Acquisition Strategy for FINOs
So, you rudely ask: where've I been? What's my deal? What the hell do I want now?
no matter the lengths to which my friend-of-40-years-Skippy went, without a job, with two kids to raise alone, and my never ending Family Court drama, I'm just as destitute as I ever was. Moreso,
Did I stop posting because I was faking in the first place, a la that Jaquin Phoenix guy? Because I made a big score? Because I ended up on Skid Row?
How I wish the above were true. And finally fucking settled.
What I wouldn't give for some predicatibility and finality in my, our, life.
The suspense of my, our, own demise is killing me.
How on earth can this abomination end?
But read on and figure it out for yourselves, 'cause damned if I know.
A few things I do know, though.
I stopped posting because:
A) my decade-plus freefall, which coincides almost exactly with my meteoric rise, continues. No end in sight. I was never a 'daily news' type. I'm the long-form, essayistic type and we: Can't report a story that's still happening. Or, at least, not well.
no matter the lengths to which my friend-of-40-years-Skippy went, without a job, with two kids to raise alone, and my never ending Family Court drama, I'm just as destitute as I ever was. Moreso, After eight months, with nothing but continued hell in sight, I moved us out over her objections. And, of course, she was right. So consumed with worry, she exhausted herself trying to convince me to stay, or come back when I regained my senses (not that she put it that way). Even as she spoke, even as I secretly looked for new lodgings and cadged my pennies here and there: where the hell did I think the kids and I were going, not that she ever put it that way?
Well. I think/though two things. (1) Skippy would have some blessed privacy, her home to herself, for a brief moment before she'd have to AGAIN resume worrying about us and (2) WE were going to have a few months of family privacy before a homeless shelter. At best.
With little else to cling to, I try to regain my former, hardwon self-image as an artist. Not so easy for the working-class child of Great Migration sharecroppers. But what else do I have.
So. I imagine us as that image I can not YouTube (not in my present frame of mind). This is the pitiful best I can do. Here's a precious few seconds of that heartbreaking band on the Titanic, playing its heart out as the Unsinkable sank, with no hope of their own personal survival.
I think I'm thinking of the Barbara Stanwyck version. But what do I know?
c) The above notwithstanding, I gave up blogging because:
(1) I deemed it prudent - nay: heroic - to forego self-expression in the name of spending every waking moment jousting with the undefeatable windmills of online job applications, as an over-educated fifty-something, single mom whose 'skills' means nothing in the Bush recession.
(2) [and, most true of all] because I just plain don't - and never have wanted -to write about the last twelve years of my life. The years from 40-52 (as of 4/16/11). That last years of what anyone, anyone at all, could count as my youth. .
(3) (ref'ing (2) above: I was hoping to land somewhere on my feet and never, EVER have to publicly acknowledge just exactly how full of shit I am and always have been. Personally, you internet clowns, not intellectually, waste of breath though that is.
I wanted my previous body of work to be my legacy. To be my LIFE. Not the abomination I've made of myself and my work through my hypocrisy and cowardice.
In my own defense though: I could never have fallen so low without a great deal of help.
Hang in there.
I'll get to that.
You'll get your Bread & Circus.
What's a FINO you ask? That would be a Feminist in Name Only. Too busy being one step from a refrigerator box under an overpass to Wikipedia whether that's a legitimate first-time rip-off of RINO or not, so I'll just run with it.
The other prong to my self-defeat, is my class blinders. Being a FINO is my fault. Being defeated by my class blinders, is not.
Again: patience.
If I edit t his, I'll never post it. I've been dithering this way for weeks, months, twelve years, 52 years.
So. Tomorrow, then?
Dear Ms. Dickerson,
I am glad to hear that you are alive. I am sorry that your life is not well. I don't know you as a person, but I love you as a writer and have read every piece of writing of yours that I can find. I have followed the writer-you from Mothers That Think, thru' your books to Mother Jones and now here. I wish that I could offer you an Job, but I can say that you have made a profound difference in my thoughts about race in america.
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