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Moving Forward
Nov. 29th, 2012 12:13 pmFreelance writing is like retail in one sense: Assignments dry up entirely starting the week after Christmas, lasting until the end of February. Lots of assignments now, though.
With this in mind, I've been trying to be diligent about working, and yesterday I succeeded. Unfortunately, the work was incredibly tedious – the private domestic insurance industry in Venezuela! Between you and me, there is no private domestic insurance industry in Venezuela, since domestic insurance is basically a luxury of the middle class – the rich get their insurance needs attended to by international insurance cartels, and Chavez has essentially demolished Venezuela's middle class. I can't fault Chavez for that actually: What you don't read in the American press is that things really have improved for Venzuela's legions of the poor. And that is Chavez's mandate, after all.
But anyway, spinning 3,000 cogent words about an industry that essentially does not exist left me in a weakened state. I was practically trembling. I was brain dead. I felt tethered to this planet by only the flimsiest of ropes. Went out for a walk in the dark and the cold, saw the full moon resplendent over the suburban sky and wished my body away. Oh, to play in the realm of pure spirit, floating up to the moon!
But, no. Body just won't go away.
There are other nonexistent Venezuelan industries to write about today.
Means to an end, I tell myself. There's the party on Friday to look forward to, there are two Manhattan adventures next week.
But in the meantime…
MaryAnn posted a photo of herself with Bill 20 years ago at the Café Strada. The Café Strada was the Café Roma when I met Bill there, 25 years ago. And of course, we were badly suited, our marriage was a case of good genes calling to good genes across enormous chasms of misunderstanding so we could produce Max. And I know that, and I don't regret the marriage, or the end of the marriage, in the slightest. And I also know that Facebook is for posting pictures so that people will somehow think your life is less unsatisfying than it really is.
Still. I felt like a piece of my past had been coopted. The Café Strada née Roma is part of my creation myth.
B called too. We do most of our communication by texting, so the call was unusual. He called just to say hello; we chatted for half an hour or so. We talked about movies, TV shows, snow tires, the weather – B is very big on talking about the weather. In California, this used to drive me crazy. I never understood B's weather fixation until I moved to a part of the country where weather was actually significant.
His voice was so familiar, I just kept closing my eyes and trying to dematerialize so it would pull me back five years in time and space. Molecules are mostly empty space, right? Time is a sensory distortion imposed by the fact that neurons have evolved to code for frequency. I should be able to go back in time.
But there is never any going back. There is only always going forward.
(Can I also say how much I really fucking hate LJ's new interface?)
With this in mind, I've been trying to be diligent about working, and yesterday I succeeded. Unfortunately, the work was incredibly tedious – the private domestic insurance industry in Venezuela! Between you and me, there is no private domestic insurance industry in Venezuela, since domestic insurance is basically a luxury of the middle class – the rich get their insurance needs attended to by international insurance cartels, and Chavez has essentially demolished Venezuela's middle class. I can't fault Chavez for that actually: What you don't read in the American press is that things really have improved for Venzuela's legions of the poor. And that is Chavez's mandate, after all.
But anyway, spinning 3,000 cogent words about an industry that essentially does not exist left me in a weakened state. I was practically trembling. I was brain dead. I felt tethered to this planet by only the flimsiest of ropes. Went out for a walk in the dark and the cold, saw the full moon resplendent over the suburban sky and wished my body away. Oh, to play in the realm of pure spirit, floating up to the moon!
But, no. Body just won't go away.
There are other nonexistent Venezuelan industries to write about today.
Means to an end, I tell myself. There's the party on Friday to look forward to, there are two Manhattan adventures next week.
But in the meantime…
MaryAnn posted a photo of herself with Bill 20 years ago at the Café Strada. The Café Strada was the Café Roma when I met Bill there, 25 years ago. And of course, we were badly suited, our marriage was a case of good genes calling to good genes across enormous chasms of misunderstanding so we could produce Max. And I know that, and I don't regret the marriage, or the end of the marriage, in the slightest. And I also know that Facebook is for posting pictures so that people will somehow think your life is less unsatisfying than it really is.
Still. I felt like a piece of my past had been coopted. The Café Strada née Roma is part of my creation myth.
B called too. We do most of our communication by texting, so the call was unusual. He called just to say hello; we chatted for half an hour or so. We talked about movies, TV shows, snow tires, the weather – B is very big on talking about the weather. In California, this used to drive me crazy. I never understood B's weather fixation until I moved to a part of the country where weather was actually significant.
His voice was so familiar, I just kept closing my eyes and trying to dematerialize so it would pull me back five years in time and space. Molecules are mostly empty space, right? Time is a sensory distortion imposed by the fact that neurons have evolved to code for frequency. I should be able to go back in time.
But there is never any going back. There is only always going forward.
(Can I also say how much I really fucking hate LJ's new interface?)
