Working Class Hero

So the economy is officially in trouble: today was the first day of my first 9-to-5 job in eight years. (Stakes is high, even in Europe.) I could recount the whole story of English blogger Petite Anglaise (great book, Catherine) and how she was scandalously fired from her job years ago for anonymously blogging about it. But needless to say, I won’t be giving specifics about my slave. (If you’re LinkedIn savvy, you’ll dig it up.) I’m a journalist, though, and the first day went well.

I’d by lying if I claimed to subsist comfortably on checks from The Village Voice, Salon, TheRoot, Vibe, book royalties, etc. I might’ve gotten by before becoming Family Guy, but that’s done. Vacationing in NYC, I sadly discovered two of my favorite Manhattan Barnes & Nobles shuttered for business (at Astor Place and on 6th Avenue). Books ain’t doing well; the deliberation between my agent and publishers over my next book is taking longer than usual. Once you sign a contract, the check is huge, but it arrives like two months after laying down your signature. So: a job, my first since literally showing up at 106th and Park Ave at BET every day back in 2001.

No “woe is me” though. Most people, uh, work for a living. My more recent gigs doing lit editor duties at Russell Simmons’s Oneworld and the French blog-aggregator site Wikio were stay-at-home, have-laptop-will-travel joints. And my book advance cash is around the corner. For everybody else strapping on their mild-mannered Clark Kent glasses on a daily basis, here’s recognizing the Superman longjohns underneath. (Or Lois Lane/Supergirl. Not that Lois was Supergirl. Not that she wore glasses either. Ah, you get the point.)