PUBLIC NOTICE

I would like to continue this blog. It is relevant, funny, and I don't need confirmation to know my experiences - and my unique ability to articulate those experiences - reflect volumes of thoughts and adventures worth sharing. Even moreso, I hope it resonates with you, my treasured readers. However, having said that (even bragged a little), I find that I have less and less time to manage it. Sure, I can tap out the words pretty quickly, but putting together the photos, keeping things consistent and noteworthy, compiling it in a way that grabs readers' attention is the real time killer.

I am looking for volunteers. Someone(s) who may or may not agree with me on everything, but who likes my delivery of it nonetheless. I don't get all of the mechanics available to me on Blogspot, first of all. I know I can add buttons, advertisements, other stuff, but I don't really know how to go about it, and I don't really have time to do it, to search for photos, gifs and other media, or the attention span to learn it all. But I'm betting there are a few readers out there who do. Because I do not imagine there are many - if any - of my readers who are uneducated. I don't write for the uneducated. I don't write to change people's minds. I write to confirm your own ideas, to articulate them, to put proverbial pen to proverbial paper for you - not me. And for the record, all education is voluntary. Being educated is a matter of choice, not upbringing or class. I am educated not because I attended college but because I chose to verse myself in those things which interested me. I sailed through college with an A average. Wasn't hard. I have an awesome short-term memory. Yay for me. Took good notes, read them 20 minutes before an exam, and viola! Aced it. Wanna put money on how much of it I actually retained, though? Yeah, only the parts I gave a shit about. That's what I remember from college. Stuff that interested me. Not one whisker more or less.

And I do not contend that I am smarter than you simply because I know how to put words together, or that I have a bachelor's degree - which equates to what an associate's degree was 15 years ago. I am no smarter (or stupider) than a cabinet maker, an accountant, a dog groomer, a doctor, a cashier or a machinist. In fact, I know people in all those aforementioned professions, and they are among the most intelligent people I have ever met. Indeed, the richest man I know - a vascular surgeon - is also the most foolish, reckless piece of shit I know. We all have a set - or sets - skills. Mine just happens to be putting words (and on an equally important level, music notes) together to make a thing. Makes no difference what you do for a living these days. It doesn't reflect your intelligence or who you are as an individual. We're all just trying to survive. Took me way too long to come to that (now) very obvious conclusion. We do what we must to carry on. Let your career define you and . . . you let your job - that thing you get up in the morning dreading - define who you are as a person. That's just lame, dude. Your family, your goals, your expectations, your art, your mind - let that define you. But if you're digging ditches at a waste management facility, I'm hoping you don't let thoughts of work keep you up at night. Just saying.

Of course there are exceptions. If you're an artist, I completely understand if your work defines you. I'm an artist, and my work as an artist defines me as well. Unfortunately, no one has bothered to mention that I should be fucking paid for it! Ahem, but I digress. If you work for a charity, or you're a physician (not a douchebag vascular surgeon), or you're a teacher - yeah, your work defines who you are, and it damn well should. But hell, I did floor covering (tile, carpet, hardwood) for 20 years on and off (mostly on), but it sure as shit didn't define me. I had to virtually fight my way out of it, still fighting that construction worker stigma - not that there's anything wrong with it - and when you're trying to change career fields when your body simply refuses to do the same shit you used to do without thinking, well, believe me when I tell you, it ain't easy. Thing is, since leaving that line of work, I haven't made even remotely the kind of money I made back then. Back then, I had more money than I knew what to do with, but I was miserable. Now, I am poorer than I've ever been, but also the happiest I've ever been. Funnier still, the whole time I was in school, I was persecuted by my coworkers who never tired of calling me "college boy," although they said it with love. But there is an organic (dunno why I used that word because I hate it...soooo overused nowadays....but it fits, here) resistance to transitioning from blue collar to white collar work. I haven't yet been able to put my finger on it, but it's there. Oh, it's there, goddammit. Kind of feels like you're trying to walk forward but someone has a hold on your shirt collar. Like, "Where do you think you're going, bitch boy?" That's the voice in my head. Always calling me a "bitch boy." Bastard. I'm on to you, Boy Bitch.

So! If you like what I'm doing, if you're pickin' up what I'm puttin' down, please be kind and message me. I need, and would very much like, your assistance in keeping this thing going. And I will proudly credit you for your contributions.

Thanks in advance - Hat.