Though I'd prefer four desert island discs and the woman of my dreams...

As the strains of Uncle Tupelo’s “Anodyne” close out the annual March 16-20 celebration I’ll take some time to answer a few more questions that have come my way.

Question: Ok, so we can guess that Uncle Tupelo’s “Anodyne” is one of your five desert island discs. What are the other four?
Answer: Always a good question. I could listen to Anodyne forever (though I want the two bonus tracks and would beg and plead for Sandusky to be included from March 16-20, 1992. That is the one track I listen to when I need to recenter myself.) I’ve finally broken down and chosen R.E.M.’s “Reckoning” over “Murmur”. Murmur is a better album and so indecipherable that it would make the time go by quicker but I just enjoy listening to “Reckoning” a lot more. It’s not even a good album; it’s just fun to listen to. Add in Beth Orton’s “Comfort of Strangers” and The Frames “Set List” for two discs that just make me artistic and jubilant, respectively.

The last one? Kelly Willis “What I Deserve”. The title track still puts a chill down my spine every time I hear Kelly sing “I don’t believe that I will be saved.” There was a year or two of my life where the only thing that got me through the day was listening to this disc. I honestly wouldn’t know what I would have done without it. I’ll close out No Depression week with Kelly and yes, for those people who are my “friend” on Facebook this is the woman with her arm around me in my profile photo. What can I say? Sometimes I totally rule.



Question: How are you reacting to being down to your last week in the office?
Answer: Pretty well I think. At my going away happy hour people actually commented on the fact that I was smiling which I hate to say has not been one of my standard emotions recently. I should probably try to clear that one up. Maybe the best way to say it is that the past year or so at work has really worn me out mentally and as a result the punk rock kid in me was unleashed more often than not. It made me anti-social and I regret that that was the case. But I’m in a better head space now and boy do I appreciate it.

But it is still weird sitting around going this is really it. Just one more set of weekly reports to go, a few processes to document and hand off and then it is hand in my badge and saunter out the door. I’m not sure if it will really hit me until I pack up the cubicle and take down my Dilbert cartoons. I’ve had these cartoons up since I was in college and when they move it really tells me that this part of my life will be over.

Question: Any ideas on what the next phase of your life is going to be?
Answer: I still have absolutely no clue. I’m kind of viewing this as my sabbatical. Take some time off to decompress and reassess my life and how I’m leading it. I hate to say that I’m having a mid-life crisis because I’m only 34 and the doctors tend to give me a clean bill of health. But I really am not sure what I want to do with myself. Whatever my next step is, I really want it to be the right one.

Question: So are you going to go ahead and write your book already?
Answer: Yes, I might as well make the official announcement. April will mark the official start of my first book “Tawdry Amusements at Reasonable Prices” (or at Hourly Rates, I haven’t decided which is funnier). This will be a combination of the best of the blog (rewritten and cleaned up as need be), older pieces that have never left my laptop, and new material that was never meant for the blog. It’ll be the usual combination of humor and pop culture and reflections on my life. I’m still not sure what shape it will take but I’m confident that there are 60,000 words out there in some order that I can use.

Question: But what about the novel? Isn’t your dream to write a novel?
Answer: It is and I will, most likely as part of National Novel Writers Month in November. “Until We Say Goodbye” has to be written but it is such a good story that I would hate to screw it up by just rushing into it. I need to outline and plan and do all of those things and I just haven’t done that yet. Depending on how my life goes I might get started on it earlier but right now I think I can do the story collection in a month or two. I even have an editor (God bless her soul) who volunteered to proofread my manuscript.

Question: Isn’t she the same person who threatened to stop reading your emails until you learned the difference between there, they’re and their?
Answer: Yes it is. I’m kind of dreading the first edit. I’m expecting my laptop to throw up an error message saying “Cannot show that many shades of red at once.”

Question: So any posts to look forward to in your last week?
Answer: Yes. The “things I regret not doing at my job” is going to be pretty epic. Even I’m looking forward to it.

Have a great weekend everyone.