Last night I was hanging out with D.J., and we arrived at that hour when he says, “Ok, baby. I’m heading off to brush my teeth and get to bed.”

Each time this happens, I head off to the other bathroom to do the same. But here’s the horror: It’s not my habit to brush my teeth at bedtime.

I know. This is awful. Everyone in the world knows that you brush your teeth in the morning and at night at a minimum. I do a pretty good job flossing, but I don’t brush at night. My sister doesn’t have the habit either, and both of us have good teeth, so we really don’t work hard to change our own habits (although she might now that she has kids). Mom brushes her teeth several times a day, I think. She’s going to call and chide me as soon as she reads this post.

Here’s another embarrassing fact: I started my own business as a freelance copywriter in August of last year. I wrote a column about writing business plans. I’ve helped companies work on their business plans. And I don’t have a business plan.

Yep. Another horror. I even bought business plan templates and started the spreadsheets. But I don’t yet have the ability to figure out my yearly income projections, and I can’t envision where my company will be next month, much less three years from now. I don’t need funding, so I won’t need a business plan to take to lenders. But I still need to think about the future of my business and what my goals are. This morning I told D.J. my short-term goal was to be able to take him to dinner (for once) and not have to use a 2-for-1 coupon.

The other day I mentioned how grateful I was when the X-ray technician gave me a pair of hospital shorts in a small/medium size. He looked quickly at me before he reached into the pile of shorts, and he presented me with a small/medium. I checked the pile after he left, thinking that they must be out of all other sizes, but there was a large right there, and he could have given it to me. But he didn’t. He thought I was a small/medium.

My weight loss of late hasn’t changed my perception that I am a large, not a medium. I won’t let anyone physically pick me up. I cringe when one of those pedal cabs offers me a ride around the city, thinking that they would be too strained.

So, even though other people may see me as a medium, I’m forever a large in my own eyes.

This is also what I’ve done at work for many years. I wrote a few days ago about the difference between the men who used to sit around the table in our conference room and me, who used to make copies for the men who sat around the table. I think I decided a long time ago that I wasn’t a leader. I wasn’t an entrepreneur. I wasn’t a boss, unless I came about it in a very roundabout way. I would never run a department, I thought. I perhaps would get someone to help me with my department of one, but that’s about it.

Because I didn’t try to think beyond my little cubicle, I didn’t move beyond my little cubicle. I figured I would always be the really good support person and thinker for the real leaders. And my lack of ability to picture myself in other roles led to a lack of advancement opportunities.

I’m sure glad I found the testicular fortitude to stop calling myself a second-tier employee.

When I first started my freelance copywriting business, all of 7 months ago or so, most of my work was project based. I’d give people an estimate for a whole project, and I’d work until the project was finished, no matter how long it took.

Most of my projects these days seem to be hourly because one project melds into another and into another. And most of my clients are having me work on several projects at the same time.

I used to think the project-by-project quotes were the best ideas, but now I really don’t like them at all. First off, there’s always “project creep,” where they ask for a little more or something a little different. The second problem is one I like even less: we start off with a proposal for a large project, and the project scope changes completely. Then I’m left with trying to go back and estimate how much time I spent in the first phase (always just a guess) to tell them how many hours of time they have left for other projects or the revised project.

I just finished up the residue hours for one client (they had 7.5 on account), and another client has LOTS of credit — perhaps 30 hours. Ugh. They’ve already paid me for those hours, so I have to keep bugging them for direction on new projects so they can use their time.

Today I’m writing an article that required me to figure out whether intestinal microflora was a synonym for bacteria in the gut. (It’s not exactly a synonym: microflora can include a number of microorganisms in the gut, including bacteria).

The article is actually a press release for a study in a scientific journal. My job is to read the technical articles and create readable articles for release to the general public. I had to audition to work for this group, and this was the first time I did a small project for free in order to prove I could handle the job.

Man but I love this. I get paid to learn, to explore, to think, to compile. Could life be much better?

I’ve been pretty bummed about my knees and not being able to keep up with my running goals lately. Last night I ran 4 easy miles on a treadmill, and I was supposed to have done 4 tough miles on hills. But my knees are still cranky (and will be until I get some different muscles), so I took it easy.

I kept thinking: I’m falling behind and being lazy.

But I just bought a book on nutrition for runners, and the author brought up a point I had forgotten. Even if I’m not shaving hours off my marathon time, I’m doing great things here.

A few quotes from the book:

Training increases blood volume by as much as 10 percent. It also increase the number of oxygen-carrying proteins attached to red blood cells.

When subjected to a regular schedule of repetitive impact forces, the bones of the lower extremities remodel their structure to become stronger and denser.

The “program” for the action of running is stored in your brain, and the more you run, the more this pattern is refined to become increasingly efficient, so you can run at faster speeds with less energy.

The heart muscle becomes much larger and more powerful in response to training.

Skeletal muscles adapt to training in literally dozens of known ways.

You get the gist. The point is that running on a regular basis, even if it’s not fast, is taking me places. I’m fitter, stronger, more efficient.

I can think about my experience as a small business owner the same way. Sure, sometimes I’m here plodding along, writing websites and making phone calls and writing newsletters, and I think, “Hey, where am I going with all this, and why so slow?”

But owning a business has some amazing long-term effects on my ability to handle life and career. I came into my business knowing how to write and how to sell. I’m learning negotiation (or really, the art of being silent), accounting, marketing, perseverance, time management, budgeting, forecasting, valuation, diplomacy, integrity and hope. And all those new skills will help me wherever life leads.