Testing, testing, 1 2 3
Posted on October 29, 2008
Filed Under Anxiety, Blogroll, bitching and moaning, career | 10 Comments
I want the rebirth of my blog, after months of silence, to be a worthy of resurrection, celebratory yet familiar, a great sigh of togetherness, an enveloping hug, and, instead, I’m afraid it’s gonna be a bitch session. Forgive me and feel free to turn the other way if this is not the sort of thing that you need today because I know that y’all have your own anxieties with which to contend. Who needs my rants to remind himself that the world is now literally and figuratively bankrupt?
I soothe myself with Ron’s suggestion that, really, only the bare minimum is required at this stage in the game. After all, he has reminded me, my readership is non-existent now that I’ve been off the grid for so long. It doesn’t matter what the hell I write today or, ya know, EVER, because my following, while once an impressive 12 readers deep, is now down to 1 or 2 rubber-neckers who check in every now and again looking for an obituary notice. I think what he’s trying to say is that I’ve forced the bar on this blog thing very, very low. So here I am, back from the grave, at least today, can’t promise I’ll be here everyday, or the day after that, but today is a start.
So first a bit of business…Many of you have been kind enough to stop by and inquire about my return to life as a landscape designer. As my last post indicated I returned to design in May and, since then, have knocked out three design projects. It’s a bit like riding a bike, this design thing. Once you’re up and speeding down the hill, that hill could be in Zone 6 or Zone 11. It turns out that there’s not much difference once a person gets a handle on the twelve most important plants in the local landscape while cruising, break neck speed toward career-oriented disappointment.
After a few short weeks of careening down the hill of my new enterprise, feeling the surge of hope, the satisfaction of accomplishment, like wind in my hair, practically singing into the breeze of my own projected success, Weeeee, I can do this because I am good at this and people like me, I hit a rather imposing wall that I’ll refer to as the faltering economy but may, in fact, be more the stuff of bad luck intermingled with a few bad characters.
One project went smoothly, the design was well received, the contractor paid me for my time but the earth remains barren, not a plant has been installed. I’m thinking the homeowner is hoping that Spring will usher in the resurrection of his mutual fund but I’m just guessing. Another project, the one I did for free while hoping my generosity would lead the back door neighbor to cover up the chain link fence that went up around the enormous hole in the ground that they call a pool, well, that design and attendant plant list was completed in mid-June and I’m still looking at bare dirt and a long stretch of metal fencing along the western property line. I’m thinking it’s another garden laid victim to the volatility of the NYSE, but I’m just guessing.
And the third project has officially lurched off the tracks into train-wreck territory. The plans have long been finalized and delivered but I still haven’t been able to track down a check for the remaining design fee, a check which represents 50% of the design costs, my entire month of September, not to mention a few tense weeks in October. So small claims court here I come.
There’s no bit of comfort I can take away from this triptych of disappointment, no successful project or happy homeowner waiting to be my first success story as a landscape designer in the Northeast. There is only a long, ominous stretch of nothingness, a total void of landscape design jobs now that it’s almost November and the snow will soon begin to fall and most people are intensely focused on continuing to pay the mortgage and the heating bill while watching their stock portfolio bottom out a few weeks before Christmas.
Enough with the bleak landscapes and the obscured horizons, I’ll sign off wishing a Happy Day to all who have ventured over to Madmarriage after such a pregnant pause. And if any of y’all happen across a landscape contractor who calls himself Jim and speaks with a lisp and fancies himself a black belt in karate and apparently signs contracts without reading them, do me a favor and swerve in his direction. Just once, this once, I think the Gods might forgive a hit-and-run. I know, I know, this Jim character will get his, someday, somewhere, but I’d just like to be close-by in order to to bear witness.
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