I. Sustainable Kindness
I was going to apply for that full-time editorial job today––the deadline is tomorrow––but the very idea made me clammy. So I'm not.
The positive reasons.
I don't want to give up my dream job. The pay and management are a bad dream, but I am basically running my own little bookstore!
I am still learning at and enjoying my job too much to leave.I've never laughed as much at any workplace.
Mr Furniture took this photo of me lifting a box of National Geographics for a customer. (Weight training!)
And I'm able to be helpful--always at least indirectly by passing on good books, cheap (w/ proceeds to worthy cause), and often face to face too--sharing information or a bit of chat.
It's what I've long wanted--a place and a way to practice sustainable kindness.
On the negative side, the idea of going back to a sedentary writing job frightens me. I love that my job keeps me active.
The idea of being surrounded by all college-educated folks again worries me a bit too. I am one of them!––but I've become more easily agitated by that culture and its common assumptions.
The other day, for instance, a well-meaning person of my type commented with outrage at social inequity, "No one could live on minimum wage!"
I cringed.
I know what they mean––they support raising minimum wage––but I just don't know about reentering a workplace where no one thinks surviving on minimum wage is normal...
Not that all people at any workplace would be only one class, of course; but, you know––the educational department of a history museum––it's a good bet there'd be a preponderance of the publishing types I've worked with for years. (Lovely people!)
Here's a thing:
I don't want to activate the "let-me-call-out-your-assumptions" part of me.
I was at a dinner party once with a woman who worked with former offenders. She announced to the table, "I hate normal people."
(Ridiculous! All people are potentially awful!)
I don't want to become the sort of person who tells a table of people that I hate them.
I feel much better now I've decided to stay put at work.
I'll keep looking for more paid work but not to swap out this job.
II. "Move."
I am sidling closer up to the idea of moving house.
I don't have to move at all.
I'm NOT committing to it, for many reasons (incl. my cheap rent), but if I let myself be honest, I'd like to live in a different neighborhood. The one where I live has the third-highest population density in the city. I'm looking in a neighborhood that ranks fourteenth.
For affordability, rather than getting a full-time, well-paying job, I wouldn't mind living with a roommate(s).
Today, for the first time, I messaged about a roommate opening on CL. Most listings are by much younger people, and I know some wouldn't want to live with someone their parents' age, so I wonder how that'll go.
There's no hurry!
But I do like the idea of a fresh place, someday.
I was going to apply for that full-time editorial job today––the deadline is tomorrow––but the very idea made me clammy. So I'm not.
The positive reasons.
I don't want to give up my dream job. The pay and management are a bad dream, but I am basically running my own little bookstore!
I am still learning at and enjoying my job too much to leave.I've never laughed as much at any workplace.
Mr Furniture took this photo of me lifting a box of National Geographics for a customer. (Weight training!)
And I'm able to be helpful--always at least indirectly by passing on good books, cheap (w/ proceeds to worthy cause), and often face to face too--sharing information or a bit of chat.
It's what I've long wanted--a place and a way to practice sustainable kindness.
On the negative side, the idea of going back to a sedentary writing job frightens me. I love that my job keeps me active.
The idea of being surrounded by all college-educated folks again worries me a bit too. I am one of them!––but I've become more easily agitated by that culture and its common assumptions.
The other day, for instance, a well-meaning person of my type commented with outrage at social inequity, "No one could live on minimum wage!"
I cringed.
I know what they mean––they support raising minimum wage––but I just don't know about reentering a workplace where no one thinks surviving on minimum wage is normal...
Not that all people at any workplace would be only one class, of course; but, you know––the educational department of a history museum––it's a good bet there'd be a preponderance of the publishing types I've worked with for years. (Lovely people!)
Here's a thing:
I don't want to activate the "let-me-call-out-your-assumptions" part of me.
I was at a dinner party once with a woman who worked with former offenders. She announced to the table, "I hate normal people."
(Ridiculous! All people are potentially awful!)
I don't want to become the sort of person who tells a table of people that I hate them.
I feel much better now I've decided to stay put at work.
I'll keep looking for more paid work but not to swap out this job.
II. "Move."
I am sidling closer up to the idea of moving house.
I don't have to move at all.
I'm NOT committing to it, for many reasons (incl. my cheap rent), but if I let myself be honest, I'd like to live in a different neighborhood. The one where I live has the third-highest population density in the city. I'm looking in a neighborhood that ranks fourteenth.
For affordability, rather than getting a full-time, well-paying job, I wouldn't mind living with a roommate(s).
Today, for the first time, I messaged about a roommate opening on CL. Most listings are by much younger people, and I know some wouldn't want to live with someone their parents' age, so I wonder how that'll go.
There's no hurry!
But I do like the idea of a fresh place, someday.
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