Brrrrrrr, Baby, Brrrrrrr

It's cold here. I know it's colder up north, but just pity me for a moment. We have frost warnings. Iguanas are freezing to death. If our orange crops fail, we all might get scurvy. It's the perfect morning to curl up on the sofa in flannel pajamas, snuggled under blankets, drinking coffee and reading a candy book on the Kindle. Which is exactly what I did.

Yeah, I've lost your pity now. Now it's full-blown Grrrrr. But I have to do something to balance out the loss in income, the delayed paycheck that won't arrive until AFTER my taxes are due, and the drumming teacher who thinks that push-ups are the newest and greatest thing in the world.

In other words, I am trying to make the best of it. Please don't hate me. I would rather have a portion of your job than carry around this anxiety.

I've made a promise that tomorrow I will get back to work. Not my actual income-bearing job, such as it is, but the work that showers my soul in riches (ooooh, isn't that a pretty phrase). I cannot express how much this promise terrifies me. I don't think I've ever avoided anything more than this innocuous chartreuse folder on my desk, ever in my life. Plus, this promise cost me $100. That's now 10% of my weekly salary. So I'll be frittering away money if I bail.

Reading the candy book on the couch is comfortable, warm, and pleasurable. Getting back to work is scary and surrounded by the unknown. It's fully, ultimately, out of my control. On the sofa, I arrange the blankets and turn the pages -- I'm in charge. The green folder could lead to hardship, angst, and rejection. Or it could just as easily lead to fortune, glory, and adulation (ok, that's perhaps a bit much). There's no way to know.

Reading my candy book, I know exactly what is going to happen. The book's heroine is going to catch the bad guy, aided by her plucky partner and her dreamboat millionaire husband. There's no glory and adulation for me in it -- in fact, I'm too embarrassed by the title to even reveal what it is -- but it just feels so good. There's the nagging portion of my brain that says to stop. Like an emotional eater on a binge, "Put down the pint of Ben and Jerry's!" it begs me. But it's hard to stop. I read because I cannot face the reality of my own words.