I’ve begun a new part-time gig recently. I expected that by this time this year I’d be working at last year’s part-time position, filling in working as a pourer one day each weekend at a local vineyard. Instead, I answered an ad on an absolute whim a few weeks ago, and now I’m working very, very part-time as a tech in a doctor’s office a little over 30 minutes from the house. It gets me out of the house on the regular, feeds a little extra money into my art habit, and most importantly of all, it has nothing to to do with any of my previous part-time gigs, so I’m learning a great deal of new information, which is always my biggest motivation in taking any of these strangely disparate positions.
Okay- that’s not completely genuine: I have one other, possibly somewhat larger motivation at play here: I definitely made an excited and undignified noise that probably should have cost me the interview when I learned that the office uniform would be scrubs. I’ve never really gotten over how good it was not needing to fuss over work clothes when I was in the service, and once the Air Force stuck me in a flight suit I was pretty much done for- those are just so comfortable. Scrubs are essentially pajamas that are socially acceptable to wear in public— more than that, you look respectable if you’re wearing scrubs at work, even if you stop off at the grocery on your way home. You can wear wild patterns, neon colors; elastic waistband and all, it does not matter. You help people, friend. Go ahead and wear those pajamas in public.
I have developed a slight knack for finding these positions: part-time jobs that don’t give me trouble, that pay me enough to let whatever trivial annoyance I might experience during the week roll off my back and never send me home stressed, work which doesn’t interfere with teaching, medical appointments, or art. I rather ought to have this skill, given my particular nature and needs, but I’m grateful for it nonetheless.
The doctors and office managers keep apologizing for my long commute, and I can’t seem to convince them that it’s something I enjoy, so I’ve stopped trying. (It’s also vastly better than any commute I had in the Baltimore/DC metro outside of the five-minute drive into the studio, and even that could turn into a 45-minute nightmare if there was anything sports-related happening in the city. New Englanders are deeply convinced that their local transit systems are the worst in the nation, hands-down.) My first two weeks were spent catching up on Night Vale and the new season of Alice Isn’t Dead, and then listening to S-Town, which I really can’t say enough about- I can’t stop thinking about it, and I’ll probably give it a re-listen in a month or so. I’ve just picked up This Is Actually Happening, as well, which I’m enjoying for its incredibly simple format, as well as Terrible, Thanks For Asking. I recommend them all, especially S-Town, which- although there are some questions about production, was absolutely riveting.
Speaking of recommendations, I received Cameron Awkward-Rich‘s most recent book transit from Button Poetry and while I suspect there may be only four or five thousand people out there buying poetry these days, if any of them read this blog, give Awkward-Rich’s latest a look. It’s spare, concise, clear, and simply beautiful writing. As the weather has been turning warmer, I’ve been opening our windows in the morning and reading poetry with my coffee (poetry has been taking the place of my devotional reading over the last week- I need to make room for both, but that’s another issue entirely) and this slim little book has been getting a lot of my attention recently.
I have some good news to share soon, once I have permission to share it: we’ve been busy, over that lull. A bit of that news isn’t mine to share, and some of it is, but I’m also not free to share my bit yet, regardless. (That will give it away to a fair share of you, but that’s okay.) Soon, soon.
How many folks use Spotify/ would be interested in sharing playlists? I’ve been making wake-up playlists to get myself out of the house on days I need to go into an office (music is food) and I’m always looking for new material— by which I don’t mean “new” new music, necessarily, just “new-to-me”. I’m currently waking up to either Stevie Wonder, Nicki Minaj, Howlin’ Wolf, or Wu-Tang depending on my mood, so genre is definitely open. What gets you moving in the mornings?
