Keeping My Cool

Some poetry bloggers have recently subscribed and probably learned by now that I don’t post poetry every day or every time here at H&Q. When I post a poem, the subject will alway begin with “new poem” followed by the title. Most of the poems I share will have been created recently, but since no one who doesn’t know me has purchased one of my three books of poems, my bet is that even any in those 306 pages published will be new to most of you.
-
When I decided in November not to turn on my furnace I didn’t imagine it would still be off December 15. There have been nights I wish I had turned it on when I breezed in from a 10 to 12 hour day at the AeroKnow Museum and employer when I wanted to flip the switch, but what the hell? In less than three hours, most nights, after a dinner matching my circumstance, and quaffing almost lustily of what most folks would call a sedative, but I call a deadative. . . . . . . I’m sleeping in my chair under a sleeping bag unzipped and turned upside down,  covering most of me, with my feet on an ottoman (no connection to any empire here), and usually my fluffy bathrobe over my head with talk radio buzzing away like white noise on a TV but slightly more interesting. The bathrobe is porous and allows air to filter through while keeping that part of me comfortably warm. Ten years ago I bought long underwear intended for wearing when hunting outdoors, and I have not worn it since about 2001, but I suppose I will starting early in 2012. I laundered it a few weeks ago to be sure I didn’t forget to wash it way back when.
-
Socially, this has been the best Christmas season in years.  While at least one friend counted the number of parties she’s been to on a Facebook blab, I’m simply counting this season a significant net gain regarding how people seem to regard me and how I regard the rest of the world. . . and leaving it at that. I am humbled and well blessed this year; am nowhere near the angry malcontent I was in 2010. No sir no ma’am. This year I am a resigned malcontent.
-
For the first time in my life, I had to quit a story I had promised to write for the local business monthly. It would have taken too many hours from my daily employer to produce. In the past, I’ve simply taken a few days off, for cherished, major story assignments but the numbers don’t often work. For the major front page feature I produced for the December Springfield Business Journal, a story I thoroughly enjoyed writing and photographing, my paycheck from the publisher was $7 (and pocket change) more than I lost in pay for time away from my daily employer. When withholding from daily employer is factored in, I lost money. 
-
WHY? Because it is important for me to honestly claim to be a writer . . .  not an intern writer, not an aspiring writer; a writer. Four years ago, soon after I re-joined the good grace of the business publication owner, whose father was the publication owner during the years I had contributed to it years earlier — owned by the father who turned it over to his son who has done a fine job operating it — I made a jocular pitch in happy talk at a summer party to be listed as a “senior correspondent” on the publication roster and after my by lines.  We laughed about it. And in the time since, I haven’t pushed it, believing that if I just hung in there, proved dependable and competent, the recognition would come. I still hope that it will come, but I am “humble and resigned” not to push things; not to share a hint of dis-satisfaction.
-
WHY? Because when I wrote for the gentleman’s father, I was a senior correspondent. So, you may asque . . . what the hell am I unhappy about?  I was a senior correspondent for the paper. Nothing can take that away from me.  All I need now is to find a person (it will have to be a person) who will hire me to work for him or her as a writer/photographer/communicator among communicating peers, a member of a team. My teachers all said I “plays  well with others.” To make the most of my mile high humility, I need to absent myself from the current cess pool of circumstance that rewards “the patience of Job” with a paycheck every two weeks . . . . or three weeks . . . . or month, and frequently with the admonition “Don’t cash this until next Wednesday or I tell you you can.”
-
This month I am not a writer/photographer because I can’t afford to lose the dollars I must lose in time gone from daily employer to be one.
-
In the meantime, I’m keeping my cool. And I have an additional blessing — totally unexpected — to count among my many this year.  I’m not even being billed monthly for the natural gas to keep the furnace pilot light burning. I discovered this last Thursday when I had HAD it with being cold. I went to the basement, tried to start the furnace on my way out of the house for a nearby poetry event, and could not start the furnace!
-
Lucky me.
-
Live long . . . . . . . . and proper.