I Am So Popular: Fuckonomics and Sunshine

I also, to the best of my ability, tried to begin to mentally prepare myself for major surgery next week to eradicate my fibroid riddled womb. (More on that, next week.) It is this looming procedure that prompted me to take a closer look this month not only at my packed calendar, but also to take a more sweeping inventory of My Life to Date. Let me not get all melodramatic here on you, people, but the truth is, while the risk-of-death associated with having an operation that is performed 600,000 times per year annually in this country is, in fact, low, there’s always that shadow of a possibility that something could go dreadfully wrong and I could wind up getting transferred directly from the OR to the refrigerator in the basement of the hospital.

Such thinking could be cause for fear and anxiety (and let me be honest, I’m not totally without anxiety but, then, am I ever?). But for me, it’s actually an excellent opportunity to reflect back over where I came from, the odd and often stupid detours I’ve taken along the way, and then assess my current location on the map of life. And even though my spatial relations skills are lacking, to understate the matter, and even though I once literally got lost inside a Home Depot, this is one map I can read clearly. And what I see when I go for the overview is not a mountain range of regret or other impassable rough emotional terrain that stopped me in my tracks more than once.

Oh no. When I ask myself how I feel about my current coordinates (and I’m not talking that ‘70’s lesbian wardrobe of mine), and if dying tomorrow meant dying happy or not, immediately the REM lyrics fill my head: It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

A couple of days ago, I was at a weekly meeting for my day job, one I totally dig, one that pays great, keeps me engaged, and is conducted in the presence of a small team of extremely smart, extremely funny coworkers. The news this week was not good—courtesy of the economy, our hoped for financing has stalled and thus our planned opening date is delayed and, on a more personal front, my paycheck is about to be cut significantly. Perhaps entirely. As a freelancer for over twenty years, my brain has been trained to never, ever get totally comfortable with a regular, consistent payday. But I confess that, having had this job for a year, I was starting to lean back a little into the comfort of knowing just how the mortgage was going to be paid and where the next 37- pound bag of dog kibble was coming from.

So you might guess that suddenly being unemployed, or at least underemployed, would freak me out some. And you might guess this freak out would be compounded by the fact that part of this month’s budget, typically earmarked for luxuries like utilities and food, has had to be redistributed to help pay for surgery, take care of $400 worth of car repairs from the smash-into-Warren’s-car incident, and help pay for a new beater for the kid.

Instead—and maybe this is just denial—I found my response to the news fell more along the lines of giddiness. Because it presented yet another opportunity to take stock of all that I still have. And what I have in my life is such an abundance—of friends, contacts, potential work waiting to be uncovered—that, should I make it through surgery (I know, I know, I will) then every single day of November (and beyond) will be great cause for much thanks giving.

Within twenty-four hours of sending out notes sniffing out work to tide me over, I got a number of positive responses, including a strong hint that I’ll have a new book contract by week’s end. I also received an unusually high number of requests to perform weddings, the wedding business being somewhat recession proof. In short—I’ll get through on the money side.

The other night, I went to hear Sarah Vowell read at BookPeople. This was uplifting even though Vowell admits she is, most often, a total pessimist. (Actually, she says this stance leaves her pleasantly surprised most of the time since—the Bush years notwithstanding—she almost always over prepares for worst case scenarios that wind up only being pretty bad.) I loved many things about the reading. I loved that I was in a room with a couple of hundred other people who appreciate smart writing by a smart woman. I renewed my love of BookPeople (which actually never wanes and may I encourage you, in these hard times, to please keep shopping local, even if Amazon is that much quicker than a drive on Lamar, because if we don’t use what we have here, we lose it.) And I loved that this was a free event because it reminded me that you can, literally, find something free and amazing to do in this town every single day of the year.

Yesterday, I was out driving, and I saw about five hundred thousand Obama stickers and I realized that, despite being initially underwhelmed by the candidate, I had finally and fully caught Hope Fever. I recalled the last election, and how every time I saw a Bush sticker, I was so pissed off I wanted to rear end the idiots flaunting them. Those were dark times. And, realistically speaking (and as noted in a previous column), I know that when Obama wins, there’s no way he can possibly fix everything the current administration broke. But what thrills me about all the Obama support is that finally—finally—people are waking up to just how bad things have gotten and finally they’re ready to do something about it.

So yeah, if you listen to the news, things are pretty bad right now. Maybe you’ve been downsized already. Maybe you haven’t been hit yet but, trust me, you’re going to feel it soon. The current fuckonomic situation will leave precious few of us totally unscathed. And yes, as I said, maybe the curious optimism I’m currently feeling is just a bad case of denial and when it’s time to pay December’s bills, I’ll find myself in a fetal position under the kitchen table, contemplating creative ways to come up with quick cash, and shaking my fist at God for arranging things so that, even if I had it in me to be a stripper, our society just isn’t willing to stick singles in the g-string of a near 45 year-old with salt-and-pepper hair and who has gone soft around the middle.

But for now, bolstered admittedly by some really good painkillers, I’m choosing to splash around in this giddiness for as long as it lasts. The mental jukebox switches, the REM song finishes, and up next the voice of Ethel Merman, who played Annie Oakley in the Broadway production of Annie Get Your Gun, fills my head, singing Irving Berlin’s lyrics:

Got no diamond, got no pearl,
Still I think I'm a lucky girl.
I've got the sun in the morning
And the moon at night.
Got no mansion, got no yacht,
Still I'm happy with what I got.
I've got the sun in the morning
And the moon at night

Spike Gillespie hopes you’ll join her tonight, October 30th, at Flipnotics in the Triangle for one of those great free shows Austin is famous for—Southpaw Jones and Matt the Electrician (note—tips appreciated even though it’s free). It’s an informal send off for the uterus that served her well but is about to go bye-bye. She is blogs regularly at LaunchPad Coworking and www.spikeg.com. She is also head mistress for the Dick Monologues. Email her if you want to reserve tickets for November 12th: spike@spikeg.com.