My “Glamorous” Life As a Writer
Please note: There is no 9:30am yoga practice
It has always amused me when I would see profiles in magazines of successful women and what their days look like. Granted, they get up early and end their days late but their days are interspersed with things like:
“Steep artisan chamomile tea. Mindfully consider today’s objectives while practicing in home yoga studio. Call corner deli for perfectly crafted, organic, grass fed chicken sandwich.”
Is chicken even grass fed? I don’t even know. I’m making things up now. Just stay with me. This post has spite in it. It’s like Grape-Nuts. Just keep chewing and you’ll be fine…
This is not what my day looks like. I work two jobs. I am the single mother of a snarky teenager. I have three animals. Frequently, something pees in my house where it shouldn’t. This is my life.
In case you were ever wondering, THIS is what a day in the life of a “working creative” looks like:
5:00am — Alarm goes off. Begin crying, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Snuggle small canine animal and wonder if she’s cute enough and trainable enough to make it into commercials so that I can quit working and live off my dog.
5:23am — Get out of bed and wander to the kitchen. Realize I forgot to program the programmable coffee pot and have to figure out how to make coffee. It’s not artisan. It’s the big can of generic from Kroger. Colombian. “Lively and Robust.” Probably made with the tears of Pablo Escobar’s illegitimate, unknown children.
5:34am — Check Medium stats. Allow my soul to be crushed by the fact that some random article I wrote about dating in seven minutes is far out performing an incredibly well thought out, well-crafted, brilliant article on Yann Moix. Read comments from yesterday’s article from middle-aged/ misogynistic men who informed me my dating life would be a lot easier if I either dated men exactly like them or, at the very least, didn’t have a vagina.
5:49am — Run shower and consider whether or not I can get another day out of this hair. Decide “fuck it.” Shower sans hair washing.
6:09am — Furiously edit article I wrote last night while bleary-eyed and tired. I hope to God it makes sense and people like it. Hit the “Ready to Publish” button. Pray.
6:42am — Attempt to apply makeup. Question why anybody lets me do anything unsupervised.
7:07am — Grab random work related objects. Determine lunch by what exists in my refrigerator. Are those leftovers from Christmas? Yes. Those are, indeed, leftovers from Christmas. Shit. Drive angst-ridden, heavily sighing teenager to school five miles away because it’s the only one in the district with her honors program.
7:24am — Drive 57 miles to work. Listen to music and rack my brain for anything and everything that I possibly could write about later today. Dictate all ideas into the phone. Try not to die while driving.
8:30am — Arrive at work. Bang head on desk for next eight hours.
5:48pm — Arrive home after hell commute. Something peed in the house. Suspect Chihuahua. Clean pee. Immediately drive teenager to softball practice.
6:14pm — Try to figure out what the hell I’m going to make for dinner that does not involve six-week-old Christmas leftovers. Wing it. Cook something wholly uninspired, most likely involving Taco Seasoning.
7:08pm — Finish responding to all unanswered emails from earlier in my day sending them “delay delivery” so that no one knows I’m actually working after hours. Begin responding to comments from readers on Medium. Shake my head at 1,206 word comment on a 756 word article.
8:31pm — Pick up angry, angst ridden teenager from softball practice. Attempt to feed this creature. Listen to scoffing at my choice of Taco Seasoning inspired dinner menu. Google “going price of girl child on black market.”
9:06pm — Finally sort through all the voice memos and notes and other random ideas that came to me for something to write about. If inspiration and brilliance do not happen in this moment, they may never happen. Write in my bed while trying not to be distracted by things like the ceiling fan.
10:34pm — Decide that whatever was in my head and now on a page is good enough. Question entire life plan. Promise to edit in the morning. Attempt to read a few pages of Anne Lamott book. Realize the words kind of look like German. They’re not.
11:08pm — Turn off the light and realized I forgot to brush my teeth. Lay in bed hating the entire Crest corporation for no good reason. Get up. Brush my teeth. Collapse. Realize I forgot to wash my face.
I told you it was glamorous. It’s a messy life and most days I feel lucky if I put my underwear on right side out. But, it’s worth it to know I’m doing what I always wanted to do: write.
