Saturdays

I never do any work on Saturday, even though I always plan to. It's just too lovely outside and god knows how long that will last. I've just started my new job with an educational consultant company that helps international students with their grad school applications. The guys who run it are fun and fabulous and former journalists, and all I do is try to make someone's experience as a drum majorette into an entertaining essay. Or something like that. And I really need to be cracking down on that, but instead I'm planning for this ridiculously unproductive loft party in Brooklyn that is going to lay waste to my whole weekend. Is this the behavior of a useful individual? I think not.

But I did finish my new book proposal, and have picked a title: Rat Race Rebels: Following Your Dream in a Corporate World. It's basically an excuse for me to ruminate in print about my oddball career choices while I work on my fiction. But I'm looking forward to writing it--after I finish Wicked Women, which is a whole other story.

I've always had mixed feelings about the post-Labor Day season. I love summer, the long days and hot evenings spent drinking at some sidewalk cafe, but I run out of money so quickly and end up hungover and not getting any work. And then I feel guilty all the time. It's nice to be working again on a book and feeling calm and creative....