You can find this smoker & possibly some non-smokers at karenbolipata.com

You might have noticed I’ve been absent. If you haven’t, then fine. I don’t need you anyway…

(Come back.)

For those of you who have been religiously refreshing my blog in hopes of seeing a new entry — thanks, Dad! — I apologize for the nothingness. I had planned a few entries for the week (and now they’ll hopefully be written this week), but then something amazing happened. Well, two things:

(1) I discovered delicious tiramisu at Trader Joe’s.
(2) I found a job as a writer/researcher for a great company on Union Square, which coincidentally is where Trader Joe’s is located, which means I will have daily access to this delicious tiramisu if I so desired.

The stars have aligned!

Because a full-time job will force me to manage my time a lot more efficiently, I knew I had to get my online portfolio up and running before my first day. I’ve spent the last week doing just that. It’s funny I finally finished it, considering I started working on it before I even moved to New York. It might also have been before my temp job at a law firm, which was back in July. I was that slow.

It wasn’t that anything about the portfolio itself was intricate. In fact, I wanted something so simple that even a beginning HTML-er could construct it. Black text on white? Check. That was my one requirement.

The thing that held me back, however, was the idea of having an online portfolio. I know it’s weird to say this, but I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of bragging about myself. Yes, I promote myself through blogs (which is fun) and list my work history on Facebook, which used to be is fun, but an online portfolio is basically a collection of your best work, your supposed successes, and a chance to tell the world, “Hey, look at me! I am awesome!”

There are the lucky few who don’t really need a portfolio to tell the world that. I, unfortunately, do. I’m a writer, yes, and my byline has appeared in hundreds of articles. The byline, of course, is the author’s name in tiny, tiny font at the top of the article. Most people don’t even look at it. It’s a way to stamp your work without drawing attention to yourself. I’m perfectly comfortable drawing attention to my writing (though some articles have given me night sweats and insomnia in anticipation of publishing something potentially controversial), but unless I’m being funny (at least in my head) or doing a cool jig, I’m not comfortable drawing attention to myself as “Karen Bolipata, the writer of awesome things.”

With that said, I know that marketing is a major part of freelancing. So, I had to get over it. Here I am, getting over it. Please check out my portfolio. Feedback is much appreciated.

And oh, if you need writing services, hire me.