Irony

Three examples of irony from my search for fame and fortune. Mostly fortune.

1. The profeader

A few months ago, I wrote a post about my plan to quit my job after cutie is born and try to do some work while he learns to bond with his pacifier. I received a lot of good wishes and good suggestions, the longest and probably the most earnest came from an email from Jennifer. She is a professional blogger who, among other places, writes here, so of course I meant to follow her advice. But I didn't, because I'm a smart ass (smart arse, for my English readers). Basically, it meant that instead of concentrating my efforts on a few good leads, I spent hours on those crappy freelance bidding sites until I couldn't deal with it any more and stopped looking. At least until I get motivated again.

But that's not the irony. This is:

2. Ethics

I found this place where you can write essays and get paid, so I started filling an application, and then I got to the "How do you feel about students paying others to write their term papers?" question. So I started talking about how important it was for my personal growth to actually try to learn as much as I could and get as much as I could out of my college experience, and all that, and then it clicked...

So I left that application and I moved on to the next site. This one claimed the buyer would use my essay only as a tool to write his own essay, but it was pretty much the same thing . Only more ironic:

3. Digg

I decided to try that whole domaining thing all the big boys were talking about. So I went on a GoDaddy shopping spree and bought politicartoons.com, and I forwarded it to a Blogger site, and I put a little AdSense. Now all I had to do was put some political cartoons, and I was set!

But I don't know anything about copyrights, and Honey was busy feeding the little guy, and I just wanted to put something on there, submit it to Digg to feel I've accomplished something, and get some sleep.

But I can't draw.

So I have a site about political cartoons, but I can't put others' cartoons there, and I can't draw, so what the hell am I supposed to do?

And then I thought I might as well just put a Hillary picture up, add some lines using Microsoft Paint (because I don't know how to use Photoshop), post the result on the site, and submit the image to Digg, including a little signature that will hopefully get some people to the site.

And how cute is that? Nine people Dugg it already (here). That's more than anything I've ever written on this site. I spill blood and guts trying to come up with meaningful stuff, and maybe one person will do me a favor and Digg it. But I use Paint to put some words over a picture, and all of a sudden I'm a cartoonist.

I Want a Blogjob

Anyway, they moved me from evening to morning shift, which has some advantages, one if which is that finally I get to be home on Sunday nights, stopping the friends who come over from playing Trivial Pursuit. Speaking of feeling stupid and inadequate (the only thing I do in TP is roll the dice. Never answered a question), we have all these pregnancy classes coming soon. I protested being dragged to breastfeeding class but Honey insisted.

What was I talking about?

If I survive being surrounded by all these boobies, it’s probably time I started looking for a new job. With the crazy cost of daycare we’ve decided the best thing will be for me to stay home. At least for a while.

I looked around a bit and saw some job notices for freelance writers. I’m going to start applying soon, but I'm not very optimistic. I find it hard to believe I would be able to stand out. Most of these notices look for someone who specializes in particular stuff. Not much demand for someone interested in nothing and everything and all that's in between.

I’ll keep looking, but if you see a good writing job anywhere feel free to put in a good word for me. I have a BA in creative writing, and I already stand out from that crowd because I’ve never used the phrase “nodded vigorously.”

Wish me luck.