my pants get.  Roller derby gives me giant thighs and a big bubble butt.  This works for me, and I’m not complaining.  It also gave me numerous aches, pains, tears, lesions and mystery bruises.  The toughest part is knowing when to go to the doctor, because honestly – it always hurts.  I suppose I could have a standing appointment after every week of practice, or have a monthly MRI, but that might take the fun out of it.  Bob, my x-ray technologist, and I are working on a future art exhibit once we get every part of my body zapped.  We are almost there! 

 

Concentrating on Me:

I have spent a lot of time with me lately – thinking about me, looking at me, talking to me.  I really thought I knew me, what with being me for the last forty-five years.  “This is boring,” I thought, “I’ve heard all of these stories already, and half of them aren’t true,” because I know me is a liar.  But then I realized something new about myself, and it was eye-opening, in a “Hmmm…that should have been obvious” kind of way.  I’ve been trying really hard for the last year to participate in a competitive sport.  In order to participate in a competitive sport, it helps to have a competitive personality.  I was under the impression that I had a competitive personality and would thrive in the woman-warrior versus woman-warrior culture of derby.  It was embarrassingly recent that I realized that my competitive spirit lies primarily in the realm of the intellect, and its verbal outlet.  “You use your mouth like a gun,” my father used to tell me, as far back as middle school.   It’s true.  My super-power is not physical dominance, intimidation or restraining methods.  My superpower is the Verbal Shrink Ray:  I will make you feel puny and insignificant using ten words or less.  This is a fantastic perk in the world of debate teams, playwrights and general smart-assery, but on the roller derby track it leaves me a little behind the curve.  When confronted with a fellow rolling behemoth in hot pants trying to knock me on my keister, my initial response is not the “fight” from “fight or flight.”  My involuntary response is “breathe fire” from the dragon section of my Chinese zodiac.  I’m more likely to lean in real close, helmet to helmet, and whisper through my mouth guard, “Your feral attempt at domination demeans us both, as does your witless nom de guerre.”   This could explain the numerous injuries (see above) and my lateral promotion to league announcer for the rest of the season. 

 

QUANTIFY IT!

12 months

112 skating practices

45 doctor appointments

5 haircuts

3 trips to Chicago

1 trip to Vegas

$0 income

365 days feeling pretty darned awesome

365 days feeling pretty darned desperate

365 days feeling pretty darned conflicted

mmmmm…writer-y

oxoxoxoxox

Madame Luke