Freestyling

Well, here we are, and here I am. On my website. Writing a blog post at 11.46am. Because that's how I feel like using my time today.

This raises two questions: what is my purpose, and how did this come to be?

First question is easy. I'm building a freelance business therefore I need an online presence.

Second question? Slightly more convoluted. See, this time last year, I was handing in notice at the pawnbrokers I was running solo while the owners lived in Spain.

Which was precisely as much fun as it sounds.

Unless of course, you've been watching Posh Pawn, in which case I'll gladly tell you it was absolutely NOTHING AT ALL like that. I blame that show for many of my woes. Mostly because many people fail to realise there is a substantial difference between things like high end luxury watches with a resale value on par with (or exceeding) the new price, and their piece of shit, quartz operated, acrylic glass Hugo Boss they dinged up really badly first.

So, back to the quitting. Did I have a plan?

No.

Don't be silly, plans are for sensible people and I'm reasonably certain I should have my adulting badge revoked. I just had a bit of a crisis, decided I desperately needed different, went 'fuck it, I'll figure it out later' and handed in notice.

You see, as much as I can write amusing anecdotes about someone wanting a loan against a trilobite, or the chap trying to sell us a yacht (where precisely I was meant to stash that, I don't quite know), the two years worth of somebody trying to convince me the Omega museum in Switzerland was hounding him for his super secret special Omega watch, or the parking dispute that erupted into violence in the shop (despite the fact that nobody was trying to park at the time and one party didn't even own a car), it was mostly closer to my last interaction with one gentleman.

Which involved him trying to put in a pair of 'jewellery' scales, with so much powder residue on them we'd have been risking a possession charge.

Then trying to put in a phone with a thoroughly cracked screen and, <indistinct groan> 'but I'm coming back for it!'.

THEN (and I'm still not quite fathoming this), flicking a bit of broken glass that had come out of his pocket under the counter with a, 'what about that then?'

Yeah.

I'm assuming he thought I'd somehow take it for diamond. (

I don't know what level of mash-up you have to be to think you can float that in a pawnbrokers.

You can see why I'd had enough.

How I ended up there is another long convoluted tale of happenings and happenstance for a different day. Suffice to say, I didn't ever envision it. Not something you walk into your school careers office aspiring to.

It was a mixed blessing it took 10 months to close. At least it gave me time to think up the plan I didn't have.

It went like so: 'denial, denial, art, denial, submitting short stories and poems to literary magazines and competitions, denial, let's take a part-time proofreading and editing diploma to improve my writing...and...denial, fuck-it-even-the-Co-op-would-be-better, denial, art, denial--hang on...oh. That's...actually sensible. How do I become a freelance proofreader and editor?

tbc

Close up of some love-in-a-mist I grew. I feel ridiculously smug about getting a plant to do what it does. And very happy I'm at home to enjoy it.