I want to be a freelance copy editor.

I’ve wanted this since the first time I sat down at the editing table in Journalism with Brendan Price and watched him completely destroy my six-page review of Bowling for Columbine - and when I say destroy, I mean he slid words around, nixed punctuation, slashed entire paragraphs, and made it infinitely better. He was a brutal genius and it blew my freaking mind. I want to feel the way I felt sitting at that editing table after I’d spent two years learning absolutely everything about AP style from Brendan. I want to spend my days getting seriously Beautiful Mind on a big piece of writing. I want to feel like I have an expertise and it is being put to good use rather than rotting away in my brain.

I don’t want to sit in a windowless office and pretend like I’m fine with taking the ‘normal’ route in life. I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out why it is I’ve become so unhappy and self-loathing. It’s my job that’s sucking all the happy out. It’s made me fatter, sadder, and more boring, and as soon as I get all my cards in order, I’m out.

I’m doing a life cleaning project right now and throughout 2012. I moved furniture around and tomorrow I’ll start some craft projects I’ve been contemplating. It feels kind of great to give away gifts and delete emails from people who no longer matter, and to sit and think about what can change and how and who stays and who goes and ME.