Like millions of other people in the world, a 9-5 job just isn’t for me. Waking up early, putting on heels and makeup, commuting (Atlanta ranks fourth in the nation for worst traffic), forcefully laughing at the boss’ jokes, counting down the minutes till lunch, tripping over those heels throughout the day….ugh! If only my former employer had understood how productive I could be if allowed to write from the comfort of my bedroom in SpongeBob pajama pants!

So in August, I began an experiment. I left a great job that had begun to destroy my soul. It was a difficult decision because I loved that job, but at some point —  no matter how strong you are — you realize that it’s time to cut your losses. Yes, I loved my job, and I worked with some wonderful people, but there was one negative force in that office whose sole agenda was to belittle me, criticize me and accuse me. Eventually, I came to my senses and realized that I wasn’t being weak and running away from my problems. I was being strong and escaping an impossible, invariable situation.

And I took a BIG gamble because I left a job where I’d established myself, where I’d built relationships, where I had job security — or as much job security as I could have with that sharklike woman circling the office waters, waiting for an opportunity to draw blood. I walked away from that financial security and took a six-month contract job where I’d be working at home for a big-name publication I respected. I worried I’d be lonely, that I’d miss the office interaction, that I’d be terrible at the new job, etc.

But I loved it. I enjoyed the freedom of working when I wanted — and sometimes that was at midnight. I loved the interesting, fulfilling work I was doing. I loved not getting stress-induced migraines anymore.

Then, the six months drew to an end, and I was beyond frantic. I worried I wouldn’t be able to pay rent, buy cat food or get tickets to Butch Walker’s new tour. I was agonizing over student loan payments and waking up in the middle of the night worrying about a gap in my resume. I was so annoying that, honestly, I didn’t even want to be around myself.

Since Feb. 1, I’ve applied for every job in Atlanta that I’m remotely qualified for. I’ve written endless cover letters, been on numerous interviews, discussed my strengths and weaknesses with countless people and taken so many tests! But as I turned down a terrible job offer last week, I realized something. I can afford to be picky.

No, I’m not rolling in cash. (My roommates and I actually turned off the heat to save $. As I write this, I’m wearing a ski cap and sitting under seven blankets next to a space heater.) But I don’t have to take a low-paying, soul-sucking job and stare at a cubicle wall on the 11th floor of some building that smells overwhelmingly of sauteed mushrooms where my manager is a 20-year-old girl with a name I can’t pronounce who’s still trying to get her GED. What I’m saying is that I’ve been freelancing like a madwoman since the day my work contract ended, and I’m surviving.

In fact, I picked up a new, long-term client on Monday, and it occurred to me: I can do this. I always assumed that people become full-time freelance writers and editors after putting in a good 20 years of work. But maybe I can make it at the age of 27. At the very least, maybe I don’t have to apply for every crappy proofreading job I come across.

So here’s the new plan: I’m applying only for jobs that interest me, jobs that I could actually feel passionate about, jobs where I can respect my co-workers, jobs in offices that don’t smell of mushrooms! It’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to be especially lucrative, but at least I’ll be happy sitting here in my ski cap and SpongeBob pants, typing away on my Macbook.

And I believe that somehow things are going to work out for me — workwise. If I’m meant to be back in an office, then I’ll go with a smile on my face — but I’m wearing flats. And if I’m meant to live the life of freelancing luxury (late nights and Ramen noodles), I will. I’m putting my worries, qualms, anxieties and daily freakouts behind me because I’ve survived so far, right? I’m just going to trust the universe with this one.

In fact, as I was writing this, I got a call for yet another job interview. Yes, this will be my ninth interview and I’ll have to wear that blazer again, but I’m actually excited about this job. And if I get the job — regardless of whether I end up loving it or hating it — I understand that I won’t be there forever. Because I know what I’m meant to be and what I’m meant to do.

I’ll keep editing encyclopedia articles and writing corporate press releases to support myself. In the meantime, I just have to ensure I make time for my writing. It’s what’s most important to me because I know it’s what I’m destined to do. So, hear this, WIP, this is your year. I vowed to finish you. And I will.

Sometimes I worry that people don’t fully understand what a crazy grammar nerd I am, so I’d like to illustrate just how obnoxious I can be. As a total news junkie, I read CNN.com obsessively. (When I want a good laugh, I read FoxNews for the latest “fair and balanced” Sarah Palin coverage.) However, even though CNN’s copy editors on the Row are some of the best, they still make a fair number of mistakes. Here are some of my favorites:

It’s called the subjunctive.

I’m going to start scheduling “metings” instead of meetings. They seem shorter.

Sometimes I be host metings.

Exactly how many fathers does this girl have? I’ll let the commas slide if this story is in reference to Nicole Bradford.

Technically, “drunken” is the adjective, but eventually even The AP will have to give in on this one.

If you type this sentence into Word, even it finds a problem. Plus, isn’t a discovery, by definition, “new”?

Hhanks for reading my blog post!

There’s nothing wrong with this sentence. However, this was when I first learned that Obama was black.

I saw Tim Barry perform at Masquerade last night, and the show was unlike any I’ve ever been to. The man himself is a contradiction. He comes from a 90s punk background as the lead singer of Avail, but he’s been releasing solo albums in the singer/songwriter folk genre. He lives “in a fucking shed with no running water or heat” and does carpentry work for the Richmond, Virginia, ballet. He’s definitely an angry man, but he’s an angry man who’s simultaneously friendly and approachable.

Attend one of Barry’s shows and regardless of whether you like folk music, regardless of whether you agree with his political views, you’ll be forced to admit that the man is one hell of a storyteller. His songs are biographical, many of them autobiographical — and always impassioned. He tells stories of disappointments, heartbreak and even violence.

Well he cowered and run, but he didn’t get far
Cause my sister shot him fucking dead just outside his car
Boy, she wept and I did too
Then I told the police I did what I had to do

In one particularly powerful song, he sings about an 1800 slave revolt in Richmond that was led by slave Gabriel Prosser, a man whose legacy is often overlooked by history books.

Now does anyone know the name Gabriel Prosser?
My conscience says he’s the one that history missed.

Upon hearing the song, Prosser’s relatives invited Barry to their family reunion where he performed the song for them and they printed the lyrics in the reunion program.

Overall, Tim Barry put on a solid show and I’d recommend seeing him perform if you have the chance. He’s a passionate guy who lives a simple, natural lifestyle that I can’t help but respect —come on, no running water, no TV and an aversion to social media? How could he not write interesting songs? And while he seems like the kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back, believe me, he’s not a guy you want to mess with.

Last night, he mentioned his broken hand that he’d gotten while touring in Canada recently. How did he do it?

He was about to sing “Wait at Milano,” a song that he explained is about a friend who suffered from depression. During his explanation, someone yelled, “Shut the fuck up and play the song!” Barry asked the man to join him on stage, but the man simply shouted back, “I bet I could play a better song.” Barry laughed it off and continued his story about how he went to play the song for his friend and found that he’d killed himself. The heckler responded with, “That sounds like a shitty friend!” No longer able to control himself, Barry punched the man. He then returned to the stage and finished the song with a broken hand.

The man should sell merch that reads, “Don’t mess with Tim Barry.”

I laughed along with many other Georgians when the state senate voted for legislation that would prohibit the implantation of microchips in a person’s body against their will. (Ironically, two men named Chip — both Republicans — proposed this.) However, it’s my home state of South Carolina that really takes the cake when it comes to introducing ridiculous legislation and becoming the laughingstock of the nation.

Banning Federal Currency

State Rep. Mike Pitts of the GOP recently presented a bill that would ban paper money in the Palmetto State. If this becomes law, SC will accept only silver and gold coins. While I think that this bill is unconstitutional and that Pitts is a complete idiot, I admit it would be fun to use Galleons and Sickles as currency.

Terrorists Must Register with the Secretary of State

If you live in SC and plan to overthrow the U.S. government, you must pay a $5 filing fee and register with SC’s secretary of state to declare your intentions — or face a $25,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison. I’m sure this law is about as effective as the state’s requirement that drug dealers declare their illegal income — if they don’t, they could face criminal penalties.

You Must Train for 1,500 Hours to Shampoo Hair

Until the Argentinian-loving governor signed a new bill last year, becoming a licensed shampooer required 1,500 hours of training. However, you could become an SC police officer in just 396 hours or get a concealed handgun permit in eight. I don’t know about you, but it sounds faster and much more lucrative to just get a gun and a badge.

Teaching Evolution Shows Favoritism and is Illegal

Last year SC decided to have its own version of the Scopes Monkey Trial when Republican Sen. Michael Fair introduced Senate Bill 873. Read closely and you’ll learn the following:

1. Atheism is a religion and “teaching atheism or its principles (i.e. evolution) shows hostility toward religion” and a preference for atheism.

2. The state must determine whether a school’s curriculum favors atheism over other religions (i.e. Christianity) when teaching “the origins of man.” Basically, if you teach evolution, you’re  favoring atheism, which is illegal.

On the bright side, at least this guarantees that South Carolina’s students also get to learn about the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s noodly appendage.

As I stood in the kitchen screaming last night because a mouse ran over my foot, I mentally added “midnight mouse attack” to the running list of “Reasons Why My House is Creepy.” It’s not that I’m scared of mice. In fact, I once gave one to Cody — along with some spaghetti because we’d just watched Ratatouille — and that adorably chubby little mouse lives here with us. The problem is that our beautiful house, as much as I love it, tips the scales when it comes to creepy. Let me prove it.

House History

Who used to live in my house? The infamous John Mark Karr. He was reportedly run out of the neighborhood by neighbors who treated him “like a criminal.” His father, who’s a kind, elderly man, is technically my landlord. The fact that Karr used to live here, combined with what we found in the basement, has made many of my friends uncomfortable.

The Basement

First of all, if you weigh more than 250 pounds, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to fit through our skinny basement door. However, if you make it through and descend down the dark, cricked-infested stairs, you’ll find a small, damp room with an air mattress and several Jonas Brothers posters on the wall. (Make of that what you will.) During the Atlanta flood, our basement turned into a sort of cesspool, our pump became a geyser and we discovered that the bottom of the air mattress had been graffitied to read “Sassy Girlz.”

The Attic

You know how Lucy discovers a portal to Narnia when she opens the wardrobe? Well, I suspect something similar would happen if you walked through one of the many doors in our attic. You see, there’s a wall in our attic that’s composed entirely of doors. I refuse to open them. However, a friend once took a porcelain figurine from behind one of the doors, but he promptly returned it because he was convinced that he’d been haunted ever since he took it home.

I don’t have any photos of the wall of doors because I’m too afraid to venture up there alone just for the sake of this blog post. However, here’s one of the boys investigating a series of strange noises we heard coming from the attic one night. I tried to tell them that you can’t shoot a ghost.

Other General Creepiness

Right outside my bedroom there’s a portion of the floorboards that don’t match the others in the house — I’m convinced there’s a body under there.

Cody once found a knife in our fenced-in backyard while playing with the dog. We lacked the capabilities to test it for blood, so we threw it away and agreed never to speak of it.

So, yeah, my house is great for Halloween parties.

Just because you’re part of a couple doesn’t mean you need to look like an idiot. However, thanks to SkyMall, you do have that option.

Have these cold winter months made it uncomfortable for you to hold hands with your lover? Well, you no longer have to worry about dry, chapped hands and hurt feelings, thanks to Smittens! Just slip your hands into this awkward joint glove and take that romantic stroll. But be careful passing other people on the sidewalk and make sure your Smitten partner is aware of the route you intend to take — you don’t want to dislocate any shoulders!

As we’ve established, couples love to hold hands. But while this can be challenging in cold weather, it can be downright impossible in rainy weather. And what if you’re on a date, you walk out of the theater after that Hugh Grant movie and realize it’s pouring… What will your date think when she sees you just have the one umbrella? Luckily, there’s the Double Umbrella! You can both clutch the handle tightly on those stormy nights — and maybe lightning will strike. Seriously, hold onto the metal part.

As we all know, reading a book in a chilly house or attending an outdoor sporting event in the winter can be extremely uncomfortable. Blankets are OK, but they can slip and slide. Thankfully, we now have the Snuggie. But when you’re a couple, you don’t want to be separated by your brightly colored fleeces — and that’s why there’s the Siamese Slanket. Luckily, this one can be used within the privacy of your own home.

I spent this past weekend in my hometown, Greenville, South Carolina, to help my mom with some errands and chores around the house. Yesterday she asked me to help her put together an elaborate bird feeder, which isn’t as intuitive as one may think. (The directions were about as helpful as the instructions IKEA provided for my dresser.)

But we were successful, and as I poured the bird seed into the feeder, Mom asked, “Do you remember that summer my bird seed disappeared from the utility room?”

I do remember that summer. My little brother and I ate about five pounds of that bird seed.

Mom sent Ryan and me to Zoo Camp that year and we fed the elephant, washed the giant tortoise and learned that we eat many of the same foods as our animal friends. To illustrate this point, our zoo camp counselor gave us pieces of bread smeared with peanut butter and topped with bird seed. What did this mean to my 7-year-old mind? People eat bird seed sandwiches all the time.

So for the rest of the summer, Ryan and I would spread peanut butter onto our Wonderbread, head outside to the utility room, grab a handful of bird seed from the shelf — amid the potting soil and fertilizer — and then drop the seed onto our sandwich. Voila! Lunch!

Of course, one day Mom went to refill the bird feeder and discovered that most of the seed was missing. She speculated it was the doing of a possum or raccoon, but we had to confess that it was us. To this day I remember Mom’s reaction: “If you were meant to eat that, I’d keep it in the kitchen — not next to the lawnmower!”

Twenty years later, Mom now stores the bird seed in the kitchen — along with a note that reads, “DO NOT EAT.”

I’m not a fan of receiving flowers. It’s like, “Here. I got you this beautiful bouquet. Tomorrow it’ll be a little less beautiful. The day after that, the flowers will wilt. A week from now, they’ll be brown. And a month from now, when you remember to throw them out, there will be a fungus growing in the vase and you’ll have to wash it.” (Yes, this always happens to me. Yes, it’s disgusting.)

However, I will gladly accept flowers in lieu of a Hug-E-Gram. Heck, I’d accept an Ann Coulter book or an invitation to dine with Pat Robertson before I’d accept a Hug-E-Gram. If someone gave me this, I’d be tempted to wrap it around his or her neck and “hug” the life out of them. There’s just no excuse for anyone to ever send this crap — at least not to someone you’d like to see again.

You may have some dark, miserable, lonely nights, but that’s still no excuse for purchasing “the hug that lasts.” If you ever see this commercial and find yourself tempted to call that 1-800 number, create a Match.com account or just hit the streets and find a hooker — at least then you’ll have some self-respect.

As a writer, many of the characters I create tend too possess attributes of people I know. I may give one character similar speech patterns to my boy-crazy, chatterbox old roommate. I may assign the protagonist’s best friend the same qualities I value in my best friend.

And sometimes physical characteristics play a role in creating a character, too. For instance, I can’t help but give the love interest the same unshaven, rugged, fresh-from-the-mountain good looks that I admire in a man. It’s my story, so it’s my fantasy.

However, attributing such traits isn’t always a compliment.

I’m currently working on a novel with a character who’s very cold, cruel and manipulative. She has no consideration for anyone’s feelings but her own — the kind of person who would be downright evil if she weren’t so powerless and pathetic. She’s linked to the protagonist through the workplace where she serves as a supervisor, the minion of someone more powerful. I was trying to develop a fitting name for this terrible character, so I read over the section where my protagonist first encounters her.

Her aging face seemed to be composed of melting wax that was clearly suffering in the unrelenting Columbia sun. She wore clothes much too young for her body and she gestured wildly as she spoke in a loud nasal voice, spilling coffee from her lipstick-stained cup. She was definitely one of those people who left putrid pink lipstick on everything she touched … The left side of her mouth lifted in a halfhearted smile that didn’t touch her droopy eyes, but it did make her waxy jowl quiver.

That’s when I realized that I know this woman. In fact, I’ve worked with her before, too. She came into my former company and quickly established a reputation that put her in the same ranks as Dick Cheney, Voldemort and Ann Coulter. I’ve never met someone so cold, selfish and downright cruel. She’s the first and only person I’ve ever genuinely disliked.

And now she’s in my novel. Ugh.

But at least I’m no longer having trouble finding a proper identity for this character. Her newly established name is remarkably similar to the real-life witch I know. In fact, their names even rhyme. Thanks, subconscious.

I’ll be the first to admit that I do some geeky things. I edit books as I read them (Have novelists and their editors never heard of subjunctive voice?). I occasionally read textbooks for fun. I once learned all the world capitals just for the heck of it. And sometimes, as I drive around Atlanta, I daydream about dressing in black and sneaking around the city streets at night with a can of spray paint to do a little “graffiti grammar.” (Yes, that would entail inserting commas and changing “its” to “it’s” on a lot of city buildings. If you’re going to graffiti something, at least do it intelligently).

However, despite my obvious nerdiness, I’ve never engaged in any role playing. OK, that’s not entirely true. When I was 7, my older brother was really into Dungeons and Dragons — this was back when the game entailed multiple books and 15-sided dice. One summer afternoon my brother persuaded me to play a little D&D with him. It went something like this:

Brother: Do you want to be a warrior?

Me: I want to be a princess.

Brother: You can be a fairy.

Me: Do I get to wear a costume?

Brother: Oh no! You’ve just encountered an ogre with a club and some magical spells.

Me: Is he a wizard?

Brother: No, he’s an ogre.

Me: I thought only wizards could do magic.

Brother: Well, this ogre can do magic. Now, do you want to fight him or flee?

Me: Flee.

Brother: No, you want to fight him.

Me: Then why did you ask?

Brother: Do you want to slay him with your sword?

Me: If I’m a fairy, then why do I have a sword? And why can the ogre do magical spells?

Brother: I’m going to go listen to my Kris Kross tape.

So, besides that one encounter with role playing, I have a clean record. However, ask anyone I know and they’ll tell you that I’m fascinated by LARPing (live action role play). There are people out there who actually create “characters,” don costumes and spend days in the woods doing what I can only describe as live D&D. People seriously dress up as knights and trolls and peasants and elves, and then they stab each other with foam swords and throw “spell packets” at each other.

Check it out.

My friend’s brother actually goes on LARPing trips all the time and even makes foam weapons in his parents’ basement (how cliche!). I desperately want to attend one of these events — as an observer — but apparently that’s frowned upon. If you go, you have to register your character with some Web site, stay in character all weekend, possibly speak in Elfish, and, of course, hobble around on one leg if you get stabbed with a foam spear (think Monty Python’s Black Knight).

I’m curious, yes, but curious enough to spend a weekend wearing a corset and tossing beanbags at strangers? Not yet.

But what may be even more entertaining than live action role playing is live Avatar role playing. Oh, yes. I haven’t seen the movie, but the fact that real people are actually painting themselves blue and prancing around in the woods somehow makes me want to see it even more. Unfortunately, as this is a new pastime (and a great way to stay single), I was unable to find any YouTube videos. However, I imagine this parody isn’t very different from the real thing.