Tripped Up

In a stunningly apt metaphor, I tripped going down the stairs going from the public library to the parking lot Wednesday.

I was juggling my messenger bag stuffed with papers and my laptop, my phone and my jacket. It was nippy that morning but by afternoon the sun was shining hard and hot. A kindly woman walking up as I came down put her hand on my arm and asked if I was OK.

I wasn’t. I twisted my ankle but good. However, I had to get the girl from school so I limped/ran across the lot to my van and gunned it.

Yesterday I got a call early, well before I’d had enough caffeine to make good decisions. My editor asked me to take a feature story; I declined. She expressed surprise; I went into pleaser-mode and retracted my refusal.

I spent the morning reporting the story and desperately trying to meet the deadline. I finished it today, and it’s good, but what’s better are reminders it represents:

A: I am a much better writer than I am a reporter.

Period, the end. If you give me the facts, I can weave a story. But give me a specific angle and tell me to go find the facts to support it? Not nearly as easy for me, and let’s not even talk about my feelings regarding the telephone. My dear friend and business partner — who also happens to be a crackerjack reporter — gently gave me some hints for interviewing my sources. And she was right.

B: I take on more than I can handle sometimes because I feel trapped.

The story I finished today brings in money. Period, the end. So how could I turn it down? Combine that with my canine instinct to please my master and there you have it: Me, over-extended.

C: I don’t like work that takes me away from words on a page.

I took a Web 2.5 kind of gig that gives me a little more predictable income. It involves a lot of things, including the dreaded “metrics and goals” that finally drove me out of my cushy corporate job. While no one would ever describe me as a free spirit, I don’t do well under the constraints of specificity. I like my worth to be measured in more amorphous terms.

Walking down the steps at the library Wednesday, my feet got all tangled up under me because I was checking my email on my iPhone and flicking back and forth between Twitter and Facebook when I should have been watching where I was going.

I can’t help but feel that the heavens sent me a stern telegram this week, in the form of two very sore ankles.

Tagged as: daily, WHAM bam thank you ma'am, writing life