I could be wrong, I could be right

It’s been a busy time here at Sherdcentral, you guys. I have been duck-like in appearing to spend quite a lot of days watching how the sunlight moves across the verandah and drinking endless cups of tea, but in fact furiously paddling away in my mind working out how the pieces fit together. Which is where the metaphor falls down, so let’s leave it there and move on, shall we?

So, kind of accidentally-on-purpose, I’ve become a freelance consultant type person. In what? Well, pretty much anything, at this stage. I’ll write you some education policy analysis, do some research, edit your 600 page document, teach you to make ricotta and, it turns out, wrangle your authors and audiences around events. Some of this I’ve done for actual money, some for exchange of services, and some just for love.

It’s kind of a jigsaw, and I’m still working it out. To wit, today is my first day ‘off’ for 13 days, which isn’t really off as I spent some time this morning reading and will spend another 4 or so hours doing more this evening, and I had an interview with some people who might want me to do some work (although I think I stuffed it, and I think they’re maybe not people I want to work for). And I’ve said yes to about 6 or 7 days of work per week for the rest of September.

Well, you know, live and learn and all of that. It’s hard to articulate how much I am loving it all. Heh, maybe because right now all I really want is a nap. But it turns out that it suits me to work a lot in a short amount of time and then spend a day watching some trashy Kimutaku J-dorama back to back. It suits me to go to different places and work on different things and have different conversations with different people. And it suits me to have time to do the things that I enjoy, like giving my time for free to be part of something bigger, or learning a new thing, or spending 4 hours stirring curds.

I need to hold on to this feeling, this joy, and drag it back for the days when I panic about there being no next contract, or no steady income, or no idea how to fill out this GST form. And no easy answer for the backyard barbeque question, “And what do you do?”

Now. Would you like to learn how to make mozzarella? Or some analysis of integrated service delivery options? Or perhaps I can organise your pantry for you?

That last one I’ll happily do for free.