The only good thing about winter (and I'm frequently convinced there's only one) is leaving the blizzardly nasties behind and crossing the threshold of home. Walking home from the grocery store last night brought to mind a scene from Little House on the Prairie, when the snow swirled so thick that Pa had to tie a rope between the house and the barn so he could get there and back without stumbling off course and freezing to death. Oh for a rope of my own!

When I got home I showered the cold from my bones and revelled in my pajamas and favourite "comfort sweater." My friend Kristal uses "comfort sweater" as a derogatory term, stemming from the ever-present ratty brown cardigan I wore in university. That particular example is long gone, but I fiercely defend and cherish my current collection, some of which even have hoods. Mmm, hoods -- the ultimate in comfort sweater options.

The good thing about having a younger sister who likes to shop, wears my size and has similar taste is the phenomenon known as hand-me-ups. We've always had a backwards relationship anyway -- she beat me up as a child, beat me to the altar, etc., etc. As a result, many of my comfort sweaters and favourite pieces of clothing are perfectly functional hand-me-ups.

Have had 2 bizarre song-bits running through my head. The first is "fat bottomed girls, fat bottomed girls, fat bottomed girls" from the song of the same name by Queen (not a fan but Eric is). The second comes from a song titled "I Heard You Came From Brookline," a parody of "I Heard it Through the Grapevine." It's from a CD called Tom's Townie Tunes, a compilation of songs about towns around Boston; the parodies are written and performed by Tom Doyle and first appeared on WROR's Loren and Wally Show. Eric plays the CD in his car once in a while, and while I live far from New England and miss half the references, dang it, the humour just transcends all boundaries. But enough with the backstory. Here's the bit that's been running through my head:

"It really took me by surprise/ when I heard you were circumcised/ Oy, oy, I heard you came from Brookline."

Classic!

My trip to the grocery store allowed me to satisfy my chocolate ice cream craving with a banana split extraordinaire -- complete with maraschino cherries, whipped cream, walnuts and hot fudge. But what I've really been craving is chocolate ice cream in a cone -- and not a heretical pointy cone, I'll have you know, but a proper flat (not fat) bottomed cone. For the ice cream, just plain chocolate -- no messing with souped-up chocolate like Rocky Road or Heavenly Hash. Plain old flat-bottomed chocolate just tastes better somehow. Right now I'm drinking tea. Not such a big fan of tea, but I use it as a lower-caffeine substitute for coffee before the monthly visitor comes calling. No way can I totally eliminate caffeine and function, so I just cut back in the hopes of diminishing the pre-menstrual crazies. Wooba wooba wooba!

As mentioned in yesterday's post, today I'm meeting with a recruiter at a temp agency. Not so crazy about going back into the secretarial world, but I have to do something. I've been out of school for four years and do some freelance writing, but it sure ain't enough to pay the bills, at least for now...was working at a gym for over a year until the little friggers went bankrupt. Have been drifting along from job to job and it was the first I actually loved...but there be life. Anyway, with an English degree I ain't traditionally employable, or grammatically correct it would appear. So it looks like it's back to the only thing I've ever made decent money at -- secretarial bitchery.

The thought in general makes my heart sink -- I am so not a nine-to-five person -- but being a secretarial temp isn't so bad. I like working a few weeks, or a few days, in one place, then having a week off to do some living & writing before moving on to the next thing...or even working long-term at a part-time job that allows me time to create. I like the freedom to work when and how much I want and still make decent money, to turn down work if I want to go away for a long weekend. I like not staying long enough in any one place to get caught up in office politics.

Then there's what I hate. I hate the feeling of being trapped in an office for 40 hours a week, then coming home and trying to cram the things I really want to do into a tiny window, always rushing and stressing and scrambling. I hate working on the same schedule as everyone else and having to do my shopping, commuting and living when everyone else does, always pushing through the crowds to get things done. Taking the bus downtown at 8 a.m. always struck me as a horrible way to start my day, crammed on the bus with 50 other grumpy people who don't want to be there, sardined and jostled and downtrodden.

Yet, at least in the city I live in, it seems most everyone lives the 9-5 grind and doesn't complain, or at least I don't hear it. And most everyone assumes that I want and should embrace the same thing -- even the temp agencies assume my ultimate goal is a full-time, permament office job and try to steer me in that direction. Is there anything wrong with preferring professional transiency, so long as I can ultimately make ends meet? More importantly, can I make ends meet doing things my own way? Haven't had much success so far. Does anyone around here make a decent living outside the 9-5 grind? Of course I know that this area is not bereft of temps/part-timers by choice, or professional writers and artists and massage therapists and other entrepreneurial what-have-yous, but I certainly don't know of many who live their lives that way. Or -- is the briefcase set actually happy and fulfilled and it's me who's half-cocked?

Maybe it's the contrast between where I live and where I was raised -- in the Canadian maritimes, where life tends to be slower-paced and the people more laid-back, where there are more musicians and fishermen (okay, maybe not more musicians) than office drones. Maybe I just ain't a city, even a small-city girl. At the same time, I wouldn't go back to live in my hometown for any amount o' cash.

What it all comes down to is that I just don't know how people can manage to work full-time and raise families and somehow have sanity and time left over for themselves. That life, to me, is a terrifying prospect -- good Lord, I can hardly keep up with my own life, let alone a hypothetical marriage/family life, when I'm working 9-5. I don't believe it's natural and am very much into the European work philosophy. The French, by law, have their work week restricted to 35 hours, and I don't know about anyone else, but my impression of the French is that they live full, leisurely, slightly drunk lives. The Swedish get minimum 5 weeks paid vacation per year and 16 months paid maternity/parental leave. In Canada, maternity leave is a year -- I was shocked to learn that in the US it's a mere three months, and unpaid. Seeing the benefits that new parents here & abroad enjoy, the US standard struck me as backwards and almost barbaric.

But here I go again, overthinking and worrying. I'm not currently trapped in a nine-to-five hell and I don't yet have the family I'm so concerned with managing. I've just always been a natural pessimist, terribly adept at worrying years into the future. I think of it as my talent for finding the black lining in the silver cloud -- even when things are going more or less well, I know there must be something to stew about and won't rest until I've found it and am appropriately ill at ease. Everyone who buys my ray-of-sunshine demeanor -- I've got you so fooled.

But alas, hours have passed and I didn't intend to go on a work/life diatribe. Maybe it's the PMS.