When I Get Like This

When I get like this, I want to curl up on my chaise with coffee and my cell phone and stacks of books - the fun kind like "The Devil Wears Prada" and "Shopaholic" or anything by Alice Hoffman. They'll be stacked around me and I'll call my friends in between chapters, hoping the conversation will make me feel better. When I get like this I'm overwhelmed. I am not used to working nights and I don't think I ever will be. Getting up around noon or 1 pm just doesn't cut it for me...and even if I can force myself up at 11:30 - it doesn't help. My brain is full of my job. I'm exhausted from it - you wouldn't think so - but I am. And it fills up daily with new story assignments and comments and phone calls and quotes and details. I'm a fast turnaround type of gal. I like to write up my notes after a story, ponder on it on my way home and hunker down at the computer writing it up and sending it out. It never works that way. Instead it can take me weeks to get the story written - the result of being in a constant state of exhaustion and multifunctionality. That makes me feel like a bad journalist and in turn practically ushers in the writer's block. When that blank screen stares back at me - I feel like I want to throw up. I was recently offered a full time writing position - the details of which have not yet been worked out. But it doesn't pay nearly enough. Writers just starting out make no money - but I can't help but assume they know at least an iota of what they're doing enough to freelance for the extra cash while raking in a measly salary. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not ready. I still need to survive. To be able to buy the serving plates and the brake pads and the extra gas. I hear that when it comes to small time papers, freelance is sometimes the better way to go...I hope that advice is right. I hope that it's not a mistake to turn down the job. I haven't yet - but I hope, I hope I won't be wrong. It's the worst feeling in the world. To want something so much and have it dangled in front of you at the most inopportune time. To face facts. When I get like this - I want to pull my knees to my chest and forget there are such things as responsibility. I want to listen to Julie Roberts sing about Men & Mascara and laugh out loud at the Gilmore Girls. When I get like this - I want to pout.