Brief Commentary on Working For a Living

      So I set aside a few days to binge-watch Grace & Frankie;
...y' know, the web series starring Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, the series that I knew I'd love before I saw the teaser still-shot with Martin Sheen and my beloved Sam Waterston suddenly reaching across a dining table and holding hands, and, well, part of why I do enjoy it is the fact that these interesting, beautifully dressed women get to start anew, having drastically different adventures than their previous. I admire and envy that. When I'm not laughing at June Diane Raphael as Fonda's eldest daughter, making brutally honest jokes, I am, according to the recent norm, thinking of myself again. Yes, I want to make a number of changes, I want to go for drinks with my friends, to compartmentalize my stress instead of having it all heaped in one bin, and to suddenly, magically be in a better place.
That would be a dream for any one of us, right? Wouldn't it be great to just blink and suddenly be at that next plane of existence you've been working toward, like if Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde suddenly went from studying for the LSATs the night of a keg party to tossing that dorky graduate cap at Harvard? Without a representation (albeit a sparkly pink one) of the blood, sweat and nagging frustration in life, that would've been a very short movie. I understand that every worthwhile thing we truly want takes effort. In the Grace & Frankie world, those women had lovingly furnished homes, great hair and cool boots because they were hardworking seventy-year-old women who had built their own little empires. They had years of employment and saving to pull from. If I want a sweater collection as pretty as Grace's, I have to slowly get my hands on those sweaters one piece at a time like nearly every other person on the planet. I have to commit to the struggle. Every day.
       I remember briefly commiserating one day at the retail position I had four jobs ago when an elderly customer talked about her former retail career. She referred to it as simply "trying to survive". I could relate. It was a nice moment, a seconds-long bonding session.

       Recently, my laptop conked out. It was devastating for the part of me that wanted to finish binge-watching the Danish TV show 'Rita' and work on the two books I'm writing that I'm keeping entirely on Word documents. Getting a replacement computer was wonderful, a relief, like a reunion with an incredibly useful boyfriend, but on the downside, I now have Windows 8 and do not have a way of working on my books and I hate this hiatus. It's driving me crazy. And this mood I'm in about my computer isn't just 'cause of my ferocious internet addiction, I swear.I don't have a program in place that holds onto everything I wrote already in the formats I chose. There are pictures and mock e-mails that I don't want to have to paste and edit all over again. Right now I can only look at what I've done and write new ideas by hand, which is an odd, nice throwback, I guess, to seventh grade, when instead of listening my rude, loud English teacher shout about a novel, I threw myself into whatever tween adventure I was misguided and doggedly excited about, my hand cramping, ink smearing along the side of my palm. Even though those stories are silly, I fondly remember my commitment to them and the flow of ideas - it was a rush.

         I find myself looking at artists and wondering how they make a living with their art, even after seeing That Guy ...Who Was in That Thing, . Is it obsessive commitment that gets them this film role, these club gigs, this multiple-book deal? I don't quite get it. But I am hungry and, as actor Zeljko Ivanek put it, "there were no other options", I can commit to the struggle. I'm a writer. I'm screwed.