1. Today was my last day of working in a regular company! As of today, I am officially and completely self-employed. I’m as excited, nervous, and happy about that as I can be!
2. Everyone at work was very kind and supportive of the change: most said they’d miss having me around, and a few said they were envious of my breaking out on my own like this. You know, I didn’t like the work at all, but I really lucked out on the company I worked for; good people, flexible culture, not much drama that I could see. Yeah, I really have no complaints about the people I worked with. It was the work itself I couldn’t stand.
3. Now, the plan is that I’m going to maintain a regular work day where I will allow no internet or other time-wasting distractions (I’m installing blocking software to make sure I can’t use it during the designated time) and will permit myself only a limited range of activities, all of them useful. Writing, of course, will be paramount, but since most of the time I can’t just write for hours and hours on end I plan to break it up with reading, practicing violin, exercising, and so on. At the moment, I intend to make it from eight to four, Monday through Friday. Saturdays will be reserved for ‘tidying up:’ cleaning the apartment, taking care of business, shopping, and arranging notes. Sundays are, of course, a day of rest. I plan to experiment a little to find out what specific schedule works best, but these are the basic guidelines I intend to follow.
4. This past week I’ve been indulging in certain pleasures that I won’t be able to enjoy for a while now that I’m unemployed: mostly of the food kind. In short, I pretty much way over did it on the pizza. The good news is that now I have lots of leftovers.
5. Since I’m the kind of guy who likes to set things to music, here’s a song about my life right now:
6. And another! (have I mentioned how much I like Country music?)
(Sinatra’s ‘My Way’ would have worked as well, but I didn’t want to post the same song twice in one week)
7. Now a quote!
“But…to sing, to laugh, to dream,
To walk in my own way and be alone,
Free, with an eye to see things as they are,
A voice that means manhood – to cock my hat
Where I choose – at a word, a ‘yes’, a ‘no,’
To fight – or write. To travel any road
Under the sun, under the stars, nor doubt
If fame or fortune lie beyond the bourne –
Never to make a line I have not heard
In my own heard; yet with all modesty
To say: ‘My soul, be satisfied with flowers,
With fruit, with weeds even; but gather them
In the one garden you may call you own.”
So, when I win some triumph, by some chance,
Render no share of Caesar – In a word,
I am too proud to be a parasite,
And if my nature wants the germ that grows
Towering to heaven like the mountain pine,
Or like the oak, sheltering multitudes –
I stand, not high it may be – but alone!”
-Cyrano de Bergerac
Serpent's Den 