April 1, 2014 x 2

I.

Considerable news to share today, so forgive the extra words; brevity in written expression’s not my strong point, as is. I’m hopeful that comments here, if not supportive, are at least understanding of my situation.

After a full dozen years of the freelance/adjunct lifestyle, I’ve decided to accept a late-arriving, but quickly-moving job offer as social media director/online media buyer for SSM St. Joseph West in Lake St. Louis. This is a three-part decision, which will kick-in around five weeks from now, with considerable planning in-between.

One. Though I’ve publicly not been a fan of deep-suburban living, I’ll have to become at least tacitly okay with it; that much is understood. My truck’s a beater and I’m not hip to 50-minute commutes, so I’ll be looking for a place to lay my head in the greater Lake St. Louis area. If someone knows of an affordable condo/apartment for rent in the Westplex, please let me know.

Two. I woke up today open to the idea of selling my spot on Connecticut. So there’s another real estate concern. It’s a nice pad: big, open floor plan unlike other houses on my street; an extremely short walk to South Grand and a very reasonable walk/ride/drive to Cherokee; big garden space and a chicken yard; exterior murals. “Very nice hippie family house”; I can almost imagine the one-sheet flyer saying that.

Three. With tuition remission accrued from my time at Webster, I plan to take advantage of what free classes I can use, with my plan being the start of an MBA, doing the night/weekends thing at the WU WingHaven campus. This will allow me greater flexibility in future job hunts, with my media skills augmented by some business coursework. For sure, the classes will be even more challenging than the socially-tinged, but very real, life turnover of the above items.

If you’re this far into the post, thanks for taking an interest. Please understand that I tried to make the city/bohemian thing work, but that might have been a job best left to the younger me. The peaks/valleys of self-employment have been a bit severe lately and this seems like the choice to make, clear and probably a bit overdue. Cheers to you (and a big, deep breath for me), TC.

(Culled at 165 Facebook Likes, 67 Comments  and 1 Share.)

II.

Was just reminded of this: exactly two years ago, I was in my backyard, tending to my own business, when a large bird of prey flew into the chicken yard and startled the flock. When I turned to see about the commotion, the attacker came right at me, flying to within a foot of my ample skull. It bent away at the last second, sat on a neighbor’s roofline and mean-mugged me for a cool minute, until some rocks were sent in that direction.

In posting about the incident, I got a few different clusters of response. The first one was that I was pulling off a prank post, that the event never actually happened, that I’d made it up. Then, I learned that every 15th FB friend is a bird expert; within minutes, I was getting Googled photos of undersized animals the size of starlings and chippies, whereas this bird had a yard-wide wingspan, for sure. So it goes.

Post thoughts, stories, anecdotes or dreams publicly and you never know what you’ll get back. Especially on a day like today. I want to thank everyone who Liked or commented on a post I offered up earlier today. Those responses were quite intriguing, really. And all over the map, wow! At times, I even thought, “Thomas, you don’t deserve all this good-natured love.” (Chris King’s comment notwithstanding.) But I do. I really do.

I deserve everything I got comin’ to me.

(Culled at 27 Likes and 11 Comments.)