Caterwauling

Now that I’ve gone and told everyone where to find me, I start thinking about moving this blog to a subfolder of this site. 🙂 Don’t move your bookmarks just yet, though. I’m still trying to sort it out.

In good news, I got my business cards today for my freelancing business. Hooray! They’re so pretty. Glossy, shiny, new and MINE. Mine, all mine. My business. My future. My PRESENT. I was like the dorky guy on the commericals who gets his new business cards and furtively sniffs the freshly printed paper, reveling in the scent of the fresh ink where his name is now printed.

I kind of did that at the post office today. I was mailing a letter off to my good buddy Isabel, and she got the first business card of the bunch. 🙂 I almost wept when I saw my perfect little cards. I didn’t order a ton of them, just enough to get by for the next couple of months. Hopefully, I will have a grand identity and logo to launch when the time comes to re-order.

Anyway, I got to thinking about blog names. Of course, I would want something related to journalism, because that’s the highly esteemed educational degree I hold. But it’s funny about journalistic terms — they’re macabre, to say the least. We “kill” stories we don’t want or need and offer “kill fees” to authors for their trouble. We write “heads” and “cutlines.” “Deadline” was a prison term back in the days of stockades. Your lead paragraph of a story is the “nut graf” (not so much morbid but appropriate — it’s usually a nut who’s writing it!). Our archives are “morgues.” We “bury” fluffy stories in the back of an edition. Etcetera. People call us renegades, muckrakers, watchdogs. The general public talks about “violence in the media,” not understanding that the violence is in the WORLD and we’re just responsible for telling them about it.

Thus, you see the conundrum in coming up with an intriguing blog name when this is the material with which I have to work!

Suggestion box (er, the comment box) is below — what would you name this joint?

On iTunes: Shawn Mullins, “Lullaby”

Unemployment is at its lowest point ever (so the local news says), yet I am among the few who hold that honor. I don’t know why more people aren’t doing it — unemployment is fun!

Actually, I shouldn’t talk in those terms. I am SELF employed. Damn it. 🙂

Had a crappy breakfast at the local greasy spoon. Normally, I ask them to hold the side of pancakes, but today, I’m glad I didn’t because the breakfast was burned to a crisp. I ordered bacon, not beef jerky. And while I typically greedily consume eggs, well, today they just looked at me like, “I dare you to eat my runny goodness.” Ugh. (Yes, one day without gainful employment and I’m already conversing with my breakfast.)

The service wasn’t so hot either, and my server only had three tables. I’ve been in there before and know she has worked there for at least a year. I tipped well, because that’s just me, but I generally hate to tip at all when I have to go in search of my own coffee.

Nearly everyone in the joint was by himself or herself. We all brought paperwork or newspapers — anything to avoid the flashing signs above our heads that read, “I’m dining alone!” I had brought bills and my checkbook, writing out the remaining drops of funny money on car insurance, property tax and a parking ticket. I can’t afford to pay for the fucking car, what with all the incidentals.

Attempted to take my car to a shop to get new shoes (tires) and brakes, but nobody would wait on me and I refuse to reward such shoddy customer service. The mechanics were either smoking cigarettes in the parking lot or sitting at the desk with their feet propped up. I gave it five minutes because I know this place would give me the best price on what I need. But if there’s one thing I understand, it’s providing customers with the royal treatment (when you’re in business for yourself, you gain a whole new appreciation of this). And when you work really hard for your money, well, you want to spend it in establishments that value you just as much as your money. It’s one thing to spend $10 on a breakfast, but another thing entirely to be prepared to spend $400 to keep your car running.

In any event, I did get a lot of personal business done today. Next on the list is to register my businesses with the city and to get those new shoes for the car (I have to look at it as shoe shopping — that’s always been something that has brought me pleasure!). I also have coffee planned for tomorrow night with some Passion Parties colleagues. Yeah, so far I’m doing a lot of money spending and not so much money making, but it’ll more than even out with all the preparation I’m doing.

In any event, the sun is shining — both outside and inside my heart. For as stressful as today has been and tomorrow may be, though, it’s good to be me.

On iTunes: Cary Brothers, “Blue Eyes”