“We can always convert the office to another room if it doesn’t work out, and I can just work… somewhere else,” I reasoned.

And then, in a moment of Not-So-Big-House inspiration, I struck upon an idea.

“We could convert our closet into an office,” I tossed out, not sure if the suggestion would be met with derisive laughter, or actual consideration. While there may have been an initial smirk, I could see the wheels turning in Renate’s head.

And so we set out to convert our banana-yellow, L-shaped, smallish walk-in closet into a working studio.

First thing, though — we had to stop calling it a ‘closet’.

“The Annex,” Renate suggested.

“Yeah. Good. I can’t be working in the closet.”

The Annex, pre-construction:

Since moving in a year and a half ago, we’ve painted nearly every room in this house and put up a wall in the basement (well — my Dad put up a wall in our basement). But this was definitely the largest home renovation project we’d undertaken, and I relished the idea of ripping out those built-ins. DEMOLITION…

First, though, everything in the closet had to be relocated. We made our way to Ikea (two hours away in Cincinnati) twice during the same weekend to buy new wardrobes for the bedroom. We also picked up a new light for the closet annex, and about five pounds of Swedish chocolate.

After three long nights of wardrobe assembly, followed by several days of spackling, priming and painting, we were ready to move in the furniture. I learned a few things along the way, namely that painting trim is certainly a pasttime in one of the seven circles of hell.

The Annex, post-construction:

I have to say, I love working in this room. It’s peaceful and filled with natural light. Plus it’s just the right size; it doesn’t feel cramped, but it doesn’t leave much room to pile up papers, so it stays tidy.

Still. I’m working in a closet. If I hadn’t come up with the idea myself, I might wonder what this communicates about my spot on the family totem pole.

The decision was surprisingly easy; having contracted with the company for awhile, I liked both the folks I’d be working with and the work itself. Plus, I relished the idea of being part of a team again. I really enjoy working collaboratively, and that was missing when I was on my own. I suppose I’m a social beast at heart, though I still work from home and use IM for most of my communication with my coworkers.

Looking back over those years on my own, I’m struck by a few things:

1. If you have the chance to work for yourself at some point, you absolutely should. Two sizable freelance projects simultaneously knocked at my door, convincing me to take the leap. It was the best thing that could have happened. I was forced to build out  my skill set, learned a bit about business, and met a ton of people (including my current employer). It was freeing to know I could work for myself; my decisions became focused more on want to’s vs. have to’s (though of course there was a healthy dose of the latter).
2. Working for myself was easier than I expected. I say that to underscore the reality that there’s a lower barrier to entry to self-employment than I initially thought, not that I’m a savvy entrepreneur. I’m sure it depends on the industry, and there’s plenty of web work out there. But I did little marketing beyond my online portfolio and business cards; every project or client I took on came through friends, clients and a trusted network of fellow freelancers (who also fall under the friends category). Anchoring project-based work with regular clients made things a bit more predictable and sustainable.
3. Meeting other self-employed folks was huge. I got involved with IdeaXchange in Chicago, a fantastic group of writers, artists, designers and PR folks, most of whom worked for themselves. We met monthly to talk shop and share ideas, and it didn’t matter that we all worked in different industries (though I got mixed up with crew of local web design freelancers shortly thereafter, which was/is great for talking nerdery that no one else understands).
4. The benefit of setting your schedule when self-employed is only partially true. There’s a glaring catch to this concept; time off actually costs you double, as you’re paying for travel expenses while not working, and thus not billing. I probably took a total of two weeks off per year, partly because I enjoyed the projects, but also because every hour was billable. My experience was definitely not cocktails at 2pm every Friday afternoon.

By and large I felt challenged and engaged by my work, and that’s fortunately still the case with my new role. Now if only the company would move to Indianapolis so I could fully enjoy the team lunch on Fridays…

Popped in to the hospital today for a quick EMG on my LUE, or Left Upper Extremity. If you’ve never had the pleasure, an EMG is a test whereby doctors (in my case, five) cram into an exam room and shoot electricity into you for a good half an hour to determine if your nerves work.

“It’s not the most pleasant procedure,” my doctor said apologetically last week.

I’d made an appointment to see the doctor due to some recurring numbness in my left hand combined with a dull ache in my upper left arm. For my trouble she also talked me into the first flu shot I’ve had in thirty-one years on this green earth.

“You’ve got a little one now,” she said. “You don’t want to bring it home to him.”

It is surely a low blow to use one’s child against him in this way. For the next two days it felt as though someone had punched me in the Left Upper Shoulder.

Turns out it was good practice for today’s session.

One of the lab coats stuck a few sensors to my hand while another doctor was brought in to show them how to reset the computer. For the next 30 minutes they talked mostly to one another, asking which knob did what, sharing keyboard shortcuts (“so I just hit pulse twice?”), wondering why the results didn’t show up on the monitor, etc. Apparently the approach during an EMG is: crank the intensity up until you get a result or the patient can power their own appliances.

“Uh, that hurts,” I had to pipe up at one point as the dial went past 15 to 30 to 45 to 60.

“Oh yeah,” one of them laughed, “it is up kinda high.” Ha ha, good times! It felt like someone was continuously snapping a rubber band on my arm from six feet away. My hand flopped about as if in its death throes.

Finally satisfied, they all left the room to share results with the Head Honcho doctor, who returned only to zap me a few more times. Then she turned to me and said, “now they will put the needle in the muscle.”

And thank goodness, because silly me thought the unpleasantness had ended. Nope! For the next twenty minutes they stuck a needle into various spots on my arm, twisting it around as if it were a key and the corresponding keyhole was around here somewhere…

“This next spot is kinda tender,” Lab Coat said before sticking the needle into the flesh between my thumb and forefinger. “Now try to relax this hand. Heh, I know it’s tough, I got a needle in there.”

I mean we had fun today.

I have studiously avoided Facebook because I heard it was a huge time suck, and I’d rather waste spend my time online reading news or blogs. Plus, I’ve already left a Twitter account languishing pathetically by the side of the internet. What am I doing? I’m trying to think up something amusing to write on Twitter.

But last month I caved, and so far Facebook strikes me as enjoyable and peculiar. I’m quite happy to connect with my ‘now’ friends and reconnect with the ‘whatever happened to’s. However, I’ve started receiving ‘friend’ invitations from Mylers across the globe, which just seems very sideshow-y to me. ‘And over here, a TENTFUL OF MYLERS!’ I imagine people lining up to stare at us and pay a quarter to poke us with a stick.

Seems you get out of Facebook what you put into it, and my energy level has been Twitterrific so far. I’ve yet to change my status since first logging on; “Drew got himself a new baby boy” seems like it should carry me to at least Thanksgiving, and possibly Christmas, at which time I can change it to “Drew’s baby boy is almost six months old!”

Getting a close-up of people’s personalities played out online is pretty fascinating, though — even the ones you don’t know. The other day in my news feed, I saw this gem:

“Tim became a fan of Nutella.”

Nutella! Yes! I need to know these things about people. I seriously heart the fact that someone out there loved Nutella enough to start a fan group about it, and that 541,435 people joined it. This is the kind of world I want to live in, where people find common ground through a chocolaty hazelnut spread. Drew is now thinking about Nutella.

The first time I saw this poster, a “woop” slipped from my lips. Renate rolled her eyes.

Breastfeeding doesn’t make me uncomfortable. I’m just a bit caught off-guard by the imagery associated with the product packaging.

Honestly – you don’t see this kind of thing every day:

Back in the store yesterday, I examined diaper bags to avoid any further bouts of surprise. Can’t embarrass yourself by staring at diaper bags, right?

“You know, we’ve got some man bags in the back,” a store clerk said helpfully. I felt like I’d been discovered unwittingly browsing the women’s selection at Footlocker. “Let me get one for you. They’re more manly, they go across the chest.”

I was unaware that a cross-chest carry is more manly than over the shoulder. Might be time to subscribe to Men’s Journal.

Made of canvas and mesh, the enormous man bag looked more suitable for transporting orange cones and soccer balls to practice. The words “Daddy Bag” were glued to the flap, which seems like a potential source of ridicule; instead of ‘secure-enough-to-carry-a-diaper-bag’, I’d be ‘so-insecure-he-had-to-get-the-testosterone-bag’. I already have one woman rolling her eyes at me.

I thanked the clerk, handed over the bag, and wandered up front to study the ‘Horton Hears a Who’ onesies. Renate rescued me shortly thereafter.

“Ferris – he never drives it. He just rubs it with a diaper.”

When I turned 30 last September, both sides of the family kicked in to help me get a new bike as a present. Touched, I decided to wait until this spring to make the purchase; no need for the bike to sit in the garage getting creaky in the cold Chicago winter. I would take care of this gift.

Last month, after several weeks of comparison shopping, I finally bit the bullet and brought home a new hybrid road/commuter bike. It cost a bit more than I wanted to spend, but it rode so smoothly and leapt ahead like a racehorse when I’d pick up the pace. I envisioned long rides up and down the Lake Shore bike path; me and this bike, we had a bright future.

The next morning I took it for an inaugural spin, not bothering to remove the plastic wrap protecting the handlebar brake controls. I just wanted to enjoy the newness of it for a bit, like those first few days of a new pair of shoes, when they’re scuff-free and you look good.

It didn’t last; the bike was stolen out of our garage the following day.

What could I do but laugh? The answer, of course, is curse the giant turd who stole it. Then I glared at every cyclist that passed, trying to see if the bike had plastic on the handlebar brake controls. I also filed a report with the police, who informed me that the bike was probably sold for a hundred bucks within ten minutes of the theft.

I hemmed and hawed over getting a new/different/used bike. Maybe I should get something that wouldn’t cause me so much agita if it was stolen. In the end, I re-bit the bullet and replaced the bike. After all, it was the one I’d selected after much deliberation, and I knew I’d fume every time I rode the inferior choice down the street. And you should never fume and cycle.

However, now I’m overly paranoid. Instead of storing it in the garage, I keep the bike in the sunroom, secured to the futon frame.

That’s right – I’ve locked my bike to a piece of furniture INSIDE OUR APARTMENT.

“What about my jewelry?” Renate asked, bemused at my efforts. “Should we do something to protect that?”

“I already glued your jewelry to the bottom of the crib,” I replied.

I haven’t even ridden it once. What if someone knocks me over and steals the bike? IT COULD HAPPEN. For now, I’m content to just wander into the sunroom and see it standing there, unstolen, tethered to the futon (aka the bike rack). It’s very beautiful, and very cold, and no one’s allowed to touch anything.

Apparently the wild followed them back to the burbs in October; my dad awoke early one morning to a pack of foxes playing in their back yard, and a family of curious squatters has settled in just past the fenceline.

Within the span of a year, all members of the Myler/Yssel family branches will have moved. Some have gone a few miles, others will leave the country. We’re staying put until after the wee one arrives, but then I expect our apartment will shrink to the size of a peanut.

I wonder what the Johnsons will find in the hills of Calgary. Here, the wildlife is domesticated, but still prone to midnight howling.

And now some gratuitous pictures of my niece, who declared this weekend that I made “good eggs” and worried endlessly that Renate (“Natie”) would escape while she wasn’t looking.

We’re stuck on a plane at La Guardia airport, waiting for a ground stop in Chicago to lift so we can return home from a weeklong romp through the east coast. I’ve just seen Ja Rule in the airport terminal, and I figure this random sighting will provide me with some conversational fodder back home.

But then two Port Authority cops board our plane, stopping two rows behind us.

“Let’s go, John,” they say.

John, middle-aged and red-nosed, obediently gets out of his seat.

“Get his luggage!” calls an airport employee.

“You almost got away with it, John,” says one of the cops, relishing the spotlight. He shakes his head. “You almost got away with it.” John says nothing. You can hear a pin drop.

“Does he have any luggage?” the woman calls again.

“Leather jacket, just above row 24,” the cop says. With that, they take John off the plane, and speculation runs wild.

“He was drunk,” the guy in front of me says to his neighbor across the aisle. “I could smell the liquor on him.”

“They would really pull him off for being drunk?”

The first man shrugs. “Guess he didn’t know the rules.”

Not to be outdone, the flight attendant returns minutes later with an even more ridiculous explanation:

“He stiffed a New York City cab driver. Told him he was going to the ATM, then got right on the plane.”

Right. And he told the cabby his name and his flight number, too. I watch The Wire, people; I know how this stuff works.

Back home, I check for headlines about a big-time mob informant trying to skip town, or something along those lines, but nothing comes up. That’s probably how New York’s Col. Daniels wants it, though.

This? This is nothing. You should hear about the time she bivouacked on a 90 degree rockface on Kilimanjaro with nothing more than a tarp and two climbing spikes.