Merry Christmas & Happy Yule

So here’s what happened. I was all set to start blogging on the regular again, with my new, relaxed schedule — I even did a whole photoshoot for how to make pumpkin purée, but the file is still sitting there untouched on my desktop, because, one day in early November, while I was in the studio working on a recipe for pumpkin spice cinnamon rolls, my old producer walked in.

She told me that she wanted me to come work on her new show with her. In exchange for going back to the radio station, I could work from home all but one day a week, and the most challenging part of the job — managing upwards of 20 guests per week — would be a nonissue, since the new show has no guests at all.

To be honest, keeping the shop open late into the evening and on weekends was really weighing on me. This is going to sound stupid, but I only got a dog once I went freelance for a reason. I don’t judge people who have no choice but to leave their pups home alone all day. Shit happens — I know that better than anyone, but I was really feeling guilty for keeping him in a pen for several hours a day. It’s part of why I quit the radio job in the first place. And dinner had become completely unmanageable. B has good intentions, but a chef he is not. He has tried his best, but cooking is stressful for him, which meant that, with me busy at the shop until 9pm, we were ordering in nearly every night, which, in addition to making me feel awful physically, gouged into the money I was making by being in the shop in the first place.

On top of that, walk-in business a the shop has slowed substantially since the weather has turned cold. It’s not a matter of not attracting enough people in — there just simply aren’t enough people walking past in the first place. In the summer, at least 50 people an hour would pass my studio, but now, I’m lucky if I see 50 people going past all day. The vast majority of my business at the moment is custom orders, and while I continue to waver on the issue, I’m inclined to pursue that as a more viable business model in the longterm. But building up that clientele will take time.

So the idea of working from home on my own schedule and earning one full paycheck while having all the flexibility I need to continue doing custom orders was very appealing. And the job in general is not the kind of work situation you come across here in Seoul every day. I really enjoy the content of the show, as well, which is always a bonus, so I decided to take my producer up on her offer.

But, in the lead-up to the Christmas/New Year/Lunar New Year holidays, our team has been cranking out nine shows a week — that’s nine two-hour scripts I’ve been writing per week, which is becoming fine now, but when I first started took up nearly as much time as a regular full-time job.

So. Excuses, excuses. I’m settling into the show format now, though, and hopefully soon we’ll be back down to just seven shows a week. I’ve shifted the blog to a format that I find less intimidating — more like traditional blogging, so I don’t feel so much pressure to pump out targeted content and can instead do more rambly bits like this, like I used to do.

My friends, it has been quite a year. It has been quite a couple of years, if you want to know the truth of it. There’s been lots of bad, if we’re being real (and we are), but there’s also been a lot of good. In some ways, I feel like I’ve returned to myself, or a part of myself that got lost a bit when I got so comfortable in my life here in Korea. Going into the new year, I feel like the blurred vision that inevitably results from barreling blindly forward is starting to come into focus, and I feel sharp, zeroed in. A lot of my recent past has been about surviving, and from the notes you all have left me, it seems like I’m not alone in that. But I hope it’s time to move beyond it.

Today, if you don’t know, is the winter solstice — the shortest day of the year, and the longest night, otherwise known as Yule, which is the basis for Christmas. It’s a symbolic day, because while it represents the world at its darkest point, it also marks the beginning of the journey back to the lighter half of the year. I personally prefer the dark half of the year, but I can appreciate the concept that nothing stays dark forever.

This will probably be my last post for 2018, so leave me a note and let me know what you’re hoping to bring into focus in 2019, and how you plan to formulate your journey back into the light.

Oh, and merry Christmas.