Thursday, September 2, 2010

Cordless Curling Iron

There's much to love about canvassing for the Great Lakes in the late summer and fall. And I'm prepared to suit up in the right gear and continue doing it through the winter -- or until my path leads me to something that feels like a better opportunity for me.

I've really enjoyed blogging about canvassing, too. I've sort of gotten into this lazy routine of coming home, reading Facebook, commenting on the newsfeed, getting up, reading Facebook, commenting on the newsfeed, writing a post for The Refrigerator Door, getting out of bed, showering, going to work. That's been my life. I work. I blog. I read Facebook. Sometimes I go out to the Fleetwood Diner at night with my nephew and his friend Zack. Sometimes I stop at the Starbucks on Main Street and have a cup of black tea. I've been turning in around 2 a.m. and sleeping until 9:30 or 10 a.m. I've been a bit lazy. But on the other hand, after having gained so much weight trying to sell health insurance, it really did tire me out at first to walk so much. I needed the extra rest. Now I'm getting quite adjusted to the walking. I very much want to get in a yoga class, too. My neurologists have told me it's the best thing I can do for my Multiple Sclerosis -- practice yoga. But I haven't felt like I could afford to take classes since I lost my newspaper job in 2005. I want to make it a point to at least do it at home for a few minutes every day.

A few people have given me leads on jobs and I've appreciated them very much. Two people suggested an online publication that I could possibly get involved with -- something that's starting up in the Metropolitan Detroit area. You know, I'm thinking maybe I should look into that. I'm so disgusted with the newspapers I've read all my life. I was telling someone yesterday I feel as though they are skeletons of papers -- in the way those old gray dilapidated ghost houses you see in the country are skeletons of houses -- just a framework from another age.

Obviously I still have a writing problem. I do it every day no matter what. If I'm not blogging, you can be certain someone is being burdened with my reflective and unsolicited e-mails. It's a habit I have. And I guess they don't really have 12-step programs for compulsive writers.

So, I'm sort of thinking about trying out this new media that's coming to the area. A friend wrote to tell me of someone who I could talk to about that a few weeks ago. I just wasn't quite ready then. You know how it is. I'm very stubborn. There's a part of me that still wants those big thick Michigan newspapers delivered to my house everyday. Damn, I miss that. Big fat daily issues of The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News seemed just as necessary to the structure of my childhood home as dinner plates and silverware. Actually, given a choice, I think we might have kept our paper newspapers and eaten with our fingers. But you know I'm old school that way. In the 1970s my grandmother heated up a cordless curling iron on the stove because she was afraid of being electrocuted.

So I guess this Labor Day Weekend I'll spend some time looking into journalism jobs as they exist today. There's a pretty big part of me who wonders if anybody would even have me given the harsh way in which I was let go from the Ann Arbor News. It was just devastating to me. Blogging and my wonderful fans have done quite a lot to restore my confidence.

It's funny, when I began this post I wasn't going to write about looking for a media job. I was actually going to write something entirely different. To be truthful, I was going to write about how I had decided NOT to look for a media job. I was going to write about how I had decided to go ahead and get licensed to sell property and casualty insurance so that I can sell home insurance and auto insurance. My car insurance agent wants me to do that. He says I can work with him -- use his office and secretary and split the commissions.

I think I might do that, too. I am going to ask that guy who I went on the date with last week about it since he is in real estate.

I guess the point of this post is that I think Clean Water Action and canvassing for the environment was the very best thing I could have done three weeks ago. It is restoring my health and my stamina. I enjoy it. I love the people I work with and I love the people I meet on the street.

But I think it is time to start looking to the future.

I may be blogging a little less as I spend time with resumes and such...

I'll keep you posted.

If you're wondering what prompted me to think about what's next for me, I'll tell youo it was the Ben Harper video I posted to my newsfeed today. I love that song Diamond's On The Inside and, of course, like to imagine Ben wrote it just foe me. The only problem is, the video is full of these buff surfer girls. I always wanted to try surfing. In fact if I hadn't lost my job and then had my first MS attack in 2005 I had been planning to visit my brother in California and treat myself to a week of surfing lessons for my 40th birthday. That fell through, obviously. Today I am really feeling nervous about attending Dancing In the Streets in Ann Arbor on Sunday. Surfing seems pretty much out of the question. My coordination and balance is sketchy to say the least.

So I thought... it's nice to imagine being a bohemian drifter girl with diamonds inside my heart. But I'd also like to be able to afford yoga classes. And maybe if I did get back with my rock-star yoga teacher, she could get me in shape for surfing. Maybe? If anybody could, she could.

So, I'll keep walking for the Great Lakes and I'll approach that work with love and enthusiasm. But I'll keep my eye out for new opportunities, too. And I'll try not to be as stubborn about technology as my grandmother. She never had a microwave. Never. She died in the mid 1990s. She didn't want to get radiated.

She might have been on to something. But I'm not my grandmother or my mother. I'm just me.

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