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!