Writing here and there in utter obscurity. It's an interesting journey. Posted stuff about status anxiety and nobody on facebook seemed to have taken an interest. It was a philosopher named Alain de Botton,
and he discusses society's need for and belief in success. The myth that America is a meritocracy is examined. Someone today said I was successful. But I have taken De Botton's version of Rousseau that one can either want more money and more success or lessen her desires and therefore find happiness or "success." I am learning to chose the latter. But yes, the poor are blamed for being lazy in this country. Some who profess to support Latino/Chicano lit won't have anything to do with someone who is on disability. De Botton calls such people snobs. There are a few of them. No, maybe it's more a sense of not knowing what to say. I hope this is the case and that I have personalized some rudeness.

My sabbatical may be lifelong. There's always hope for recovery, yet this need and idea that success makes us happy runs through our society like acid. I have had to accept limitations and career path has stalled due to the reality of illness. It is hard. But healing is necessary. The book grapples with illness and recovery. So many do, but I feel this one deals directly with PTSD and the shock of violence. I really should read that book by the poet who spent time in Iraq.

Amit is designing a website for me. I think he will do a good job. So despite obscurity and a bit of anonymity in the big city, I am feeling free. Mostly I feel free because I have time to write. Travel money is another matter. Yet one need not travel too much to write. I have traveled a great deal in the past. I will likely go to Albuquerque for a reading, maybe Taos and will set some local readings up as soon as the book is out. I really still love the cover.

Back to isolation and obscurity; maybe everyone in the arts feels this. Our society is all about consumption, "hustling," and getting ahead. I think maybe there is something to slowing down. Yet I have to confess to getting in a hurry, but at least I have 3 poems that will be published later down the line. And this need to "succeed" can eat at us. Poetry is at best a quiet thing, a musical thing. I don't know what it is, but it is freedom and will. It is us grappling with humanity, what it means to be human, invisibility and loss and praise. I need poetry I think.

I am thinking about writing 3 reviews, but I simply can't begin to do so until March. Interview questions I've asked three Latina writers will be coming out in Feb. and of course I will link to them here and on fb and twitter. It's the name of the game, but a game doesn't seem to level up or create a new plateau?

Facebook is growing a little old. I feel that I will post book cover down the line and promote the book, but I'm finding it for the most part quick and shallow. The more flippant and outrageous or outraged the better. Someone dies that people don't even know and they are all over it praising the person, joining those that truly mourn. It's not bad to offer condolences, but on fb it's like everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon. It doesn't always seem sincere.

Maybe I'm just in a bad mood tonight. Maybe its the neo-conservatives that sometimes post pro-guns, pro-God in school, in other words my family. Ugh. Maybe I just need to stay away from the sway and swagger of success when it comes to writing poems and "hustling." I want to see beauty. I want to see depth and not repetitive posts, that seem sometimes to almost shout out the agony for success we Americans are bred to pant after.

The blog is more of a journal, a notebook for me. Facebook of late is a jumble of tid-bits and braggings, and of course I too engage in the "marketing" and the "networking" as one must, but I need a break from the "news" or the "gossip." I hope to write this weekend, spend time with some friends, remember and praise myself. Yes, you heard that right. I'm going to praise myself. I'm going to have compassion for myself and perhaps then I can learn to have compassion for others. I have a long ways to go, but I sense that I will never write well if I spend too much time playing a game. Some balance is necessary and a good game is healthy. I just sense some have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. I don't want to sell my soul, but all the capitalist crap about success runs through my veins too. So I'll post this and move on to the next thing, however small, however obscure.

We never know the future. Only today. And today I had something to say. A vague need to be heard which opens itself up to a great silence. A silencing? No, it's more of a breath. I am learning to breathe and poetry is, I agree, breath. There is no language, no sound, only the limitations, the fact we are spinning small on this blue planet in insignificance, and the game is indeed, just a game.