Note to Self: Remember to Breathe

Lately I've been forgetting to breathe. It starts with a tight feeling in my stomach, muscles clenched, and a whirring in my brain. I force a breathe in and realize, wow, its been a little while. Never mind that a little while is only a few seconds or so.

It's rather irritating, this thing called breathing. Especially when you forget. I'm mostly in a bit of a panic because of a self-created pickle of potentially catastrophic implications. If being broke can be considered that.

When I found myself facing the prospect of both finding a job and starting grad school this fall, I took what I thought would be the best course of action. I decided to become a freelance writer, and effectively eliminate any real need to go to work or generally do anything if I didn't want to. In the process, I turned down a job for an adjunct assistant in the online writing center of a certain college. Though the work conditions would have been ideal, working with developing writers, my favorite, plus no need to change out of my pj's, I was worried that the demands would compete with grad school.

So I wound up doing the freelancer thing, which has paid out a bit, so far. I was actually doing okay, though mostly from one site that I worked for. Then....voila, work for that site dried up, and now I'm pretty much making peanuts.

The moral of the story is, don't put all your eggs in one basket. And remember to breathe. Am I going to continue freelance writing? Yes. Will I work smarter this go round? I'd like to think so, but likely not. I'm sure I'll always be guilty of chucking all those eggs in one place, its kind of been my modus operendi in life. The basket of love, grad schools, freelance work, whathaveyou. I will watch out for those projects that could potentially run dry at some point, and have a backup plan!


Photo: Big Sur, CA - One of the most relaxing places I've ever been.

Why Blog? My Foray Into the Wide World of Blogging

So this is my first real blog post ever. I have to admit I'm still not entirely sure about this whole blogging thing. Part of me is still thinking what's the point, but then again, it was the same story with facebook, myspace, and twitter. Myspace did turn out to be a bit of a bust, but I shudder to think of the hours I spend wasting away my time on the other two, instead of getting real work done. So, my promise to myself is to at least try, and wait for the reason why to present itself at a later date.

In the absence of any real topic or agenda, I suppose this will be my place for pure unadulterated me. That was how facebook and twitter started, but with the massive influx of family, coworkers and classmates, and even, horrors, bosses to my page, it feels like every thing I post, from status updates, to links, to just-for-the-fun-of-it groups and pages, has to be watered down with an extreme dose of censorship.

I was never a big reader of blogs before, except when a google search inadvertently led me to one. In my foray into the wide world of blogging, however, I've been browsing quite a few of them. I've been impressed, and at times touched, by the level of candor, humor, intimacy and frankness that I've found in some of them. In an age when we are all so caught up in images, appearances, lifestyle, etc., it seems like blogging has the artful capacity to provide a venue for true personal expression. Sure, a blog develops its own persona no different than any other form of writing or expression, but, at least at first glance, the personas I've encountered appear to be less constrained, more open to interpretation, and generated less as products of society than as products of the individual and inner spirit.

So let the grand experiment begin! I'm not sure what exactly I'll be writing about, I'll leave that to tapping of fingers every time I sit down to do it, and see what happens. Today the heat wave (95+) broke, and there is a much-needed torrential downpour streaming past my window and pattering on my roof. It seems to have left me in a rather quiet and reflective mood. Tomorrow maybe I'll give a long-winded treatise on the inherent dangers of drinking unfiltered water. Well, probably not, but who knows?

Photo: View from my office window in the rain.