Baby Steps

Tomorrow starts a new chapter. Instead of a leisurely walk with the dogs and the Mate, stopping frequently for dog exploration of the familiar but alluring terrain, dog desultoriness in order for message reading and marking to occur, people indolence as we run into the other dog walkers on our schedule and trade whatever information we humans have gleaned in the 12 hours since we saw each other, I'll be showering, dressing, putting on Real Shoes and heading for Public Transportation, to sweep me away to Downtown and My New Job!

I'm jazzed and terrified, in about equal measure. The components of the job are various. I'll be working part time, resisting scurrilous attempts to turn the job into a full timer. The people I'll be working with are smart, good-hearted and pleasant. The work is useful, maybe even essential: making sure kids get a voice in their futures. I'll have a desk, a chair, a phone with a number that connects right to me, a computer I can use, a nice kitchen area for breaks, a boss who is delightful.

So, what's the hesitation? Giving up my unstructured time, when I watch BBC serials on my tiny screen DVD player? Or read terrible chicklit books, written by people in thong underwear and nine inch nails? Sitting out in the garden, listening to the mockingbird while an owl (!) flies over, in the middle of the day? Eating handfuls of cashews and drinking tap water? Surely I could do that at the office, if it was that important. Change, that's what it is. Important to have a little, pry those brain cells out of their comatose state.

Then there's public transportation. I believe in it. I'll use it because otherwise I'd be spending most of what I'll be earning on leaving my car somewhere, like a parking garage (loathsome)that is semi-convenient. Parking garages always make me think of Law and Order. I'll take the BART but I don't have to like it.