• Thinking - work - writing

    “Never Hurry, Never Rest”

    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…

  • Living - work - writing

    Working Vacation

    Seattle was great fun — we went to the Cheese Festival at Pike’s Place Market, where we tasted many fine fine cheeses despite the crowds of corpulent tourists who could just as well have been at the free sample booths at Costco for all they cared about beautiful cheese — but who’s to complain? I tasted some lovely goats cheese camenbert, and any number of lovely bleus. I think my stepmother was a tiny bit shocked at what a cheese head I have actually become (that Wisconsin college education must be paying off). I kept saying things like “Point Reyes…

  • Believing - faith - work

    Practicing Nonattachment

    Although it looks like the job issues are starting to settle down for the short term, I’m still not sure that this isn’t the beginning of the end for me at the Big Corporation where I’ve been working for the past few years. I never thought I’d ever have a corporate job in the first place — I mean, I was a writer and an academic and in general, ever since I gave up on New York City in my twenties, had been someone who’d chosen quality-of-life over making a living. But when I finished my PhD and was so…