I am forcing myself to post. It is good for me.
So, for the first time in over a year, I have a job. A tiny three day temp assignment working prep and registration at a business conference at a hotel downtown. It's not particularly complex or illustrious work. Yesterday was packing goodies and papers into tote bags, today was printing badges and tomorrow is likely to be the same as today but not as long. The only job perks are the friendly coworkers and the free food stolen from the various exhibition stands, and the only hazards are the protesters.
(Yeah, Occupy Chicago doesn't like our employing organization very much. They were protesting the hotel heavily last night and Monday night. My particular conscience isn't heavy on this, because the only way I'm aiding them is by making the captains of industry wait 5 seconds less time in line and taking a little of the bag-stuffing heat off my sisters in temp work.)
Yesterday was 9-5, today was 7-5, and the tomorrow that is rapidly becoming today will be 8-5. I'm exhausted and my legs hurt. And I feel great. It's not even the work itself, or the mild pay, it's just the feeling of getting up in the morning and going to do something and coming back in the evening and relaxing on one's laurels. You feel like a worthwhile person instead of a leech, if only in between wishing the day would just end already.
Not that there aren't side benefits even to waking up at 5am. Chicago's always beautiful to me but in the dawn it's breathtaking. I walked down to the train with A2 while it was still dark and when I'd finally climbed my way out of the underground (because the Blue Line's one of the few trains that doesn't have the decency to give us an elevated tour of the downtown area (rather than going around under the floor) the light had just started to break across the buildings. The streets were hardly deserted, even at six thirty the city's already roused itself out of bed and gone off to begrudgingly start the coffee maker, but it was calm. Just people wandering their way to work between the shadows of massive buildings and across massive slabs of concrete dust from where they've been tearing up the sidewalk for no good reason, and past the Panera with its lights half on and a lone man sitting by the window with a laptop and a sandwich. I'm well-aware of the reports that we're going to have the worst winter on record this year and that I might get something slightly more prestigious if I was more flexible about location but I can adore Chicago through epic blizzards and a ten hour workday. I'm staying until I get that full time job with the nice office, and then I'm going to work at that job, and it will be lovely.
...
Mom still thinks I need to start writing my novel. What with this being the exciting, developing time in my life where I have a lot of spare time. Not that I have an idea for a novel or any inclination to write one, but she's finished hers and thinks I could write an even better one. One thing at a fucking time, mom.
(Yeah, Occupy Chicago doesn't like our employing organization very much. They were protesting the hotel heavily last night and Monday night. My particular conscience isn't heavy on this, because the only way I'm aiding them is by making the captains of industry wait 5 seconds less time in line and taking a little of the bag-stuffing heat off my sisters in temp work.)
Yesterday was 9-5, today was 7-5, and the tomorrow that is rapidly becoming today will be 8-5. I'm exhausted and my legs hurt. And I feel great. It's not even the work itself, or the mild pay, it's just the feeling of getting up in the morning and going to do something and coming back in the evening and relaxing on one's laurels. You feel like a worthwhile person instead of a leech, if only in between wishing the day would just end already.
Not that there aren't side benefits even to waking up at 5am. Chicago's always beautiful to me but in the dawn it's breathtaking. I walked down to the train with A2 while it was still dark and when I'd finally climbed my way out of the underground (because the Blue Line's one of the few trains that doesn't have the decency to give us an elevated tour of the downtown area (rather than going around under the floor) the light had just started to break across the buildings. The streets were hardly deserted, even at six thirty the city's already roused itself out of bed and gone off to begrudgingly start the coffee maker, but it was calm. Just people wandering their way to work between the shadows of massive buildings and across massive slabs of concrete dust from where they've been tearing up the sidewalk for no good reason, and past the Panera with its lights half on and a lone man sitting by the window with a laptop and a sandwich. I'm well-aware of the reports that we're going to have the worst winter on record this year and that I might get something slightly more prestigious if I was more flexible about location but I can adore Chicago through epic blizzards and a ten hour workday. I'm staying until I get that full time job with the nice office, and then I'm going to work at that job, and it will be lovely.
...
Mom still thinks I need to start writing my novel. What with this being the exciting, developing time in my life where I have a lot of spare time. Not that I have an idea for a novel or any inclination to write one, but she's finished hers and thinks I could write an even better one. One thing at a fucking time, mom.