"I get the willies..."

I've had quite a time over the last week or so, juggling more than a few demands on my time. To be honest, I've also had a bit of a crisis in confidence--the throes, I suppose, of being the new kid (despite my age) in a bunch of new places, doing a bunch of things, really, without clear direction.

It's amazing what this mixture of circumstances can reduce you to.

The feeling reminds me of a passage from Joseph Heller's great novel "Something Happened," which Heller published in 1974, 13 years after he published "Catch 22."

"I get the willies when I see closed doors. Even at work, where I am doing so well now, the sight of a closed door is sometimes enough to make me dread that something horrible is happening behind it, something that is going to affect me adversely;..."

Right now, and I have the experience to know that the feeling will pass, every work situation feels like I'm a kid trying on a new pair of shoes that don't quite fit. The shoe salesman has me walk across the floor and I wobble as I do so. He wants the sale and says how well they fit, and that they'll soon be 'broken in.' My mother wants to get the fuck out of the store and back to her Metrecal and Demerol and Johnnie Walker.

"They hurt," I say.

"They look fine," my mother bludgeons.

"They pinch," I protest.

"We'll take them," she swats.

That's life, I suppose, as a newly-minted freelancer.

It hurts. But you'll take it.