March 5, 2012: The World Is My Oyster

As I sit hunched over my laptop at the dining room table, it occurs to me that I’ve needlessly bound myself to this setting. I could be hunched anywhere.

Consider: Cassie telecommutes for her job, which means she’s able to set up shop anywhere. I, too, work remotely doing whatever it is I do, so as Lynyrd Skynyrd once so profoundly said, I’m as free as a bird.

What’s holding us back? Hmmmm. Well, I guess the kids are to an extent. They’ve settled into an idyllic groove in our middle-America suburb where nothing ever really happens. On the other hand, maybe that’s the problem. Maybe a change of scenery would do them good—maybe it would teach them that there’s a big, interesting world out there beyond the strip malls.

I guess there’s Fluffy, too. This house is his kingdom, one he rules with an iron paw. On the other hand, his health is poor, and he doesn’t seem destined to make old bones anyway. Among his many issues, he has a chronic respiratory ailment that makes him sound like Darth Vader when he breathes. Fluffy’s days are most certainly numbered. Besides, who puts his life on hold for a cat?

The possibilities are endless:

• I imagine spending a year in Paris. I could sit in sidewalk cafés with my laptop, typing to the hustle and bustle of Parisian life.

• I imagine moving to the Pacific Northwest. I’ve always been a hippie at heart, and I’d take right to the earthy lifestyle. My laptop typing would have an easy flow.

• I imagine typing away in any number of other awesome locales: Australia, Alaska, Maine, Sante Fe, London.

The takeaway here isn’t that I’m traveling—it’s that I’m working. And that hasn’t turned out to be a fantasy. Life after Crushed Soul hasn’t gone exactly the way I would have drawn it up—instead of winding up as a 9-to-5er, I’m doing my own thing as an independent contractor—but that’s okay. The point is, I’m busy and, for the most part, productive.

And this leads to my next point: It’s becoming difficult to ruminate on the travails of unemployment when, increasingly, I don’t feel unemployed. My wife would claim that I’ve never written much about unemployment in this space anyway—that my blog has instead centered on matters concerning Fluffy and such. She has a point, but regardless, time is at a premium these days.

You’ve probably gathered as much, given that my blog has been appearing only intermittently lately. The foreseeable future will probably bring more of the same, but fear not—I have no intention of disappearing from the blogosphere. If Fluffy finally kicks the bucket, you’ll know; if I land a particularly cool gig (or lose all my current gigs), you’ll know; if I blow out my groin again, you’ll know. And maybe—just maybe—one of these posts will originate from a café in Paris.