i'm pathetic. here's proof.

Many, many, many years ago, in an attempt to get over an ex-boyfriend, I took a continuing education polymer clay class. We learned to make Christmas ornaments.

So that year, I made a million Christmas ornaments. And the year after that, I made them and sold them to people my parents worked with.

(Hey, it was early in my career and I was poor. And bored.)

It was fun. I was pretty good at it. It proved to be a nice distraction.

I was retelling the story to a coworker in December, and she asked to see them. So I took photos of a few of my ornaments and showed them to her.




She was so impressed with my creativity and skill that she exclaimed, "OMG! These are AWESOME! I feel like you should be doing this, and that you're wasting your talents here!"

And for a split second, I believed her.

I had a glimmer of hope.

I saw myself sitting at home in my not-yet-built attic studio, molding and sculpting Christmas ornaments. Crafting angels' wings. Putting a carrot nose on a snowman. Vito playing with his toys at my feet.

And it was wonderful.

Then my email binged and slapped me back to reality.