So-o, apparently, if I work for H.R. Schlock, I can't be a TaxBwana.

I was mildly shocked that their non-compete clause applied to a nonprofit.

I also suspect if I didn't tell H.R. Schlock I was volunteering with TaxBwana and didn't tell TaxBwana I was selling my soul to H.R. Schlock for filthy lucre, it would all just work out fine.

But that's an extra complication, and my goal these days is to make my life uncomplicated.

The freelancer schtick is really hard on my psyche. Even assuming that all my clients don't switch to AI—an assumption that would be very foolhardy to make—waiting around for the money to appear in my bank account through direct deposit magic is crazy-making.

Deeply crazy-making.

Like check my bank account every 10 minutes and have impassioned one-way conversations with a God I don't actually believe in that always end in Please, please, please, crazy-making.

###

Is this residue from my unfortunate second marriage?

Ben was forever gaslighting me about money.

Like just before my dear, dear, dear pal Tom Mandel died, he set me up with a job at People Magazine. I took care of you, he told me on his deathbed.

And as a favor to me, he also set Ben up with a gig at Sports Illustrated's fledgling online operations.

At some point, Sports Illustrated's online operations were restructured.

And Ben's position was eliminated—a fact he hid from me for a good six months. Maybe longer.

Of course he was still on the payroll, he told me—with a furious scowl like how could I doubt him for a single moment. The overhaul had messed somehow with Time Inc's stream of payments to out-of-office employment. Then the checks were getting lost in the mail. Finally, Fed Ex was delivering the checks to the wrong address where somehow they had been cashed, and Time Inc would have to investigate (naturally) before they could reissue them—

On a couple of occasions, he actually came up with some money.

In retrospect, he probably jimmied that money out of his mother. Supplying her with some lie about me, no doubt. No wonder Ben's mother hated me.

Why did Ben do this? Good question. I asked him over & over again. In those days, I still loved him. (In some ways, I never stopped. Until he died, which broke the evil enchantment.) We had a child together. Our minds fit so well together, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. He was my writing partner. We had great sex.

Better question: Why did I put up with it?

Answer A: Because Ben was a sociopath.

Answer B: Because I was the only child of a mother who was a consumate liar herself, and so lying and loving are hotwired together in my psyche.

###

Anyway, the client payed my invoice—they always do!—and now my little bank account overrunneth, and all is good in the Patrizia-verse.

But it was three days of extreme, uncontrollable anxiety, and I am tired of feeling anxious.

Diversifying the revenue stream & having one of the sources be a predictable paycheck would skidoo that particular source of anxiety. It's a smart thing to do.

###

In Work in Progress news: I managed to get Daria & Grazia to finish their conversation, and then Dead Neal & Grazia had their own elliptical conversation—about God!—and now we're starting Neal's memorial.

Every time I read over what I had written yesterday, I wanted to throw up.

This is so fuckin' stilted, I told myself. So lame! So banal! What ever made you think you could... Throw it all out! NOW!!!!

In particular, the dialogue made me cringe.

Writing a novel: Not for the faint of heart.