Phew. Days 17-20 (or Tuesday through Friday of last week) ended up being semi-as-I-predicted: a lot less like gainful unemployment than pseudo employment. I worked 6 or 7 hours a day every day except for Thursday and Friday, which involved travelling to Montana and then getting up in front of sometimes curious and sometimes skeptical audiences for 2 presentations and a workshop. I was so beat as I flew home on Saturday, but of course my mind was not in rest mode so it kept ticking away while my eyes checked their lids for cracks. Put another way, if my eyes were my mouth at that point, I would describe them as slack-jawed.
Cute analogies aside, I thought about how I was still considering myself unemployed, but was quite obviously working and getting compensated for that work. But it doesn't fit into what the box of employment had heretofore looked like to me. I'm interested in what I'm doing. I get to pick what it is I do, and say no to anything I don't want to do. I only get paid if I actually do something; just showing up and being a warm body in a chair for a certain number of hours doesn't count.
It really wouldn't be so bad to do this, unless there was nobody that wanted me to do any work for them.
I'm just starting to settle back in after a fast weekend - getting picked up in the airport and twirled around by TM like we were in the movies, as others smiled (and maybe snickered) around us. Then sock and snowshoe shopping. I replaced all of my socks. Being gainfully unemployed, I've had lots of time to notice how the socks that I wear do absolutely nothing to keep my feet warm, which leaves them feeling like glaciers. After being educated by my backpacker fiance, we went and bought me hiking socks made of corn and organic wool. This was the first time in my life that I've bought any clothing that wasn't a bargain basement deal, that I focused on the quality of the cltohes. It was a paradigm shifting moment. Shoes are next. The rest of the weekend ensued - relaxation, walking, going here and there, etc.
I haven't thought too much more about what it is that I'm doing, but tomorrow (Monday, Day 21) I think I'm going to have to. I have 3 meetings in a row tomorrow and they are all related to one another and to what I just finished doing in Montana...the timing seems "coincidental."
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3 comments:
What exactly were you doing in Montana?
I was doing a presentation and a workshop on how to talk about the food system (1 pres, and the workshop) and a presentation on how to talk about rural issues using research that the FrameWorks Institute did for the Kellogg Foundation...the methodology is called Strategic Frame Analysis. Check it out, it's pretty cool...www.frameworksinstitute.org.
*hauls out an old favorite quote*
If coincidences are just coincidences, why do they feel so contrived?
I miss Mulder. And I love your blog. <3
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