Why lack of bathing prevents me from getting a job

Made you look, didn't I?

My skin dries out if I bathe every day, and my hair gets lank if I wait two days to shower. I like both baths and showers. So, I bathe every day and a half - usually showering, say, Monday morning and then a bath on Tuesday night.

It works well for me in all ways but one: schedule.

My husband gets up at the same time each day, showers and goes about his day. Me, it's a little more syncopated than that.

As I was having my shower this morning, I was thinking about this. Thinking about the parallels between my semi-erratic bathing habits and the fact that I don't have a regular job, and am trying to sort out whether or not I should.

I react against being a Lady who Lunches. I don't want to walk a small, yappy dog about the neighbourhood, exercising and exfoliating to fill my days. But neither do I want to be tethered to a cubicle on sunny summer days. And yet, all the good jobs tend to be fulltime ones.

Freelancing continues to work for me - it allows me to be relatively well paid for flexible, meaningful work; it allows me time to volunteer and write fiction and, yes, meet friends for the occasional lunch. Even to exfoliate periodically.

Still, I waffle. Just as I would like the orderliness of showering or bathing every day at the same time, part of me craves the simplicity, definition and salary of a regular gig.

I have decided that this is not the year for that. I need one more year to finish up the book I am writing and to finish a major volunteer task I've taken on. A year from now, too, my youngest will be old enough to stay home on her own for 20 minutes in the morning. A year will make a big difference, I think.

But then again, I wonder whether a year will make the difference, or whether I will never be someone who bathes at the same time each day and sits at the same desk for the same hours.

We'll have to see.