January Lassitude

Freezing mornings. Long stretches of silence. Ice-covered streets. This is a time of year I love. It’s also the time of year I go a little stir-crazy in my basement and start to think that I’ve got to get some kind of job.

Teaching. Editing. Stacking shelves. Anything seems good. Anything that will get me out into the world and interacting with people. Anything where someone is expecting me to show up.

I know. It’s not like I live on a ranch in Manitoba. I’m not drinking at 10 and eying the shotgun. And it sounds a little snobby to say that I think I need a job to mingle. I realize I’m very fortunate to still be able to live off my earnings. I know most writers would kill to have the time I have to scribble. But there it is.

Except this year feels a little different. The yearning to show up and be needed someplace is a little less acute. The cause of this might be that I’m the househusband now, and I’m doing most of the cooking, washing and chauffeuring of offspring. I’ve got a part-time job to keep me busy, and the family needs me because I’m keeping things on an even keel for everyone. Without me, there’d be a lot more frozen dinners and general screaming about where to find clean underwear.

Maybe my mind is also finally used to the fact that I go through this every January. I’ll bug friends for contacts and make phone calls and almost seriously consider interviewing for a teaching job. But now I realize that my reasons for doing so are half-assed and temporary. When March comes around, I’ll feel less constrained and a little more alive.

Right now, I’m not so productive. The writing projects I’m in the midst of feel like long slogs with no real roadmap or purpose. Piles of bookkeeping and paperwork clutter up the office like carcasses that need to be disposed of (especially now that I’ve got my e-books up and I have to start acting like a PR person, accountant and publisher). And around early afternoon, I start to think like a domestic engineer and get my June Cleaver on.

But it doesn’t seem too bad this year. I’ve got a feeling productivity will come, if I just keep pushing, and in the end, I won’t have shortchanged anyone who would hire me with my distractable frame of mind and self-centered habits.

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