When you work for yourself, you don’t have paid sick days. I’ve had to have my mouth assaulted by a (very nice and gentle) dentist in recent days and I will have to go back for more soon. *sigh* This sucks for several reasons of course, but it is especially awful as a freelance writer.
I can’t interview anyone in the condition I’m in right now, which means I had to turn away work I had already been assigned and pass on possible timely pitches. My face is swollen, which means I can’t/won’t go out anywhere. That means that I’m missing out on of the holiday parties and networking events that I was supposed to attend. Before my face blew up, I went to two holiday functions, but I’m missing out on no less than five other events. That means no networking and networking is CRITICAL to the success of a freelance writer (and most other fields too).
Sooo, being sick has cost me current and future money AND it’s the holiday season, so we all plan to have a little more in the bank at this time of year. Booooooo!
The one good thing is that the dentist says I should be okay by Christmas time (maybe I can eat more than soup!), so I’ll have a little normalcy before I have to go back for more torture.
The moral of the story is, we need a public option for healthcare. Oh and when you work for yourself, it is especially important to have a decent amount of savings for times like this.
P.S. I have the best husband ever! He’s been doing an awesome job of taking care of me. 
I am happy to announce my very first blog giveaway! (Hold the applause, hold the applause.) The good folks over at K-Y want to help you get off this holiday season.
You’ve seen those commercials, right? An average looking couple is sitting in bed, they start talking about using K-Y products and then there’s some not-so-subtle imagery like a volcano exploding or a steam pipe overflowing. We see the couple again and they have that post-sex glow. Mmmmhmm. K-Y is giving you some of that right there.
And so my dear readers, today is the last day to enter to win the fab prizes from K-Y. Live a little and give it a shot!
There are only a couple weeks left in 2009. Did you accomplish everything you set out to do in 2009? I still have some work to do. My BIG HUGE GINORMOUS thing to finish in 2009 is the first draft of my novel. I committed myself to finish the draft by the end of the day on December 31, 2009.
I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I’m definitely not done yet. Hopefully, I won’t be fiendishly typing on my laptop at 11:59 pm on New Year’s Eve in a desperate attempt to churn out an ending. For that reason, in addition to my regular writing schedule, I will be devoting all of my “free time” for the two remaining weekends to my novel. I’m so going to finish this draft in ‘09. On New Year’s Day, I’ll tell you how many words I have in my draft. 
So what about you? What do you have left to do in 2009?
Oh how I love books! Check out Salon’s list of best books of 2009. I keep hearing wonderful fabulous things about “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz, but I haven’t read it yet. I’m going to put it on my to-read list.
~Salon~
Once again, Rochelle Riley of the Detroit Free Press churns out a thought-provoking column. Read her impassioned plea to Detroiters to save the kids.
~Detroit Free Press~
Very long, but interesting piece about marriage. Follow one woman on her journey to make her marriage better by going to therapy. Lots of detailed and brutally honest moments in this.
~New York Times~
Click here to see the video for the song that often starts my day!
I missed him. I missed him so much that my heart literally (LITERALLY!) ached at the thought of him. To make matters “worse” there was no earth-shattering break-up filled with expletives and insincere slights. We parted ways because I moved to another state and neither one of us was down with that awful, awful thing known as a long distance relationship. (Been there, done that. It sucked.) He was still a great guy, we both still respected eachother and we talked on a fairly regular basis.
Not once did we slip back into behaving like romantic partners, not even months later when I saw him back at home or when he saw me out here in New York. After years of friendship and a year and half of something more, we had settled back into friendship.
Even though I missed him more than I thought humanly possible at the time, it actually didn’t take that long for me to completely and totally move on from feeling some type of way about him. It helped that I hit the ground running once I got to New York. I was going out three or four times a week and I was not afraid to hit up an event solo. I was over the whole heartache thing in a matter of weeks.
I don’t know if my emotional valves are unusually efficient or if there’s some magic shortcut from the logic in my brain to the fluffy emotions in my heart, but I have never pined over a guy for too long. Given a little thought, there always seemed to be a very valid reason as to why a relationship was just not right for me. Cest la vie!
