Be careful what you wish for
February 12th, 2009
Lara asked me a couple of weeks ago what I wanted for Valentines day. “How about some peace?” I flippantly replied, not directed towards her but at the children, who were variously runny-nosed and petulant, runny bottomed and teething.
Today I find myself alone in an empty, quiet house. Lara is back at work (although for how long is another story), the littlies are both in nursery, and I am ‘between contracts’, a phrase uncomfortably new to me. Whilst I’m certainly enjoying the respite, the spectre of no work is, I have to say, rather spoiling the taste of my tea.
The dearth of contract IA work, I am variously told by the agents I am in daily contact with, is either completely normal for this time of year or highly unusual; and that I should either not worry myself about it or panic slash my rate in half / give up and get a permanent job. The true situation probably lies somewhere between these extremes, and I am certainly loathe to give up on the hitherto brilliantly successful freelance experiment, but either way it will soon be 3 weeks since I worked.
This time, you will be relieved to hear, has not been completely wasted. Although my delightful adventures in the outstanding Super Mario Galaxy, and valiant defence within Geometry Wars Galaxies (I only play superficially astronomical games) might suggest otherwise. Oh no, I’ve also set up my company’s web site (nothing to see yet) sorted my business cards, denuded the reading backlog, pitched to a couple of agencies in Brighton, listed a load of life-junk on Amazon and eBay, and more-or-less got over a nasty cold (the girls’ revenge for my callous remarks).
I have also, unsurprisingly, done an absolutely vast amount of surfing, the cream of which I promise to post just as soon as I can be bothered to trawl through my history folder.
So to re-specify my answer to Lara’s question, what do I want for Valentines?: How about some peace and income? No. These, surely, are mutually exclusive for all of us.