Wherein she has that same exact discussion about money again.

I got a day off from work so I'm catching up on work.

How about that sentence?

I had drinks with Kerry last and I was telling her about how I had the option to take the day off or the option to take on a new project in addition to the one I already had thus extending my time there beyond next week, and I was like, Oh but I want to go to the park. So, you know, bye. And Kerry was like, you really don't care about money, and I was like, No, I really don't care about money.

Means to an end, people, that's about it.

Because I do have the occasional little freelance project beyond advertising stuff that I don't tell you, my imaginary internet friends, about, where my name is not attached to it, and I just sort of slug through it every so often for some extra cash. I would say a little less than 20% of my time is spent on non-fun writing projects, but it could very easily be 100% if I got sucked back in.

I am not planning on getting sucked back in.

I guess the best way to explain my attitude about money is this: once I read an article (or maybe it was a show on late night HBO; knowing me, it could be either) about strippers, and one of them was talking about how everytime she passed by a shoe store and saw a pair of shoes in the window that she liked she would look at the price and calculate how many lap dances she had to do in order to buy that pair of shoes. It was usually like, four or something, so she would just buy them.

Money, honey.

This is pretty much the same attitude I have toward working in corporate America or doing any freelance work that doesn't involve me revealing my soul in an interesting way to a wide audience, thus challenging me as a writer and/or enhancing my career. But instead of shoes (although I guess it is sometimes shoes), it's that month in Dublin just doing my own thing, six weeks on the road visiting bookstores in the south, etc. I calculate what each hour, each word, each idea can buy me, and then I think not too far beyond that.

I know this isn't the best idea for long-term life-planning or anything like that. And I'm not going to lie and say there aren't moments when I freak out and worry about how I'll never get ahead in life financially and I'm going to be like, sixty and homeless, because trust me, there are no sixty-year-old ladies roaming the halls of these ad agencies where I work. But this is what makes me happiest, this life. This is how I am the most effective me I can be in the universe. I know that I will uncover many more things about myself in my life, but at this exact moment, I'm pretty proud of myself that I realize what I need to do to make myself happy.

But I do take care of myself and my bills and have the tiniest of nest eggs (there's like a few feathers and some sticks I threw together making it up right now), so don't worry, I'm not slapping a Pay Pal button on this site to ask for donations.

However, I will always encourage you to buy my books.

+++

This weekend: MoCCA with Summer, park time with Rosie, and dinner with Megan. And today I am going to see a matinee of "The Hangover" because I am secretly a 17-year-old boy.

(06/05/09)