I should be doing the exercises the physical therapist assigned me to rehab my shoulder after slipping on the ice. I should be walking the dog so he gets some exercise. I should be cleaning out my email inbox, getting it sorted. I should try to figure out the tangle of blogs I have started and stopped and then figure out how to give this one an email feed. I should be sending out networking inquiries.

But I really want to have a glass of pinot grigio, perhaps a few, and sit listening to music and write and move from “shoulds” to “wishes.”

I wish someone would pay me to do what I want to do. Instead I spent today doing contract work that is “beneath my station” – more simply put – I could have done it years ago. Sure the work is easier given my editing efforts over the years and the other work could only be done by someone with legal training, but a whole slew of it could be done by a trained monkey.

In an effort to ditch the relentless list of shoulds that I allow to guide my life, I have decided to take risks. Not like unprotected sex with a street person or anything, I mean in the sense of what I do every day. Quit getting up and going in to a workplace that depresses me or bores me. Find what I love and do it. The problem is that I am not sure I know what I love to do.

Years ago, as an icebreaker in a parenting group, we were asked to tell the group what “makes your heart sing.” The request sent me into an immediate panic because I wasn’t sure how to answer and God knows the worst thing ever would be to give an inaccurate answer to a bunch of people who likely could have cared less. But I digress… I am trapped into thinking about tasks I like to do and am beginning to realize that what I love to do must encompass more.

Yeah, I like to write, but I love to write what I want more than 800 words about car insurance. And I like to edit but to do it all day every day with no interaction with others would be deadening.

I like to think. Seriously. I like to use my brain to strategize, categorize, find solutions, design processes.

All this brings me to another realization I made on vacation. We just returned from a long weekend in Florida. I was very happy sitting in the shade and reading, paddling around the pool with my bum shoulder, sleeping, eating. A nature preserve was located nearby and I felt that I SHOULD want to go there. I read about it online. The first “excellent” reviewer gushed about touring the preserve and spotting a spoonbill. My eyes stopped dead. I have absolutely no interest in spoonbills or any other bird for that matter. I know some people like to bird watch. My sister-in-law likes to go on nature hikes. Some admire plants. I wish I did but I don’t. I’m all for a walk in a nice surrounding but I am never looking for nature. Because I don’t care and I am ashamed to admit my disinterest.

There are whole subject areas that I care nothing about. Pro sports. Birds. Car types. I could fill up the whole paragraph, maybe two. So why am I not content to do something boring or tedious as long as I get paid?

Sometimes I think I will make an ideal nursing home resident. I like to nap and read and I love throws and have a nice collection for various needs — one for the car, one when I am really cold, one to ward off a chill… Rocking chairs are comfortable and beds that go up and down intrigue me, not to mention the call button when I have an unmet need.

Alas I am not going to a nursing home or bird watching. No one is thinking, “This is a thorny problem. We need to get [me] on the line.” But then few of us are in that position. Most like me, just wake up every day and put one foot in front of the other. And I must learn to do this with more grace.

I just returned from a lurch with the dog. The icy sidewalks made me feel so old that when I lurched passed the neighborhood church and saw a funeral it looked good. By that I mean I thought to myself, “How nice to lie quietly in a casket while others murmur nice things about me.” I’ve always liked the idea that funerals interrupt peoples’ schedules. I don’t like when families put them off to be more convenient. If you can’t inconvenience your loved ones when you die, when can you?

But back to my lurch. Despite intense concentration on the sidewalk, the lurch allowed me to ponder my status as a freelance writer and what I am writing. Because I am me, I focused on what I didn’t do well instead of my flashes of brilliance. Got me thinking about what I really should be writing.

My Christmas letter has gained notoriety because it is the anti-Christmas letter. Perhaps my blog should be the anti-freelance writer blog. I have lots of material.

• There was the time I went to a networking lunch and ended up sitting next to someone who had a brain injury. After several minutes of my best networking she confessed that she had no short term memory.
• Then there was the project where I spend nearly half a lifetime trying to format a newsletter that my spouse thought resembled a ransom note when I was done.
• How about when I got a job proofreading a manuscript. When I was done, the author emailed the publisher a diatribe, listing all the shortcomings of my work. She summed things up: “At this point, I would be embarrassed to show it to my friends.”

Okay, that’s enough to get my blog started in the right direction. Here is where I will dump it all, all the mistakes and miscues, my brain detours. Maybe there’s a market for them?

I sort of like my tag line “Shit I Write.” And I am proud if I actually spelled Inaugural correctly without looking it up.

Just so you know… in keeping with the theme of this blog, I will do precious little editing, not worry about images or grammar or spelling or format. This is just a brain dump. When I die, doctors can study it to determine the vagaries of the human brain. I often think that thoughts occur to me that don’t occur to others — not brilliant thoughts — not bizarre thoughts (as that implies insanity) — but more like odd wanderings. Like the relative without a filter.

For example, from time to time I think about stopping at a 4-way stop and waving the other driver to go first. When he drives through the intersection, I could accelerate and hit him. Not to hurt him, just to see his reaction.

Candid Camera was the best show ever. It got me started on thinking about these things. I owe it all to Alan Funt.