Are there too many places to write on the web?

Dear Reader:
I am so sorry I have neglected this blog.

But its not my fault. There are just TOO many places for me to express my opinion. I can berate my friends(or people I wish were my friends) on Facebook with my "shares". I can condense my P.O.V in a Tweet which can often be a challenge for this verbose human. I write on the daughter of Blogger, Medium.com, where my 3 minute reads usually get lost in the maddening crowd, but once in a while, the post gets added to a collection(but never an email notification!) Then there are my 2 websites. And sometimes I text witty comments to my friends. Rarer these days are the emails, but there are some of us who still treat that as an old fashioned letter. That is a whole lot of writing. And sadly, very little of it is read, if my current sales of my ebook is any example!
However,I do know why that is: competent competition.

Mission almost accomplished

It is a rare time when I complete a self initiated project. But I am very close to doing that this upcoming month. I started writing what has now become an ebook as a blog as a way of releasing the frustration that is so common a precipitating force and I am so glad I just did! It  Not only has it accomplished said intent but it has become so much more. I always knew I was a "late bloomer", that the late great painter, Grandma Moses, was my inspiration.  She began painting at the young age of 72. Became world renown and died at 101. So whilst I have participated in many artist forms it is fun to start a new one so near the 3rd act.  I have to say the fact that work has the actual opportunity to be read by someone so quickly is a motivating and at the same time scary factor. Internet accessibility to possibly untold numbers or no one at all, makes putting ones work out a different and more democratic process than in the past. 

So soon the project will become an ebook and the ebook will be in the Ethernet and I can move on to the-next project. Learn some new skills, push myself, expose the naked underbelly. In the words of the famous (and  infamous) Martha Stewart: "that's a good thing."

A Taxing Time

As I sit in front of the #TurboTax screen, filling out boxes, answering questions, I see my life in mathematical terms. I am aware of theories that all life can be distilled to numbers, that the basis of computers is one's and zero's, that there is a part of Jewish mysticism that is obsessed with numbers and their meaning. I wish I was more intrigued by them. But now the reality of numbers means how much I pay in taxes. I do not mind paying taxes. I am not one who believes we should not have them. I like driving on paved roads, or at least remember when they were paved. Of course I do not want corruption or overpaying for things. No one likes that. I think that value of money is greater the lower on the income scale you are. Just like the length of a year feels shorter the older you are. Its a proportional thing (numbers again). Wealthy people need to pay more. Simple. It's not like they are not going to still have money for their lives. Stop living in fear. Give it away to make more. But some sense of meanness prevails. "I worked for this you should too." Like everyone is given the same set of skills, or circumstances, or dare I say it, Luck. Ok. Now back to the forms.

Dwell on it

For some reason I appear to have a subscription to Dwell Magazine. Probably received it when I gave money to a NPR radio station, or other worthy cause. I find it to be the most depressing magazine ever. Once upon a time I really liked it. The aesthetic was appealing to me. There was an emphasize on good affordable design. Small green changes to our living spaces. But that was then, and I guess those type of readers don't pay the San Francisco mortgages of the editors. So now we have huge living spaces, all without clutter, I might add. They apparently have large hidden closets to hide their real stuff. Never do they show what a person might do with a real, pre-existing space. Say, for example, a condo in a 40 year old building. Or a person who might, shock, have to rent. And then there is the opposite world. The Small Living movement. 400 square feet or less. Ok I am at a point in my life, where I am trying to get rid of stuff. I sell on ebay, I give stuff away. But really? 160 square feet? I can't even travel with less than that! I propose we find a happy medium between 6000 square feet and a bathroom. Most of us are happy with a few rooms with doors that we can slam when the world gets to be too much. And trust me when I say that leaving your phone in that upstairs back room when you are going out your door, will get harder and harder to negotiate as the body turns against you. So my rant today will end on a plea for sanity. Again I realize it will go unheard.

What's Biology got to do with it?

Love and aging.

I came up with a new theory of love, the romantic kind, while talking with Michael H. at a party. Michael is a talented, handsome, quiet gay man who should have been in a long term relationship. He’s just that kind of good guy. But the world being what it is, he is not. And I am just that kind of person who should never be in a long term relationship, and consequently, have not. I guess we are two sides of a certain coin. But as I was talking, cuz, he is the kind of person that politely lets my kind of person rant on, I began to form a theory. I imagine that it is as with most of my theories, rooted half in real science and half in my hopeful imagination.
Here is the theory:
When human beings are young we are biologically programmed to perpetuate the species. This function is obviously important. However, because of cultural changes certain urges that were once seen as positive, can become a negative (current desire for monogamy). But that isn’t really the direction I was talking about with Michael. When we are young we experience falling in love. We do that to insure we will couple with an appropriate partner to, say it with me, complete the biological imperative: perpetuate the species. When we do find love (a combination of pheromones, unconscious sizing up etc.) we want to stay with that person (and here it doesn't matter that we are gay and may not reproduce). Love has occurred and we like it, love is a drug (thank you Bryan Ferry), and keeping the habit up is what we want to do.
Then life comes crashing in, harshing our high. We get bored somehow (someone cheats, dies, moves, goes to prison) and that relationship ends.
But, we never lose our primary directive: perpetuate the species by falling in love. Romantic love is thrown at us from every direction. There is even a special day dedicated to it.
Now to the meat of this dish-when a person, such as myself, is moving through the decades of life, and finds herself single, she, I, want exactly the same thing as when I was 22. I want that rush of air, that flush of cheeks and other parts. I want time to become unimportant. Friendships and responsibilities to be shirked. I want all this because I am still caught in the biological trap, ironic tho it is. And as much as I tell myself that those things don’t matter anymore, because I am not in need of the same things, the notion of romantic love has burrowed itself in my head like a virus ready to attack any sensible chance at a sexual connection. And thus, unless the odds (age+sexuality+location+availability+that soupcon of je ne sais quoi) change, I can predict a life of solo sexual adventure. I am ever so thankful that there are still a few people willing to call themselves my friend. It might be a lonely time if they weren’t!

Writing an E-Book.

An idea pops into my head. Ok, the truth serum is kicking in. An idea is germinated by something I hear on the radio. I decide to move forward with the idea, thinking it should be fairly simple, as I am going to crib most of it from my own seldom read blog. There was my first lesson. While cutting and pasting is somewhat simple for us, the e-book is a very specific creature. First I would have to choose between formats (cassette or 8 track? VHS or Beta? Soy or Coconut?). The Apple world has iAuthor. A fairly simple program, much like its other "art" programs; iMovie, iGarageband... Choose a design, drag and drop. Except when you want to do something else. Then arrggghh. The Kindle uses a more complex professional program, Adobe InDesign was the one I chose, that will let you do those "arrggghh" things, but it is far more time consuming. I started to format the book in both programs. The reason one can not just pick one is because if I publish in the easier one, Apple, I am forbidden from publishing on the Kindle brand, which cuts off the largest ebook store outlet, Amazon. But to save my sanity, I did pick one, hoping that some big author would sue and that problem would go away. So far, that hasn't happened.
But the real issue is not the formatting issues. The real issue is me. As we know from past musings, I am an underachiever. Laser-like focus on one project is not my best skill. I enjoy verring away. Taking a side road. Usually to a dead end, but as they say, its the journey. But now, as the final act begins, I desperately want to leave something. It seems that just having a body of under seen work is not enough. I don't have a child (the typical way of leaving something) and although I have been a part of many wonderful artistic endeavors, I don't have that one thing to point to. Not that one can physically hold an e-book, but you know what I am getting at.
However, (can't get the legalize writing out of me, no matter how many years have passed), I am slowly chipping away at it. I have 30+ pages lined up. Pictures too. Soon I will let someone else look at it and then I will have to be open to criticism and accept that some of the things I think are funny, just aren't. But that too will be ok. Because at the end of some day, I will have something to point to, even if it is on a iPad screen.

About 10 years ago, I wrote the following bit. Somethings have changed, but most is the same. I tried to watch last night but was too early, and my roof is still too bright. When I awoke at 3, the clouds had taken over the sky. No meteor show for me.

August 1993
In a successful attempt to go against the flow, I decided to search the heavens for Perseid the day after the advertised "best time" for viewing. I donned my sweatshirt and headed fro the nearest thing to dark sky, the golf course at the start of the foothills. I arrived to find the lot empty, the masses having had their go the night before. I settled into my beach chair, leather jacket acting as a blanket, and keys poised for any attack by non-stellar visitors. As I lay back, eyes roaming, I began to think loft thoughts. The vastness of the sky, the universe and beyond are good jumping off places for deep meditations on the origin of humankind, God, religion. I began to wonder about my role in such a scheme, what my, in the immortal words of Steve Martin, "special purpose" was.
And then my mine would change the channels before I could even get a coherent thought on the essence of my being. I began to think about my laundry, or my current financial despair, or the fact that my back was killing me and my underemployment necessitated total use of my back. Just as I was about to get into a full blown depressive state about my situation, a meteorite would transverse the sky. A bright white-orange star with the longest tail I'd ever seen, shooting out into God knows where. I whoop and cheer, just as I do when a fireworks display is especially exciting. I didn't care if I was alone!
I saw six "shooting stars" over the hour that I sat outside. Each time that I thought I would not see any more, another one exploded in my vision. I wanted to stay all night but my back was stiff and a car intruded into my solitude. Time to go. I saw the Perseid Meteor Shower. I had some lofty thoughts, I had some human thoughts and I had a hell of a good time. I still don't know what my special purpose is, but somehow, it doesn't really matter.