Once there was a way ....

Tom very kindly gave me an Amazon wish certificate for my birthday, which I took a long time to spend. My first impulse was to buy a book from my massive wish list and I don't know why I hesitated. Finally I decided to get some music. ( listed in All Consuming down the page on the left) I am resolved to turning off the news and listening to music for some part of the day. It's not easy. When the new discs came I had a desire to pull out my paper journal and copy lyrics into it. Something I used to do all the time. I used to write lyrics from things I was hearing and then my own thoughts. And really, the new stuff has some perfect lyrics.

I’ve been working on my rewrite, that’s right
I’m gonna change the ending
Gonna throw away my title
And toss it in the trash

I write in my paper journal less than I write here. Hard to believe. And my handwriting is illegible.

There's not much happening in my life. And some of what is happening is other people's story. That was an issue when I wrote the book. For example, I didn't write much about my cousins other than to mention that they came to Grandmum's house on Sundays after church. I didn't feel like I should write their stories. But I did write about my parents. Someone said that if you are friends with or related to a writer you will see yourself in their writing. Maybe so.

I was thinking about how I started blogging in the last year of my BA and through my MFA. I was full of thinking and language back then. With the exception of the three years at EA I've been unemployed the whole time. And the three years at EA seems to have killed my desire to write.

I've always worked. Sometimes I had two jobs. When I was first in SF there was a brief period when I had three jobs. I paid into unemployment all of that time. I PAID in.

I did work during my last year at EA that other people got paid more to do. It wasn't fair. Everyone knew it wasn't fair. And I've never been opposed to doing what ever work needed to be done. I enjoyed the work for the most part, although I was never adequately trained.

I'm so not alone. There are people all over the world doing work for which they aren't adequately paid. There are people at EA doing really good work right now and they haven't had a pay raise for a few years.

When I listen to the way the unemployed are talked about I feel rage. I was unemployed. I was under employed. I worked hard. I paid in. Back. Off.

I'm trying to write on the food blog.

Sigh.