A Strange Time to Be Alive.

february 26th, 2016

You feel it too, right? The strangeness of this time? A time between times. Liminal time. Eye of the storm. The time that comes just before. Mass extinction. Donald J Dump. Paranoia. Just riffing here.

Now we're worried for me. Let's pretend i didn't write this. Let's avert our eyes from discomfort. Let's talk about encouraging updates.

ENCOURAGING UPDATES

The green card interview was super smooth. It was very brief, and also started on time. Two things i did not expect! The interviewer kept some original photos from our photo albums, which i also did not expect. It was a strange group of photos that she kept, too: Vlad's maternal uncle, his paternal aunt, my improv class, and one of me alone in Piatra Neamț. i was super good and stayed uncharacteristically quiet during this government molestation. Vlad said he was very proud of me :)

And the green card has since arrived! It is literally green.

i'm working slowly and steadily on DR DOG, writing three pages a day. Currently at 34 pages. “What's your process?” and i'm glad you asked! i imagine what happens to my characters, and then imagine my characters reacting the opposite way or imagine that the opposite thing happens. This makes me laugh hard! every time. Then i write it down. Repeat the next day. Latching onto whatever tricks i can to make the process manageable, less daunting, more fun.

i pulled the away message down from my freelance web developer portfolio site and put the Contact Me quiz back up. Only about 1% of people who contact me yield projects that are a good fit for my skills, and only about half of that 1% are also cool fun smart and great to work with. In contrast to Twitter, which, so far, has a 100% success rate for contacts from awesome clients (three for three). An unexpected finding!

Anyway even given those low percentages on website contacts, my site is excellently positioned on Googl for some sweet keyword strings. Thus, this ultra‑passive marketing strategy works. For now. In the time between times.

Tutoring on Thursdays at the learning center in Rogers Park remains a major highlight of the week. A., age 10, said yesterday that my hair is, “so pink! so pop!” which was a high compliment. She asked what color is next and i said, “next i'm attempting my most difficult color yet: silver.” And i wish, i wish, i wish you had been there to see the indulgent look A. gave me when i said that. It was like combination amused‑indulgent. i fancy myself a high‑charisma player, but both A. and her little sister E. school me in charm every time.