In the dead of Chicago’s punishing winters, I am reminded of the many occupational hazards of being a freelancer. In no particular order:

10. Yolander Prinzel nailed it with her post about the freelance life, As A Freelance Writer, I Notice My Ass Often Hurts. Too true!

9. If you write for too long while stretched out on the couch, you can forget where you are, stand up too quickly and entangle your feet on the laptop’s power cable. If you have children nearby, they will learn new vocabulary. That’s one reason why I’ll never have kids. The self-censor feature is absent from my brain.

8. Scotch just doesn’t taste as good at 9AM as it does at 6PM.

7. Everybody calls you at 11AM to ask “What are you doing?”. Well, gee. What are YOU doing? I’m earning a living over here.

6. Working from home means instant access to all that ice cream. You know how it goes. You buy it on Tuesday, it’s gone by Saturday.

5. More brain cells die every time I forget to turn off the news and Maury Povitch comes on the television. The damage continues until I can stop writing and editing long enough to turn it off. Daytime television is like radiation. You should only be exposed to so much, otherwise you develop horrible diseases.

4. The major dilemma each and every day I work is the same: Sushi or Pizza?

3.  1099s don’t come early enough in the mail to let you know you should have spent more money on your home office this year. Are my write-offs enough this time? Maybe not this year. Ooops.

2. Eating Pizza AND sushi in the same leftover lunch frenzy makes for some, shall we say, unique digestive issues.

1. I always lose track of how much caffeine I’ve consumed. The only real indication I need to cut back is when I discover that I’m shouting. And there’s nobody else around.