cat on roof

Here goes another (lame) attempt to make something happen on this page. That's how it feels right now, anyway. I really get how people who work full-time jobs lose time for all the other interesting stuff. I myself don't have one, but I have. Oh, I have. Worked full-time over half my life thus far. Luckily I got laid off a couple of times in the last two years. And laid on, too. Or lain. Which is a nice segue to how I'm filling up the hours these days. Back to the land of proofreading - and I know this sets me up for all you pompous correctors to abuse - from whence I came long ago. I guess I've been proofreading since about a week or two after I learned to read. It was bound to happen. People are always spelling things wrong and using multiple tenses in the same sentence. And where I came from, the use of a word like "ain't" could actually cause a ruckus at the town hall or L'il Peach or, if it was a Friday night, the Friendly's parking lot. And I was on it from the first. I and me were never casual words in my world and if you tried to toss them around without a license, I was the annoying punk who was going to do something about it. And then I decided I liked having friends, so I gave it all up. Started smoking pot and sneaking out of school to drink wine coolers in the gully. Couldn't help but get A's in English, but I managed to hide my linguistic ways most everywhere else. Barely made it into college, so I dropped out lest anyone start to wonder. And it was shortly thereafter that Shazam told me about a job at a publishing company. And since, at the time, I was slicing meat and stocking coolers and getting to know all about who really reads Playgirl, I crossed a picket line - and I know this sets me up for all you pompous teamsters to abuse - and got me a job reading words and fixing mistakes. And not just any old words and mistakes - legal jargon, legalize, codes and laws and the kind of things the general public (often misprinted pubic) think they're ready for but couldn't handle without proofers like me. And so I proofed and I read and I reread and I stetted occasionally, used carats and colons and squiggles and slashes and even, when necessary, I talked to editors. And then, I stopped all that. Different reason than in my youth. Won't go into my heroic gesture, but it was clearly time to step away. And I did. Far away. Went back to slicing meat. Tongue. Mortadella. Did I mention I've been a vegetarian longer than I've been working full-time? Tried a few ventures - lovin' and teachin' and researchin' and combinations of the three. But I'm back with the words now, and I'm afraid that the more I read and earn money for rent, the less I get the urge to write when the day is done. But I'm trying. And I wonder if anything rhymes with mortadella.