New Directions at LivingSmall

Posted on January 22, 2010 by cmf

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what to do with LivingSmall. While the practical posts on cooking, gardening and chickens will, by no means be going away, the focus will be shifting a little bit.

There’s been a lot of discussion chez LivingSmall about the recession/depression, and how it’s not going away. Every morning, the newspapers are full of stories about “recovery” and no one seems to be discussing the fact that we can’t go back, we can’t have a recovery that is predicated on the same boom-and-bust cycles fueled by easy credit and that aren’t backed by anything real, in particular, by jobs that pay a living wage. It’s not just manufacturing jobs that are disappearing anymore. At Cisco, all of us in tech writing were watching our jobs go to India, or Ireland, or Israel, or anyplace else where people had decent English skills and lower wages (and usually government health care).

I’m also interested in the national conversation about what exactly constitutes work. I’ve wanted to freelance for ages, so I’m pretty excited about not having a “job” anymore. However, I find the national discussion about what constitutes work, and what constitutes a job very disturbing. You would think if we’re trying to reboot our economy, we’d want to create an environment that’s hospitible to small businesses and entrepreneurs, but in fact, we’ve done just the opposite. With the Democrats caving on health care reform, and leaving all of us who are self-employed or working for small businesses hung out to dry, we’re all at greater risk of medical bankruptcy. We can’t buy into unemployment insurance even if we wanted to, and without “employers” we pay 15% Social Security tax instead of the 7.5% one pays when working for an “employer.” All of which was enough to keep me out of the freelancer pool until I was forcibly thrown into it.

And so now what? The big corporations are steadily throwing more and more American workers overboard, credit is tightening, and no one is addressing the reality of what a real recovery might look like. There’s a big opportunity here. We could actually start to rebuild along more sustainable lines. And what intrigues me, and what we’re going to be exploring here some at LivingSmall is — what might that sustainable recovery look like? Is there a real chance for us to think about our lives and livelihoods in a more creative way? Can we create a discussion about changing our lifestyles that posits a world in which less stuff leads to more freedom for us all? Readers? What’s your experience been? How has the recession inspired you to make changes you’d maybe resisted, but that you’re finding fulfilling?

Jobless Recovery Myth

Posted on January 21, 2010 by cmf

There’s no such thing as a jobless economy. And really? As a nation do we want to be dependent on others for everything? for glass?

Glassmaking Thrives Offshore, but Is Declining in U.S. – NYTimes.com

“Imagine China,” he said in an interview, “building a huge structure intended to be an important national symbol and importing glass from the United States to build it. There is no way the Chinese would do that.”

Recessionomics

Posted on January 19, 2010 by cmf

One of the things we’ve been discussing a lot chez LivingSmall, is the fact that this “recession,” which looks a lot more like a depression to those of us in the self-employment pool, isn’t going away. Every morning in our local paper, we read ridiculous AP stories predicting that “the recovery” is just around the corner, that all we have to do is what? clap our hands and hope that like Tinkerbelle, the economy will return to the roaring days of easy credit, inflated housing prices, and excessive consumer consumption? Hasn’t anyone noticed that there aren’t any jobs, that we don’t actually make anything in the US anymore, and that the finance wizards on Wall Street have turned all their vaunted “intelligence” to gaming the system? We can’t go back, but there seem to be very few people thinking about what a sustainable economy could look like, an economy that will sustain an actual middle class, an economy that provides actual jobs for actual people.

Looks like Joseph Stiglitz has noticed … his new book is reviewed in this morning’s New York Times and it seems promising. I might have to go put in a request at my local library since without a job, I’m not really buying new hardcover books these days.

Books of The Times – Joseph E. Stiglitz’s Skepticism for Obama’s Fiscal Policy – Review – NYTimes.com.

Mr. Stiglitz, a member of Mr. Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers and later chief economist for the World Bank, frequently criticized the Treasury secretary at the time, Robert E. Rubin, and his successor Lawrence H. Summers, for their deregulatory policies; in these pages, he questions President Obama’s decision to make Mr. Summers his chief White House economic adviser and to name Timothy F. Geithner (who worked under Mr. Summers and Mr. Rubin in the Clinton administration) treasury secretary.

Obama chose this team,” says Mr. Stiglitz, who writes with what sounds like a touch of sour grapes, “in spite of the fact that he must have known — he certainly was advised to that effect — that it would be important to have new faces at the table who had no vested interests in the past, either in the deregulatory movement that got us into the problem or in the faltering rescues that had marked 2008, from Bear Stearns through Lehman Brothers to A.I.G.

Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy

Happier living that happens to be more sustainable

Posted on January 18, 2010 by cmf

One of the things I’ve been mulling over since I lost my job, is how much happier I am. Turns out, I’m not alone. Grist tracks Happier living that happens to be more sustainable.

Unemployment, Week One

Posted on July 25, 2009 by cmf

So far, so good on the unemployment thing. While it’s never ideal to be the one voted off the island, I find I don’t miss the job at all — I miss the people I worked with, but I don’t miss being chained to my desk from eight in the morning until six at night; I don’t miss the anxiety of thinking someone might send you an instant message while you were getting a cup of tea and then decide you’re slacking; I don’t miss being treated as an incompetent by my manager, and I’m beginning to get over the numbness that has been plagueing my right arm and shoulder for the past couple of months.

This week, frankly, I’ve been sleeping a lot. This feels a lot like the summer after I finished my Phd exams, when I slept, read plotty, unchallenging books (that summer it was the Raj Quartet, this summer it’s the Inspector Montalbano mysteries by Andrea Camelleri), and just went into recovery mode.

The first thing I did last week was to re-organize my office. Out went the big desk that was too high, and which I think was a major contributing factor to the arm numbness. Up from the basement came the ugly-but-comfy armchair and the tilty table from Levengers (really great when I have to type in quotes from books for the new freelance gig). Also up from the basement came my wee desk from Target — when I took the finials off the bottom of the legs, it’s exactly the right midget height for me to sit in a chair with my feet on the floor and type. I pulled out my old corkboard and tacked a few note cards with article ideas up, and purged all the stuff from my office bookshelves that I’m not going to need anymore. A vase of flowers from the garden, and I’m set. A new office for a new era.

I also managed to get a lot of things done that I’ve been working too much to address. I got the snow tires off my car (well, it did snow in June, but not that much). I washed my kitchen floor. I weeded the vegetable garden, picked the peas and the favas and planted some endives for fall. I rebuilt the chicken coop (a proper post on that later) so the chickens can’t get out. Chuck and I went for a 10 mile hike. I went up to my Milk Lady’s farm and relocated the rooster (he’s cock of the walk in the hen house apparently — very much the new guy in town and loving it) and bought some hens from her. I went big-grocery shopping and went to Costco and got some acupuncture for the bad shoulder. I took the dogs swimming in the Yellowstone and then for a short hike (Owen’s robo-leg held up great). I got my hair cut.

And yesterday I finally got back to my new office, finished up one freelance project, got started on another, and figured out how to re-write the opening section of the novel I now have no excuse for not finishing. A week off was delightful, but now I can hear the clock ticking. I have six months to figure out this next part. Six months to finish my novel, and drum up enough freelance projects to keep the little ark afloat. Six months minus one week, and counting …

Layoff — Putting LivingSmall to the Test

Posted on July 20, 2009 by cmf

Well, it finally happened — the layoff genie landed on my shoulder last Thursday. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, however, it was quite a shock to log in for that meeting and see an unfamiliar name on the call — an HR person. Nine years I’ve been at that job, and frankly, the past several have been pretty unpleasant. But it was a good job in a bad economy, and so I stuck it out until they decided that they don’t need editors any more, or they don’t like remote workers, or whatever corporate algebra goes into deciding who to vote off the island. Luckily it’s a very large company, and the severance package was quite generous. Also in my favor — I’d seen it coming and I’d landed some freelance work that I think will, eventually, support me.

But wow. Time to put everything I know about living small to the test. I’m getting more hens tonight — the rooster is going off to live on an actual ranch (not the proverbial ranch where all of our old dogs went when we were children), so there’s another source of protein out of the backyard. And last week we saw an ad in the paper for a whole pig, cut, wrapped, butchered with hams and bacon cured for a really reasonable price, so this afternoon I ordered a pig.

While getting laid off was a shock, it reminded me that I moved here with the intention of getting out of that job eventually. I knew that if I wanted to write, I’d need to find a place where I could afford to live on less money. Unlike some of my California co-workers, I have a really reasonable mortgage, and I’m not upside down on my house. My car is paid off, and while I owe more on the credit cards than I like, and while I’ve still got that student loan from my PhD, I’m in pretty good shape. My goal was always to downsize, and while I had hoped it wouldn’t come so soon, it does come as something of a relief. I was unhappy in that job, but it was too good to quit. Being laid off means I have six months to finish my novel, build up a freelance career, pay things off, and make the transition. I’ve never had six months support without a job in my life.

So like I said. Time to get serious about living small. Time to get back to what Gary Snyder calls the “real work.” Time to dust off the writer/artist/hippie I cast aside when I took that good solid sensible corporate job. And so far, it’s been really lovely — I’m sleeping again. Chuck and I went for a really long hike yesterday. I re-organized my office so I can reclaim it for my own work. I printed out the poor neglected novel and figured out a thing to make the first part better (which unfortunately means I have to rewrite it again, but oh well.) I have some freelance work on deck, which looks both interesting and reasonably lucrative. So we’ll see. In eighteen months I could be really regretting this, but for now, it all looks sort of hopeful.

Knitting as Antidote for Frantic Busy-ness

Posted on January 22, 2008 by cmf

I’m about to go log in to my job at the Big Corporation, the job that I’m hoping will see me through whatever impending financial doom is rising on the horizon, the job that isn’t my dream job, but which I like nonetheless. As much as I’d love to be able to write full time, it’s good to have a real job, especially for a writer — it keeps me engaged with the world outside my little circle of writers and artists and handymen and hunters and ranchers trying to make a go of it selling milk and eggs and wool. There was a piece in the NY Times a couple of weeks ago about telecommuters fighting off loneliness that I found interesting because it’s not really a problem I run into — for one thing, I’m weirdly happy to spend enormous amounts of time alone, and for another, I work with a group of people spread out between San Jose, Miami, Galway Ireland, Seattle and here in Montana. We’re all so electronically connected to one another at my job, that I don’t really feel like I’m alone all day. Between our group instant messaging program, email, and web-based meetings it’s hard to feel disconnected. In fact, when it gets as busy as it’s been the past few weeks, it’s amazing how fried and frazzled and pecked-at a girl can wind up feeling after another 10 hour day in her own front room.

And so, I’ve taken up my long-neglected knitting project again. Knitting and Netflix — a couple of hours working on the sweater that I’ve knit, pulled out, and knit again so many times now (it’s taken me a long time to figure out how to count stitches and rows, what I really like is knitting the big swatches of body parts, not the v-neck or sleeves where you have to pay attention). After a long day of emails and fires that need to be put out and very long technical documents that need to be edited in too little time there’s something essentially calming about putting in a movie, something that’s going to run continuously for an hour and a half or two hours without the interruption of commercials, and knitting. It gives you something to do with your hands. It keeps a girl from surfing the internet aimlessly. It makes you concentrate a little — not as much as working, but just enough to smooth out those jangly places that are left from the day’s work.

And who knows? This time, I might actually get this sweater finished. Considering it’s been ten below for days now, a nice, warm, raspberry-colored sweater would be a good thing.

Tempest in a Linen Closet

Posted on April 10, 2007 by cmf

Via Bookslut this morning: “You know, I thought that Leslie Bennetts was being a little hysterical when she called the reaction to her book The Feminine Mistake a ‘witch hunt.’ Then I scrolled down to the comments section.”

I was raised by women who got left holding the bag, by a mother and a grandmother who got stuck trying to support children after having believed they’d never be responsible for the financial end of things. It wasn’t pretty (see below on serial financial disaster). I knew, in my bones, from the time I was about ten that if I wanted kids, I was going to have to be prepared to support them and to support myself. I’ve worked since I was fourteen, more often than not at two jobs, and even at that it took me until I was 35 to make more than about 20k a year. I came late to financial security, and it’s by far the biggest thing I’ve accomplished in my life. And so it was always an astonishment to me that so many women I knew were not only willing, but eager, to trade in their professional and financial independence and rely on a husband to support them and their children.

There must be a reason that this subject spurs such over-the-top reactions from women who have chosen to stay home (see the comments linked to above). The vitriol, the hysteria, the insistence that staying home is the only proper sacrifice a woman can make all seem to me to mask a deep anxiety about this subject. People don’t overreact to things that don’t subconsciously bug them. There was a time in my late twenties when my friends who had married young, who had never had a real profession, who had kids young, spent a lot of time telling me how selfish I was for going to graduate school, for not marrying, for insisting that my own life was meaningful. It was a very tiresome period.

I’m not married and I don’t have kids. I’m not thrilled about either of those situations — especially the kid part — but that seems to be the way the chips fell this time around. God knows I’ve certainly spent a lot of my adult life caretaking family members in the most typical feminine ways — and perhaps if I’d wound up with a husband making a lot of money, I too would have been tempted to stay home with the babies. They’re interesting, even when they’re boring, and they’re only little once. But I live in the land where all what ifs are possible — where people die and jobs are lost and where the safety net is thin. I don’t think it’s irresponsible of Leslie Bennetts to remind women that while staying home is an option that might provide a lot of personal pleasure, and it’ll certainly get you plenty of social approval these days, there are real consequences. You will not be able to go back to work and make the kind of money your peers are. You might not be able to get a job at all if you’re older, if you have kids that will get sick and need to be picked up at odd hours and who will make you sort of a pain to employ. Is this right? Should we live in a world where employers support family life? Of course, but we don’t.

If women want to be treated as adults, we must also carry our part of the financial burden. Which doesn’t preclude staying home for a while when the kids are little — day care is expensive, sometimes more than one might make at a crappy job one doesn’t love. But it needs to be a reasoned decision, made by both parents, and there needs to be contingency plans. Life is long, and scary, and unexpected things happen. Seems to me that’s the central message of Bennetts’ book, and the hysterical reaction to her message belies the extent to which we’ve substituted wishful thinking for a realistic assessment of the social cost of dropping out of the professional world.

Patti Smith on the Big Questions

Posted on March 12, 2007 by cmf

On the eve of being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Patti Smith, as always, asks all the really interesting questions:

Should an artist working within the revolutionary landscape of rock accept laurels from an institution? Should laurels be offered? Am I a worthy recipient? I have wrestled with these questions and my conscience leads me back to Fred and those like him — the maverick souls who may never be afforded such honors. Thus in his name I will accept with gratitude. Fred Sonic Smith was of the people, and I am none but him: one who has loved rock ’n’ roll and crawled from the ranks to the stage, to salute history and plant seeds for the erratic magic landscape of the new guard …Rock ’n’ roll drew me from my mother’s hand and led me to experience. In the end it was my neighbors who put everything in perspective. An approving nod from the old Italian woman who sells me pasta. A high five from the postman. An embrace from the notary and his wife. And a shout from the sanitation man driving down my street: “Hey, Patti, Hall of Fame. One for us.”

Art. Revolution. Questioning one’s worthiness. Questioning the validity of accolades to begin with — it’s like a message in a bottle from another time when we were all less cynical, less interested in pure celebrity, less liable to equate success with sales figures.

One of the many things I’ve always admired about Patti Smith is that she never seemed to take her iconic stature seriously. She lives in Detroit. In a neighborhood. She raised her kids and went to the store and never fell into the trappings of celebrity that would have been so easy with someone who appeared in all those iconic Mappelthorpe photos (Mapplethorpe — another message in a bottle. Remember the hysteria over that museum show? Remember those flowers? Remember all those gorgeous men, dead now?).

And when the Rock and Roll hall of fame came knocking, she still had the sense to ask “is this a good thing?” I’m glad she’s accepting. I’m glad she’s accepting in the spirit she is. I’m more than glad she’s still out there reminding us to ask the questions.

“Never Hurry, Never Rest”

Posted on January 2, 2006 by cmf

A little zen saying to start off the New Year. I had all sorts of good intentions for my week off — I had freelance projects on deck, and I really really really need to get back to the memoir, which I’ve neglected shamefully in the last couple of months as my “real” job at the Big Company has gotten way better, but also way busier.

But as I zoomed through the past couple of months, packing 3 jobs into every day, zinging from deadline to deadline, making them all but driving myself a little crazy in the process I wound up doing what I always do when I have too much work and am determined to get through it all. I got sick.

I could blame it on Nina’s Twins — we love them but they are our Little Vectors of Illness — infecting everyone in their path this holiday season with a particularly virulent head cold complete with a sort of sleeping-sickness component. However, I probably would have fought off the baby germs if I hadn’t been run down from working seven days a week for months. So, what did I do with my week off? A little work for the Big Company (to make up for some previous unforseen computer down time), some freelance copyediting, but mostly, a lot of sitting on the couch blowing my nose while watching old movies.

So, because it’s that time of year — a few resolutions:

Stealing from a favorite site, Mental Multivitamin — “Promise yourself more than twenty minutes daily to think, a space-time into which nothing and no one can creep without your express mental invitation. It is in this quiet zone that you will uncover your creativity.”
In the service of all that — I’ve let the television creep up on me. This sometimes happens when one lives alone — like a fireplace, but more intrusive, the Box burbles away in the corner, in my case usually with the sound off and the closed captioning on, but nonetheless, the Box is definitely on too many hours a day in my household — so this resolution is to turn it off, especially on those nights when there’s just nothing on that I actually want to watch. On those nights when I’m aimlessly channel surfing, or watching back-to-back reruns of Law and Order, I hearby resolve to turn it off, turn some music on, and read a book.
I’m sort of interested in the idea of the 50 Book Challenge, although due to my hatred of group activities I probably will only blog about it here, if at all. But a book a week used to be perfectly normal for me, if not more. Granted, after Patrick died, I found I couldn’t read anything more complicated than a magazine for months, but in the past year my brain has indeed come back to me. In particular, I’d like to read those Virginia Woolf novels I’ve not read yet, and I’m also on a Graham Greene kick right now.
Like the tv, the internets have also crept up on me. So much easier to surf from blog to blog in an evening, while watching mediocre television, than it is to turn it all off and actually read a book, to let some real space open up in one’s head. So, like the tv, I resolve to unplug more often, and go back to old-fashioned analog technology … the bound and printed page.
With any luck, these little resolutions will help me get my work done without that thrumming sense of anxiety and panic that fueled so much of the last three or four months (and that I’m sure contributed to my susceptibility to the Vectors of Illness), and will help open up that part of my creative brain I need to work my way back toward in order to finish this book. I’m also toying with the idea of taking a stab at some short fiction again, but that’s not quite a resolution yet. Short stories were never my strong suit, but I have a few little ideas percolating … we’ll see.

So, those are the “resolutions” I’m thinking about as the calendar rolls over this year. Mostly I’d like to get more work done with less of that panicky feeling. “Never hurry. Never rest.” Pace oneself. Take time off to breathe. Turn off the stuff coming into one’s house. Read a book.

LivingSmall

Life, Literature, and the Subversive Power of Living Small

Category Archives: work