How You Do It

How You Do It

“I don’t know how you do it,” people are always saying to me when they contemplate working at home. Frequently this is said by people who can’t conceptualize working at home, and probably would have a hard time outside of the office or the institution. For me, that was never a concern, I knew it would be easier to be my own boss, and most of the time, I was right.

What people are asking when they ask how you do it, is how you manage to not spend the day on the couch. Here’s why you don’t, you need the money, and more often than not, this will be your guiding principle while you are self-employed. You need the money. There’s no unemployment coming and safety nets have a way of wearing out. So, you get off the couch. There are only so many episodes of Boston Legal you can watch anyway.

And you will watch Boston Legal; there will be more than enough time for that. You will find that work is unpredictable. 8 years in, and it is still feast or famine for me. It’s more feast now than famine, which is great, but when I talk about how I do it, that’s the part that I’ve had the most trouble with. It’s real easy to watch those Boston Legals when its famine and you’re still feasting. It’s real easy to fool yourself that you’re being productive on the days when you don’t see clients, when you don’t make money. This is why the money isn’t enough. You don’t do it for the money alone. You have your reasons, I have mine.

And me personally, I have a lot of other things going on, and the best thing about the freelancer’s life is you will have a chance to pursue those things if you want. I work out every day for an hour at least, lately some combination of lifting weights, yoga, and hashing, but come spring I’ll be running 30 miles a week (hopefully) and biking around instead of slogging it out on the subway. All of that eats a lot of time, and it turns out the dog needs to get out too, and she doesn’t do yoga, though she’s probably more flexible than me. Point is, that’s a chunk of time there.

Reading and writing, I want to do that too, more than I do now. I’d like to see some things published, and soon. It’s been too long and I’m getting old round here. I really want to read more.

And God help me, I want to work more. I want to make more money and I don’t feel the least bit bad that I’m trying to keep up with the Joneses. I want my overpriced Park Slope apartment, and I want it sooner rather than later. I’m sick of paying rent.

So, I want all of that and I want my social life, the drinking, the carousing, even the dating, though that couldn’t be over soon enough. I want to see the show. I live in New York Fucking City and I’m not that old and I want it all and I want it on my terms. I want to make it look easy, and yes, I want to watch an episode of Boston Legal here and there, though honestly, I have no idea why. That’s my motivation right now.

So, I’m making a change because while I’m more or less doing all of that now, when its feast, I get overwhelmed and can’t keep things straight and when it’s famine, at best I don’t push myself that hard. If you please, I’m making a minor change to the business model. I’m hiring someone, and for lack of a better term, I’m hiring a Gal Friday.

The way I see it is that if once a week, someone can do all my cleaning, including my laundry, run a few errands, and maybe take the dog for a good walk, I can forget about all of that in between. Well, the dog still needs to go out, but otherwise I should be good. If this allows me to do 2 more billable hours of work a week, or publish an article, or accomplish some sort of meaningful project that moves my business or my life forward, it will be worth it. How do you do it? You design around yourself.

And I’ll tell you the truth; I’m not so crazy about this course of action, but it makes more sense than anything else I can think of. That’s my middle class guilt coming on, but the fact of the matter is that were I a little more motivated and a lot more focused, it may not be necessary to find someone to do this.

The facts are that I’m not going to become more focused tomorrow or the next day. I can focus on a few things at a time, but I’m too easily distracted by the minutia. I don’t even like the minutia, it just pisses me off. So, I’m outsourcing it, and by doing so, I’ll accomplish more. That’s the theory anyhow.

Designing around yourself, sounds simple, even self evident, and it is, but it’s real easy not to, and if you don’t, you will fail. If you don’t believe me, ask about the store someday.

And that is how you do it.

The F Train Is Ok You Idiot

A common enough conceit among New Yorkers is that their train is the worst, this seems particularly true in Brooklyn and even more true of people that ride the F train, which is my primary transit option. Unfortunately, these people are nuts; rarely go anywhere in Brooklyn further out than Park Slope, and don't know what they're talking about. However, my job takes me all over the place, so let me set you straight Nancy.

About the worst thing that will ever happen on the F is when the MTA mix it up with the G at Hoyt Schermerhorn. Sometimes it skips a few stations between Jay and 7th Avenue, which is a giant pain in the ass, but that ain't nothing. Most of the time, the F is pretty reliable, and even when it's not it's still in service and predictable.

The L doesn't even go into Manhattan many weekends leaving residents of Williamsburg essentially stranded. Seeing as this includes many many obnoxious hipsters this actually constitutes a public service by the MTA. Can you imagine the shrieks of protest from Park Slopers if the F train terminated service to Manhattan for the weekend. Even louder than the shrieks from little Lexie and little Alec down at the Tea Lounge.

The C and the G are practically invisible on the weekends trapping people in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill. It's not much better on weekdays and the stations smell like Vintage '76 Urine.

However, the people that really ought to throttle the F train complainers are those that live out past Franklin Avenue on the 2 and 5 lines. I've been travelling out to this neighborhood once a week and the train rarely comes at 11 in the morning or 3 in the afternoon. I image there are people who have spent weekends at the Franklin Avenue station, just waiting. These people have every right to complain. Shut the hell up and let them be heard.

an altogether different dog

I took my first Yoga class last night, which to the best of my knowledge makes me the very last person living in Park Slope to get into downward facing dog position. I think it was pretty much what I expected, but I'll need to do it one or two more times to see if I want to stick with it. It's hard to focus on something when most of the time you're looking at other people to see what to do next, and Yoga is supposed to be about focus, right?

Anyhow, I had no idea what I was doing, but in a few minutes I'm going to read up on focus this and breathe that. The namaste spiritual gumbo is lost on me altogether as of now, but it is an interesting workout otherwise. I had an absolutely incredible run today too, and while having had 3 days off to rest my ankle probably helped there, I can't help but think maybe the yoga....Anyway, I'll probably go again Thursday.

about a dog

I used to hang out at this coffeehouse in college that had an open mic night, and one time this woman told us she had written a poem about her cat, something you had to get out of the way according to her, everybody did it. Since I had written a lot of poetry at this point, I immediately felt the shooting pains of guilt, never having written about Jake, my cat. I was much more interested in writing about colors or using my words as weapons. Good times.

And all these years later, it occurs to me, I still havent written a poem about Jake, or for that matter my best girl the last 10 years, Kinka, my dog. The good news is I no longer write poetry, the bad news is, I'm going to write about Kinka, and I think it's gonna be kind of boring.

I got Kinka about a year after I moved back to New York in July of 1997. I had always wanted a dog, but truth be told, I also thought a dog would be great for picking up women, and I was right about that for a while. Unfortunately the crowd at the dog park has lost it's charm over the years.

Kinka was not my first choice, but the dog I liked, a cute black lab puppy, was gone when I went back to the pound. So, I trekked to the CACC in Harlem, a pound largely populated by big Pit Bull mixes, which were not my ideal dog. They did have a few cool dogs, and then they had Kinka, then known as Whitney, and with as charming an attitude as you would expect if you put Leona Helmsley in a cage. She had a deathwish and how they ever got her out of the cage, I'll never know. They tried to persuade me to take some dog with curly hair who was nice enough, but that dogs hair surely would have been as much a pain in the ass as my own jew fro, and I told the girl at the pound I wasn't interested even though this dog was thrilled with me. I told her I wanted to see the bitch that kept biting at us. Man, I never learn.

Eventually they did get her out of the cage and she was very shy but also very pretty and winsome and you could just see that she was only scared. She was about 6 months old and had a scar under her eye. They found her on the streets, she probably had a rough time of it. I gave her a chance and two days later I took her home. That night, I woke up in the middle of the night and she was sitting up next to the bed. I reached out to pet her and she took a chomp at me. Nice.

Walden 1980

Because The Night – Patti Smith

I came up with a little writing exercise for myself a few weeks ago. I listen to the Clear Channel Cable Music Channels a lot, in particular, “retro-active” which plays you got it, 80s music. Anyway, a lot of my favorite music came out in the 80’s, I’m not unique that way, but this music informs a lot of what I do, and think, and say, so I’m doing a little thing where I just write whatever I think about the next 5 songs that play, starting with this one by Patti Smith. With all due respect to Patti Smith, I prefer the Natalie Merchant version. Man, I had a huge crush on Natalie Merchant.

Games Without Frontiers – Peter Gabriel

I saw Peter Gabriel a few years ago with my friend Sam, it was very random. It turns out Peter’s guitarist, who I had never heard of and have since forgotten the name of is this huge cult hero to serious Peter Gabriel fans. I understand this as I sort of feel the same way about The Edge, but everyone knows who The Edge, is and nobody knows what the fuck the name of Peter Gabriel’s guitarist is. I think it may be Tony.

One Night In Bangkok – Murray Head

This song was so freaking cool when I was 13. Once upon a time I actually had the 45 of it. It was given to me by the catering hall where my Bar Mitzvah reception was held. I think it’s about doing drugs, prostitutes, and getting in fights in Bangkok. I’m not really sure but according to Mr. Head, one night in Bangkok is seriously going to mess with you. Where the hell does Murray Head fit into the pop culture pantheon? Who are the hardcore Murray Head fans? Someone get over to Wikipedia and figure it out. Then get right back here and post it. Get me some dirt on that guitarist while you’re at it.

Alive And Kicking – Simple Minds

I really have no great love for this song. It’s a nice song, but it does nothing for me. I think that if Echo And The Bunnymen and The Psychedelic Furs had not existed, Simple Minds would have been much more interesting. Unfortunately, a lot of the music that came out of the 80’s is really derivative of music that came out just a year before. No wait, that’s true of now too. What’s really scary is the large number of bands that are heavily influenced by bands that were derivative back then. I really wish this song were over.

Turning Japanese - The Vapors

Whoever programmed this block is about 5 years older than me, I’ll bet you anything. I seem to remember someone telling me this song was about figuring out you’re gay. I don’t really think so. Who the hell were The Vapors? When you compile your list of one hit wonders from the 80’s, these guys are right up there with Murray Head. Have you heard the song Oh Bondage, Up Yours? It’s from X-Ray Spex, best one hit wonder ever. You haven’t even heard it have you?

Running a 3 Minute Mile

I went to the gym today and it turns out I can run a 3 minute mile. Considering the world record is nearly 45 seconds better, this was astounding to me. My previous fastet mile was about 5:30 in high school, and generally people my age (33) slow down a bit in that event, so while I knew I could run faster than I had, and thought maybe the 5 minute mile was a possibility, I never thought about 4:00, or even 4:30, I'm not even sure 3:00 existed.

Nevertheless, according to the trainer I spent an hour with today it is possible and for one simple reason, everything I'm doing with my body, I'm doing absolutely wrong. Having learned the secrets I've learned, it's a wonder I'm able to get out of bed in the morning without crippling myself to tell you the truth.

Now, I know I've never been in the best shape but even at 172 lbs I could break 6:00 last year, I always figured losing 30 lbs would get me to 5:00. If I spent some more time in the gym and consistently did speedwork, that could even get me down to 4:30. However, I can do much much more.

For instance, I don't even walk right, and a lot of my other mechanics are off. My flexibility is hellishly bad according to Chris the trainer, and let's not forget about my ankles which were never that strong to begin with. All of that has to be worth another minute, and that gets me down to.... 3:30. That aint so shabby.

Ok, maybe it's not a 3:00 minute mile, but it's still the world record by 13 seconds or so, and that's plenty good enough to me. Damn, I never even knew I would have a shot at it, so I can't complain. I'm off to the hash to start my training.