Temp

I was actually thinking, especially in this financial day and age, how nice it would be to write an article for Etsy ( they have all of these great articles called "Quit Your Day Job" ) entitled "Appreciate Your Day Job" to remind us ( especially in this amazing and challenging period of economic history ) that there is no moment you stand on the mountain shouting, "I have won!" when you stop working for someone else.

If you're smart you look at leaving an employer a little more humbly, saying to the powers that be, "Thank you for this chance" and then getting to work on your own material.

As romantic as it would be to yell, "Never say die!!!" and refuse outside work, it's not always possible. I can support a whole lot of our lives on my artistic income, but the mortgage on a condo bought at the height of the Los Angeles housing boom? 

Nope.

So the perfect solution has presented itself: I will temp again until we find our footing. It means no specific job in the long-term, just a lot of answering phones and filing things for people I don't know. It both thrills me and repulses me.

It won't be every day: the goal is two weeks out of the month until Anthony has work.

Temping was the basis of my income for nearly five years after I left college.

I still remember my first temp jobs, the dread in my belly when I looked at phone lines and realized I didn't know what I was doing. There were several failed jobs in New York City that were embarrassing to say the least and then the subsequent ride home on the subway crying big tears of shame and loneliness. 

The ache would fade long before I fell asleep a mere five feet away from one of my best friends in the bedroom we shared in Astoria, Queens. 

Eventually I got so good at temping that companies were asking me to stay longer, looking for things I could do. Phone lines of every shape, size and number were near and dear to my learned heart. I became familiar with dozens of neighborhoods and sections of the city I would have never known if not for temping.

As overwhelming as NYC was to me at 22, I remember it with this golden glow of nostalgia and wonder: there's a halo around those amazing three and a half years.

How are we ever to know when we graduate whatever school we finish what the big wide world looks and feels like? I opted to go to the Big Apple and find my Broadway dream, only to discover that it wasn't being on Broadway, but singing - my material or someone else's.

So while my Broadway-bound friends auditioned and pounded the pavement I worked at Land Rover and Citigroup and Berger-Vitearea-McNamae-Schmetterer ( that long phone greeting haunts my dreams! ) and ten thousand other forgotten businesses, writing at night and booking time at a piano-rental studio on 47th street.

I have come to love the idea of temping: it's like being a babysitter: you can visit but you get to give the job back to its rightful, normally disgruntled owner.

Now instead of going home to a two bedroom railroad apartment with four roomates, I will go home to a husband I adore and two cats who make us laugh day in and day out.

And I know that this too shall pass and become its own thoughtful memory, humbling and tender, full of things I'd forgotten to notice until the years gave them a delightful amber glow and the hunger that made them necessary fades.