Moving Ahead, Falling Behind

For the first time in a very long time I did something to remove me from the ranks of housewifery. It's not that I think it's a step up on the world. It's the hardest damn job ever. I just have a difficult time feeling good about myself when I'm taken for granted day after day and when I have to endure the snide comments and reserved eye rolling from those who think being a housewife is like a permanent vacation. I'm not strong enough. That's what it comes down to. I don't like the work. I don't like the stereotype. I don't like the lack of respect. It's more than I can handle, and I'm looking to get out. Not only don't I like it, but I'm not good at it. It's best I stop giving other housewives a bad name and do my part by being a productive member of society who can kick the out-of-the-house job crowd in the shins when they make jokes about soap operas and bonbons.

I'm not employed yet though, so I'm still officially a housewife. I'm just moving toward something new now. And I'm moving pretty slowly, so it might be a while before I can say, "I used to be a housewife."

I spent the last two days with my father-in-law at his graphics business. I'm learning graphic design. What surprised me is I know a whole lot more than I thought I did. And even having to use a Mac when I was raised on a PC isn't posing that much of a problem. I'm still as quick on the uptake as I ever was, or at least it seems that way to my decrepit, dusty brain. I'll be designing logos, newsletters and ads in no time, and then who knows what'll happen. Probably not much, I know, but let me dream a little.

Having somewhere to be and doing something other than housework has already served to make me feel a whole lot better about myself. It was getting hard to tell myself I was doing something important and using my talent while dumping out cereal bowls and dusting furniture. Yeah, yeah, I have good kids and all that. John uses that one on me all the time, but it doesn't take an honors student to do that. It might make me a good person, at least in that respect, but it doesn't keep me from feeling like all my brainpower is wasting away up there. I'm not Einstein or anything, but I've got a pretty good noggin as noggins go.

I'm still not exactly sure what I'm going to do with myself in the long run. It's been pretty clear I'm not going to be a writer with the way this whole novel thing is going. I got stuck when there was some research I wanted to do, and I didn't get back to actually writing again until today. That would put me, oh� roughly� 12,000 words behind. But let me tell you, the research has been interesting, and I've only done half of what I wanted to do. And here I thought I'd hate that part of writing.

I was going along, and first a character needed to see a doctor, but I didn't know what in the world a doctor would say, so she's stuck in the doctor's office, waiting for this damn doctor to decide what he wants to do. So there's that. Meanwhile, there's a whole other group of people who are having some questions answered through tarot cards. Yes, I said tarot cards. You're right, if you remembered I don't believe in that stuff. So why am I putting it in my book (I have to laugh every time I say book or novel in relation to anything I'm writing)? Because that's what happened. I didn't plan it. I didn't think I'm going to have a tarot reading in my story. For some reason, one of the characters wanted that, so that's what happened. Rather than make up a bunch of hokey shit, which I have found after my research most writers seem to do, I decided to find out something about tarot. My mother would have a fit.

Anyway, as anyone with an Internet connection would do, I started looking for information online, and I actually found some very good sites, including one that did readings for you. But of course, that wasn't enough for me. I decided I wanted to do my own reading, so I could interpret it my own way. I read through an online course about what to do, and I went out and bought a freakin' $20 set of tarot cards. Sacrifice for the cause, right? I looked through them, shuffled them around, laid out a set and wouldn't you know, I got The Star, The Tower, The Devil, Temperance (God knows I'd need it with these cards), Death (yes, I said Death), The Hanged Man and Strength all on the first spread. That is seven of the Major Arcana on the very first spread of ten cards, and pretty wild cards at that. Leave it to me to draw such things. I haven't done much with that reading since then, as can be attested by my meager 800 or so words, but at least I'm finally going somewhere again.

Even after I did all the book stuff with the tarot cards, I decided to do a spread on my novel itself, just to see what would happen, because I might not be a believer, but I'm definitely curious. This time, I didn't draw such ominous cards. In fact, most were very positive, and I still managed to have a very unusual combination, including three of the four aces. What I gathered from this, because I am now a big, ol' tarot expert you know, is that I'm going to have a bucketload of success from this novel, and there's nothing but popularity and fortune in the future. So when I'm rich and famous of my own accord, because it doesn't look like John's band is going to do it for me with the whole rock star wife thing, you can say you knew me.