Warm February Night

Even in the middle of Brooklyn and Queens, amid rows of brownstone with electrical wires draped everywhere like dark Christmas lights. Amid the gag inducing smells of cigarette smoke, puke, and car exhaust, I can step outside, feel a warm breeze in the middle of February hinting at the distant spring, smell clean air as a breeze caresses my cheeks, and gaze up at the almost full moon. The few bright stars that are visible. And surrender deep to beauty profound as the beginning of time. And all is well and glorious and endlessly big.

Like little rain puddles in the road, that when stepped in, go down hundreds of feet like a bore hole. So stepping into them makes you plunk down into the puddle like someone who's just stepped into a manhole. And if you wanted, if you could breath underwater, you could just keep sinking down into it for as long as you wanted, never touching bottom.

I'm not sure if this makes sense. I'm just trying to describe a feeling, with gratitude. There's beauty to be had, even among the ugly. So much. It's surprising to find it even here. Like surprisingly deep puddles in the road.

Spell Check Fail, and a Part Time Job

My dad mentioned I'd made a spell-check-proof spelling error, so I did a quick edit and republished last week's post. Hopefully Blogger doesn't send it again, to those of you who get the emails.

This week; great news! I got that writing job and am now employed part time working for somewhere around minimum wage doing (semi) creative writing! Living the dream!

Well, OK, maybe the dream involves getting more than minimum wage. But I have no conceit about my current writing level. I'm still fairly early on in the whole process of learning to write well. I need practice, and lots of it. The fact that I'm getting paid to practice writing is excellent. Mwahahaha! It's like school except they're paying me! So the fact that they are not paying well is OK, for the time being.

Also, what I'm writing is pretty awesome. I'm basically writing up pithy descriptions of travel destinations, with some factoids thrown in. It's informal and playful in tone, which is perfect, and I get to research a whole bunch of cool places. Some of them are boring, but most are really cool, and it's making me realize, because I've done several cities, that I really need to take better advantage of living in New York City. There must be hundreds of awesome things to do here, discoverable in a few seconds of web search. As a creator, as a storyteller, it's my duty to do cool things so I can share the stories. It is in fact lucrative to do so!

Right now I'm working for a specific company who gives me assignments, but one of my writing hero's, Neil Gaiman, got good at writing doing freelance work and journalism. That seems like a good idea. It is like getting paid to go to school. You've got the accountability of deadlines, a reward for completion, and feedback from your employer.

So, that's all exciting. I owe a big thank you to the friend who connected me to the people at this company. Though they were in desperate need of writers, so it's not exactly a favor. Lucky me, since I previously had almost nil professional writing experience. Now I will have...some!

In other news, I'm slowly spinning up the gears to look for a school I can go to for Life Coaching/Counseling/Whatever it is I do. I'm not quite ready to look for a school because I'm still getting info on what kind of schooling would fit me best. It would be awesome if I could take people's insurance to help pay for some of it. I want something hands on rather than theoretical, and it should be able to accommodate my style of working, which is...unusual, though practical.

In the past, I've flitted a bit, trying to get a lock on what I actually want to do. It got a lot easier when I stopped demanding it be one single thing, and when I realized I could actually be paid well to do what I loved.

Well, it's hard to tell how long this is as I'm writing it on my magical little travel keyboard and iPhone combination (I discovered this worked very well for writing on the go) and the small screen makes it hard to judge. It feels like I've probably gone on too long for the current average attention span. Which is scary.

You realise in the past, people had attention spans that could go for hours, right? our access to fast limitless media is atrophying our brain's concentration abilities and it's frightening to think of the consequences for future generations. Here's a video on that subject I found immensely entertaining, though one of the people I showed it to vehemently hated it. It's only three minutes long, so give it a try... }:-D
https://youtu.be/Edx9D2yaOGs

Also, if I remember I'll post a second thing I wrote some time in the middle of the week. I'm starting to write more, and this is something that's been kicking around in my brain for a long time that finally came out.

That's all for this week. Sending love from a joyful heart,

-I

Be honest now, does this dress make me look fat?

I'm on an honesty kick at the moment.

Not honesty as you might traditionally think of it, saying exactly what you think at any time. Though I'm leaning a little bit more towards that, but mainly as a side effect. The main honesty I'm focusing on is self honestly. How am I feeling? Does what I'm doing feel good? Right? What do I really want?

I'm doing the best I can to get rid of any dishonesty I have with myself. Telling myself things are good when they're not, or bad when they're fine. There is often a difference between how we think we're supposed to feel, and how we do feel. What we're supposed to want, and what we actually want.

And being honest with myself feels good. It feels kind. Not that I'm particularly self deceptive out of everyone in the world, but we all are, to some degree or another. It's often a way of avoiding discomfort, when our truth would have us doing something scary or with potentially unpleasant repercussions. But it's a trade-off. In exchange for more comfort in the short term, we get a sense of shallowness in the long term. Like the volume has been turned down on our life.

Death is a great teacher. And when I think about my own mortality, and the uncertainty of when it will happen, I want the depth that being truthful with myself brings. Looking back at life on one's deathbed, it seems that is the choice that will let one leave this world more content.


Um... practical details. Slowly building up a good framework for myself. Accountability buddies like my writing buddy, and soon a life coach buddy. And some teachers and mentors to help point me where I need to go to get better at the things I'm primarily working on: writing and life coaching. Might have a part time writing job! More on that if the "might" turns into a "do."


That's all for this week, dear friends. I think of many of you with love, often. (I don't know how many because I don't know who all reads this.)

-I