After 22 weeks of unemployment, things are looking up for "Chastity." (Number of jobs she's applied for in the last seven days: five. Last meal eaten before writing this post: homemade spaghetti and a glass of red wine, both leftover from dinner with a friend a couple of days ago.)

Spring has arrived. Is anyone else feeling it? The days are getting longer, the cherry tree outside my window is about to burst into bloom. I even saw a couple of pretty finches dancing around on the branches this morning.

I think this will be my last week on unemployment insurance. I successfully finagled the freelance contract from a couple of weeks ago, and—for the time being anyway—that looks like it will be taking up some 15-plus hours of my week. I’ll be starting with the Census next week, too. On top of that, I’ve spent the last week doing various odd jobs for other people to pick up some cash—I’m doing a small website update for a friend, and am putting my sewing skills to use making a tweed jacket for a family member. R has a couple of new porn shoots coming up in the next month or so, so this will help generate some extra cash as well.

Lissa was dead-on last week when she wrote about how the new way forward would be as a small-time entrepreneur. This is clearly going to be the route for me, too—doing freelance writing—and honestly I’m pretty happy about it. The thought of spending any more of my life staring at gray cube walls causes me to slouch heavily with a restless, mindless anxiety. I’d much rather sit at my dining room table and write write write while occasionally gazing out at the Olympics.

In the darkest, grayest, bleakest moments of a Seattle winter, I forget that spring will ever return; we’ve all been caught in this prolonged economic permafrost. The thing about winter, though, is that it is a time of hibernation and renewal. Growth occurs even imperceptibly. I have spent the last six months doggedly insisting that if I do what I love, and what I am skilled at, life must surely reassert some new kind of normalcy. And it has. I’ve applied for my Employer’s Insurance Number (EIN), and I have a spiffy new website that I’ve built that I’ll be ready to launch in the next week. I have a list of pieces I want to write, and am researching how to take the first steps to start pitching them to publications. I’ve been riding my new-to-me bicycle around, which makes me feel goofy and happy all at once. (I’m not very graceful.) Better, I have real work ahead of me—even if I need to take interesting odd jobs to fill in the gaps.

The thaw has definitely begun.

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Photo by Kelly O