I haven’t posted anything in awhile, mainly because I rarely get any actual responses on my blog itself. A couple of my feeds move onto places like Open Salon and other such places, and they get a few responses there, but overall, my own web site sometimes feels like a graveyard.
Not really a lot going on these days. I’ve been voraciously trying to find a decent teaching job, but I’ve completely failed at almost every attempt. If lucky, I get a form letter rejection thanking me for applying. Otherwise, I get nothing. Not a damn thing. It’s not like I’m not qualified. It’s not like I’m not a damn good teacher either. I just get no response whatsoever. Or I’ll get a nibble, and then that nibble will run away, convinced that there is probably tastier bait out there somewhere else.
Lately, I’ve been working on a writing project with a former friend/romantic interest/really hard to define but always a positive attribution regardless. Our project is something that’s definitely up our alley, but our schedules don’t really seem to be all that copacetic, which means that I’m suspecting that as good of an idea as it is, it’s probably going to end up not working out in the long run. And that’s too bad. I’m slowly putting work back into energy towards one of my previous novels, mainly because I don’t feel right unless I’m working on something that’s moving forward. And I’ve been meaning to rewrite one of my old novels for many years now, especially now that I have the proper time and place for it.
I recently read Stephen King’s book on the JFK assassination, and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at how well he carried that book through its entire process. He sometimes has a habit of becoming too wordy and sometimes “too Stephen King”, but this was one of his rare wonders. I can say that I’m very happy I read it. I immediately recommended it to Rick, and he read it too, thinking pretty much the same thing I did. I haven’t read too many great novels recently, and I was glad this one came along.
Which got me thinking about my own writing again, because it’s always a continuous work in progress that never seems to go anywhere. Unlike other writers who want to be writers but never write, I’m one of those who wrote a lot but never got anything for doing it. And I still continue to write. My writing has probably evolved to a point where I’m pretty much at the top of my game right now, and it’s almost completely useless. It’s like pissing in a fan, for lack of a better (or graphic) metaphor.
Relationships are still a dead zone for me these days. I live in Grand Rapids, which seems to be the furthest place of finding anything I’m seeking. I’d move anywhere else, but I’m like some unemployable crazy guy that will never get another job no matter how hard he tries. So I’m kind of stuck here. And stuck is probably a very apt description.
Not much else going on. Another semester is almost over here at GRCC, and my students probably couldn’t care one way or another if I was teaching them. It’s not like they’re bad students; they’re fine. It’s just that I don’t seem to be making much of an impact or a difference these days. That’s generally the story of adjuncts everywhere.
Well, have to head to class for the night. What fun.
I love your writing. I love your blog. I love your ideas. I do not love Grand Rapids. I also do not love my community college students. Hang in there….and please, keep writing 😉
Sounds like you are in the same kind of funk state I am in and I’m glad I wrote you an email before I came and saw this or I might be off drinking Drano or something instead. Altho I’ve heard Drano is a really painful way to go and I’m not really into that kind of pain. I mean really, if you’re going to off yourself, why would you choose the godawfulest painful way to go? I would find a way to scarf a whole pile of sleeping pills or something and wake up in, uh, I dunno, Nirvana?
But I regress. I mean digress. Well, process, if you must know. This definitely qualifies as processing. In the psychotherapeutic sense. In the way-too-many-words-why-are-you-posting-this-where-the-whole-frggin-world-can-see touchy-feely psycho sense. Which suits me just fine. Cuz like I said, I was thinking about Drano…
And, happily for me, in case any of this were ever really true, we don’t keep Drano around our house, it being all non-green and toxic and kill-the-fishies in Tanzania or whatevs. We have some kinda green pine extract that would probably not kill a flea, but would hurt a lot for days and days and put me in the hospital generating gazillions of dollars of bills I can never pay and anyways…
I read a thing about a guy who could not afford to pay his hospital bill which he should never have owed anyway, because his insurance should have covered it, and he owes about a half a million dollars to some place and he sends them like forty dollars a month and that keeps them from being able to hassle him or sue him or anything and he will pay them off (without any interest) in about 400 years. So he feels OK about that and I think Hooray for Him! but then I think, what if he ends up in a burning wreck and the hospital won’t take him and he has to pick off his own burning flesh with tweezers without medical assistance some day?
But tomorrow will be a happier day.
And while I’m at it, I gave myself a thumbs-up for that last post, because as my Guru Jack Handy (aka The Smartest Guy in the Room) always says, “I’m Worth It!”
So take that, Grey Glummies! (That’s what Jack Handy calls The Blues.)