Un-retrievable Losses

I awoke early and got busy.

I started out with coffee and email. When you're on three hours of sleep you've got to drink something to jump start your brain. I blazed through the emails due to the superior nature of my new keyboard. I'm sorry if the blog gets wordy from this point on, it's because of this new damn toy. I just fly over blank pages, effortlessly.

Well, going on with my morning. I made some black java today and it kicked in for an hour and then I just passed out in the chair. Passed out. Only to awake in my bed. WTF? Stretched out and everything. It could mean that I'm so exhausted that I don't remember getting up and crawling into bed. OR it could mean something worse, something darker. Like a brain tumor slowly eating away at my memories, or something, or a 'cross-over' when another personality in the mind kicks in and becomes ascendant, taking momentary control of the body....

And there I go, catastro- phizing. I'm just tired, that's all, and coffee is no cure all. I hop back online and this time I surf craigslist religiously, going over it with a fine toothed comb, looking for anything that would give me another writing gig. I found two leads. One for a 'Keyword' writer for video clips. It makes something like $1.50 a clip, but these things add up and you can be looking at $1,000 to $2,000 dollars a month. Or so the silly ad says. I checked the company on the web and it seems reputable, so we'll see.

The other is for a Social Marketing Associate. Basically, what you do is go around to other people's blogs and post how great their site is and provide a link. Internet prostitution at it's best. I know it's as low as some view whoredom, but it pays. I just won't go to my friend's blogs and post such silly assed ads. Besides, I have a lofty conscience, which would turn me off to it in a year or four.

Then, I went pro-active. I went to my online magazine email application and sent them this:

"What's up? Haven't heard anything from management and now the site reads to check back in March. Has there been some sort of internal reorganization? When is the deadline for any new articles to be sent in? Are all the interns to be re-invited back in? Am I one that isn't?"

In no time I got this:

"Did Danny contact you? He was supposed to. Anyways, yeah we're shooting for mid March relaunch. We're coming back bigger and better, we've got a searchable business index now too. We definitely are extending an invitation for everyone who was previously writing for us to come back. We were really pleased with all the submissions you sent it.. The old site we were a bit unhappy with. We are just trying to smooth out all the rough spots with the new site right now which is why March is set."

Well that's a mother- fucking relief. Not that they PAY anything, I just hate to be dropped off another website. Shit, after awhile it'll make my resume look bad if all of the web sites that I get hired to work for are on the skids and are a good six months from folding. And they said that they liked my stuff. I was thinking that I was pushing it with all of the poetry venues that I have been covering, I was just wondering if it was going over well. I guess it was. That's a relief. I sit back in my chair, wondering if any of the other writing gigs come through, can I keep up with the demand? Further, after the poetry venue pieces, where do I go from there? I want to go back to the New York City beat, but the problem is where to find relevant stories? How do I chase down leads?

My radio producer seems to be good at this, and I asked her to show me the ropes, but she's been too busy. That's a shame, but I'll get it soon enough. I'll find that one reservoir that'll connect me to the Main Feed, and that will be all she wrote. Contacts like this never end. And if kept in good repair, can go a long way to nailing a paying gig. That's my problem with the business, it's about who you blow, not who you know, and THEN it's about who you know and lastly, what you know. I mean, one of the articles is an interview with Kanye West. Now HOW IN THE FUCK do you get close enough to Kanye West to interview him? Connections. And if someone isn't getting blown, I don't know how this shit works.

And since I'm NOT interviewing him, it's obvious that I don't know how this shit works.

Well, that's my non-paying excursion for today. I know, I know, when am I going to stop dreaming and start getting down to something serious, like finding a real job? Well, this IS SOMETHING SERIOUS to me. This isn't just a search for a REAL job, this is an entire fucking career change! I'm trying to do something right here, right now, and I've come this far, there's no need to give up now. Fuck, I didn't sleep out in the streets for two years to get a job in McDonald's! Further, with job prospects being what they are I might fare far better just staying where I am.

I might just fare better altogether one day.

Ya jus gotta believe!!

Hobobob