all that's past is prologue...

There was a big debate on a  neighborhood Facebook page the other day (remember, neighborhood FB pages are microcosms of all kinds of neighborhood angst) about whether or not Girls Scouts should be selling cookies door to door. Our Girl Scout council is clear — they strongly encourage the girls to sell door to door, in fact, it's almost a requirement. Beatrix usually gets home too late from school and circus to sell, but tonight we had a little time after music (Monday is her "easy" night), so we headed out. In the dark. With a sled. Ok, it was cold. But honestly, as it seems like we are in the Longest Winter Ever, I'm enjoying it to some extent. Even in the middle of the city, there's something about being outside in the crisp winter air that feels really great. I wish I had skis or snowshoes to do more of it. It's also great walking around your neighborhood after people have been shut in for awhile. One neighbor was holding her investment club meeting...

So I'm apparently the worst mom in the world. Tonight Beatrix ended up in tears — many tears — because I had told her that if she wanted to do mom and daughter horse camp (which is kind of insanely priced), she had to come up with $25 in cookie credits, or of her own money, or a combination thereof. So tonight she was looking through the prizes, but the only way she was going to end up with enough cookie credits AND the prizes she wanted was to sell something like 895 boxes of cookies (so now you know where to go for your cookies....) Which got me thinking about want. It can be such a powerful motivator to achieve, to do your best, to  succeed. It can also be so debilitating when you don't get there. And while today it may be a bunch of girl scout prizes that have an unfortunate propensity for breaking easily, at another time it's a job, or a friendship, or a house. Sometimes it's even just the one-of-a-kind chair at the corner antique shop that would have gone pe...

So I love Ten Thousand Things Theater, and I even get to consult with them occasionally. But I was anxious to see their newest piece, because they've recently transitioned to new artistic director Marcela Lorca (whose work I've loved in the past, but let's face it, she has big shoes to fill...), and because Into the Woods is one of Beatrix's favorite shows, though she's only seen the movie version. So it's with no small amount of trepidation that we headed through a snowy parking lot into a senior center on University Avenue the other night. I should not have worried. Into the Woods is such an unusual piece — where just where you think it's going to end happily ever after, well, it DOESN'T and suddenly most of the cast is dead and you are taking a whole new position on what resiliency actually means. Mix that with a virtuoso one-man music director (though several talented cast members did play instruments as well), incredible costumes by Sonya Be...

I don't write much about my work in this blog, which is perhaps a mistake. Really, the only time you get a sense that I am really busy is when I don't write much, like during January when I am completely overwhelmed with getting everyone's tax forms out. Every now and then I think about starting a business-related blog, but I know I would never keep up with that, either. So, like my somewhat pathetic Pinterest feed which seems to be all about cocktails and kids birthday parties, there's not much here about what I think about what I do — ant what I spend the majority of my time on. Which means, if I'm writing about it now, it must really be on my mind. I've just spent an especially rocky January arguing with people about 1099 vs. W2 payments (that is, contractors vs. employees). So, based on that, and with hopes of a less rocky future, here are a few thoughts: 1) 1099 is not simply an alternative kind of payment — it's an alternate kind of work. I say t...