Preparing for the autonomous life

My masters have generously provided me with three weeks of vacation this year, and with one week left in the bank I was suffering severe burnout and an itch to escape, so I pencilled this week in with thoughts of exploring the concepts in Claire Wolfe's remarkable treatise How to Kill the Job Culture Before It Kills You. Unfortunately today's "Nancy" strip reminded me too much of how Day One went in my "Week to Test-Run My Life of Autonomy in a Wage-Slave Society." Today we get serious ... I hope and pray ...

No doubt by week's end, I will have a clearer idea whether I have what it takes to work for myself rather than the Big Corporation. The advantages are obvious, especially dropping the commute with gas prices at unpleasant levels: It is such a pleasure to type with a sleepy kitten draped over my left forearm, purring, instead of a corporate memo-writer looking over my shoulder, for example.

By the way, I continue to be impressed by what Guy and Brad Gilchrist have done with a comic strip that had run out of gas 40 years ago. Nancy and Sluggo and especially Aunt Fritzi never looked better - or maybe this is a return to what made them memorable in the first place. And am I nuts or are Blondie and Dagwood a little edgier in recent years?