audio books, my job, and air mattresses

I’ve never been too into books on CD.  I mean first of all, “books on CD” feels weird and awkward to say after growing up saying “books on tape.”  Second of all, they’re expensive, usually at least $10 more than the actual book.  Third of all, maybe I’m just perpetually manic, but why do the people READ SO SLOWLY??  It’s like a blind grandfather attempting to read really, really small print from 6 feet away.

So yeah, not so much on the audio books.  But yesterday?  I bought one, The 4-Hour Workweek, for $24.95, giving me 8 1/2 hours worth of read time.  Which seems absurd, because I could clearly read that book aloud in half the time, but again, I’m pretty manic.

I got the idea to buy an audio book after the past few weeks of running (read: jogging/walking/dying), which have been, um, excruciating.  To put it mildly.  Because music is great for like 5 minutes, but it doesn’t take my mind off the fact that I’m jogging/walking/dying, and I wanted to try running to something more zone-inducing.  So last night, after my first audio-book-fueled-run, I’m now able to announce that this was one of the BEST DECISIONS OF MY LIFE.  Like, ever.  The book itself is fantastic, too funny to run to at times, but the shocking part is that I’m actually looking forward to lacing up the running shoes later to pick up where I left off.  Completely unbelievable.

More unbelievable will be when I’m actually able to use the book to transform my life and pull off a 4-hour workweek.  Story for another day I hope.  Thinking about that has made me realize that my job, well, job(s) are probably something of a mystery to everyone, since I only blog about them in bits in pieces every now and then.  Yeah, time to clarify:

I run a children’s summer day camp here in California.  This will be my 5th summer at the camp, a job that’s full time for about 10 weeks, but requires an 8 month contract due to all the prep work (planning the summer, registering all the families, hiring and training the staff etc.), which gives me a lot of flexibility since it’s such part time work throughout the year, but also prevents me from doing a lot of other things that require a big time commitment.  Over the years, I’ve filled in the rest of my time (and income) with odd jobs, working retail at WS, nannying, being an assistant to a chocolatier, being part of a cookie start up company, and most recently, doing freelance writing and web design.  On Monday (yes, THIS MONDAY!), I’m also be launching the (secret) project I’ve been working on for months, complete with giveaways and lots of snazzy-ness.  And at the risk of sounding like a raging egomaniac, it’s pretty much the coolest/best/most wonderful thing I’ve ever done.  So, get back here on Monday, for sure.

Hopefully, the life of eleventy thousand jobs winds up equaling more money for when I move to Santa Monica in September, because it would be glorious to finally be able to buy a bed.  No seriously, I don’t have a bed.  I sleep on an air mattress, but not an air mattress on a bed frame or anything classy, an actual on-the-floor-of-my-room air mattress.

So let’s all cross our fingers for success and extra money so I’m not stuck with a future of having sex on the floor.

Great, thanks.