Yikes! My unbroken string of entries-per-month is hanging by a mere… thread! Without this here entry there would be nothing said for the entire month of January 2014. I may not care about the audience of this blog to write more frequently, but I *do* care about my string of months in which I have posted at least one-a-month for more than a year now.
Just kidding, I do care about my audience. The writing of my book is such a fragile enterprise, and it has been hard enough just coming up with the minimum number of words for my book, that I have left this blog to rot. The plus side is that gestation often takes a long time, and one might see the few recent entries here as a period of development out of which some new and glorious results will eventually arise.
I don’t blame me for being scared of the internet, though. At least on *that* point the infrequency of the entries here is justified. Despite many of the web-based traditions being more than ten years old, something about this new technology continues to terrify me. I’ve always wanted my blog to walk the line between embracing and being appropriately scared, of the web. On that account the low number of entries here is fine.
I’m doing fine on a lot of other accounts too. I still don’t have a job, or an obvious future, but I take comfort in the fact that people I know wouldn’t let such a darling personality such as myself fall too low into bowels of poverty. (Perhaps.) If you’re going to let me sink into poverty, the best time to do it is summer, of course, becuase it gives me plenty of chances to find stuff and sleeping outside in the summer is actually quite pleasant sometimes. But I digress. My main point is that I think my natural charm should be enough to keep me from having no friends and no options, a fate which can easily be observed simply by venturing into Philadelphia and walking around the train station area for a while.
I could perhaps feel more ashamed of not wanting to work if the overall mechanics of the modern American economy were at all transparent to me, but we seem to be floating on air. We consume, but we don’t produce, and I can’t really feel that bad about not participating in a local economy which from my standpoint doesn’t really produce anything anyway. Until I can make it as a creative person and an artist, I think I am extremely unlikely to find enjoyment in any kind of “normal” job. But I’m in favor of surviving, which means I’ll notch myself down the ladder of employment to the level I’m forced to if it comes to that.
The ticket out of this miserable dilemma is finding an audience for the fun, “celebrity” side of my personality, whether it’s my upcoming book or youtube videos or anything else which somehow makes life interesing and fun (again? was it ever fun the first time???). There are probably many ways in which I could be used for my mind and wisdom, but I haven’t fallen into circles where I stand to make a living doing that. I’ve never felt like my ideas would be welcomed in the halls of institutions, which unfortunately have a large portion of the money for ideas to go around. I’ve often felt like I’ve had to sacrifice money-making in order to preserve the integrity of my ideas and my psyche. Still, while I have so little income, I wonder how I might get my foot-in-the-door in some operation which can find my ideas and abilities helpful and useful.
I’m getting better at writing though. I have a two-page minimum per day for writing my book. The book still feels more like a chaotic effort to produce something than a coherent whole, but the practice is still valuable. I need to practice something, and writing seems as good a thing as any.
Until next month…
Streets Have No Name 