How to Work at Home

I have worked from home for ten years. People say, "Oh, real tough. Pajamas all day." Working from home has serious dangers: burnout, weight gain, backache, poor overall health, depression. I share here advice I learned the hard way:

• Allow yourself time off each day.
• Eat three good meals a day. Not all at once.
• Draw strict boundaries between work time and time off. Do not be always available.
• For best results, start the day with work. Also known as "start strong."
• Keep two-column to-do list with "must do today" on one side, and "universe, you take care of it" on the other.
• Don't keep sweets around, including dry cookie mix, because you will pick all the chocolate chips out of the dry cookie mix and then eat by the spoonful what's left.
• The only snacks in the house should be terribly fibrous items such as raw carrots or Triscuits. 
• Drink water.
• Social media and surfing will exhaust you via cumulative decision fatigue, and social media as a business strategy does not work.
• Exercise or do physical labor or your body will rapidly age and your mood deteriorate: no joke.
• Demons hate fresh air.
• Those working at computers need real office chairs that fit them and maintain good posture.
• That little skin tag is not cancer.
• Specs wearers, have an optometrist make you "computer glasses" with single-vision lenses that show clearly only that which is 18 to 23 inches from your face. "Computer glasses" reduce squinting and neck craning, and are cheap.
• Shower in full and dress in fresh clothing twice a week, such as on Wednesday and Sunday.
• Limit pasta to one day per week. Something to look forward to.
• Never try to trim your own hair.
• Doing the impossible trains your employer to expect you to do more impossible assignments.
• One day per week is laundry day. Do not do laundry on any other than the designated day, unless you have kids.
• Do have three working computers in the dwelling, especially if one of them has Windows 10.
• Back up your work, and your clients', into the cloud or onto a thumb drive.
• Pull the plug from the TV and do not use it except to play exercise DVDs.
• Sleeplessness, a very much changed appetite, or feeling sickened when you approach your work station, are signs of burnout. Stress is about to ruin your health. Recovery might take months. Reduce your efforts at once.
• When you find yourself reviewing the same thing over and over, or reading and not comprehending, quit for the day.
• If your ears are ringing, quit for the day and go to bed as soon as is feasible.
• Do what you promised your boss or client you would do, and offer no more than that unless you are offered more money.
• Withhold information about your personal life. Bosses, clients, and students are not co-workers or friends. Avoid volunteering unnecessary information, such as describing how hard you worked on a project or that your son is graduating next week.

Best of luck.

River of Death

Someday when chips are implanted in all of our heads, officials will be able to keep folks from playing and swimming in said River of Death, the Meramec River, subject of this vivid new warning sign at Castlewood State Park, formerly a summer resort for the wealthy of St. Louis. Each year a family or a troop of kids comes to a Meramec River beach or bluffs, often at Castlewood, and tries swimming across, or swings over the water on a rope, having no idea that the Meramec (called by the Indians "river of ugly fish") runs more fiercely and deeply than its appearance would betray, and has powerful and temperamental currents. Somebody, usually a child, struggles horribly and drowns. A Fox-News-televised search (with weeping parents among their beer cans) commences, with the body being discovered downstream in a day or two. Common sense being scarcer now, and because people are no longer trained to read rivers, signs such as this must be erected. "Rio Mortal," people. The river is so lovely and summer so hot, but please, take the young ones to splash in a stream. The Meramec River, while ideal for canoeing and tubing many miles farther upstream, is not a swimming hole. If it will help deter anyone, the Meramec is home to eels--big ones-- and in addition to drowning the unfortunate person pictured will probably become eel food.

I Hire a Wardrobe Consultant

I followed a sudden, unprecedented impulse to hire Dacy of MindfulCloset to re-dress me and yesterday bagged up clothing that no longer fit: 44, count 'em, 44 pieces of business clothing: pants, skirts, suits unworn since the workdays of 1997-2010 or that I wore with safety pins and grieved in because their waistlines measured 26" and mine didn't anymore. This seems trivial, but in business it matters very much. I'm a professional editor and when I go out I have to look well-edited.

I told Dacy, a girlish 36, that although those mostly black and funereal clothes didn't fit, I felt bad leaving them (and thus those days) behind. She told me to picture the future wearing new stuff I'd look awesome in and absolutely love.

Our free consultation was right here. We did a questionnaire and paged through some fashion books seeking looks I liked (Coco Chanel!) and what else I favored (solid colors, fur or mohair or cashmere, comfort, durability, linings, pants pockets, necklines with space for jewelry). I showed her my closet, what I wore, didn't or couldn't wear. She measured me and gave me a choice of shopping with her or she'd shop for me, bring the clothes over, let me try them on, and return those I didn't want. I chose the latter (I hate shopping for clothes, or rather, I suffer: they never have my size; I don't know who sells classic clothes; I'm hustled or ignored by salespeople; I don't have hours to crawl the malls, and pricetags scare me. I bought almost all my clothes on eBay and paid a tailor to fit them to my then-body). Consultant to many, Dacy  (pictured) knows where to shop and she came over with several armsful (with her own rolling clothes rack) for me to choose from.

I could just weep for joy, imagining the confidence I will have when clothes fit, are pretty colors, hide my figure flaw (yes, I've got only one), and make people say "You look stunning" -- because I am!

MindfulCloset service costs $45 an hour, but my services cost rather more and I know when I'm more confident I'll surely draw more business. I told her I'd pay for quality, durability and versatility. I will take it out of my savings because this is what savings are for. It's also a business expense.

What's left in my closet after the Great Purge: One dress (black). One suit (black). One pair of pants (black). One skirt (brown). One summer dress. One beloved too-tight suit (navy) to take to the tailor to see if she can "let it out" and make it wearable again.

Port in a Storm

I said to the doctor, “Did I do this to myself? Should I go back to never drinking, not even a beer a month, a glass of wine? Should I never eat meat? Give up dairy? Should I give up sex? Doesn’t that stir up hormones? Isn’t it bad for me?”

And the doctor answered, “It’s not just about longevity. It’s about quality of life. If you enjoy something, that is the best medicine. Do what makes you happy, and have fun. Don’t give up doing anything that a normal person would do.” (In short: "Live Life.")

So I ordered this case of port, a terrific extravagance; it is the first case of wine that I have ever bought. But it’s so good, will stay good for years, and I won’t drink it [all] myself. I’ll give bottles to friends, drink it with friends. And give bottles as a thank-you to the people who helped and encouraged me while I cried and was down, and to hosts who’ll invite me to parties and dinner. I’m going to have fun.

Midwestern First-Date Advice

A third drink before dinner shows a lack of respect for oneself AND one's date. At such piggish behavior, put $10 on the table and leave.

Men, don’t wear sandals. Midwestern men have notoriously scary feet.

Men, dive for the check and refuse to let the woman pay. Since you’ve just met, the woman has no other way of telling whether you valued her time and company. (No Midwesternista is a feminist on the first date.)

Women, carry enough cash to pay the check in case he “forgot his wallet.”

Don't wrap up the catfish bones to take home to your cats.

There’s no turnoff like a dinner date who explains that he can’t walk very well right now because a thousand-pound hay bale fell on him.

Women, cleavage shouldn’t look like tonnage.

Something bigger than a breadbox in a car’s back seat – a cooler, pet carrier, cardboard file-boxes, child seat, tools, fishing gear -- shows that there's something in your date’s life that’s far more important than you’ll ever be.

Prayer in Reverse

I practice prayer in reverse: God speaks to me. I have to go somewhere very quiet and ask if he has anything to tell me. I started this late in life and don’t do it often.

I sit still and listen. Sometimes there’s no message. Over the past 12 years I have received three messages:

“Your heart is full of hatred.” (At the time I was locked in a bitter, unspoken battle with two others. The statement was so unexpected and piercing that I burst into tears. Then I had some realizations and got the poison out of my life.)

“The mistakes are okay.” (That message was about four years ago.)

“Pleasure.” (This was last year. I had asked, “What is your will for me?” God continued, not in words, but in his other language, which circulates through the body like blood: “Look around you. Look up at the sun and trees. It’s all beautiful and green. I didn’t make all this for you people to cry and suffer in. I made it for your pleasure.”