Feeling Subtextual ~ Blog 15

For the last two and a half years, there has been an underlying theme to every day of my life. It started small, when we left Utah bound for the East Coast, on a reverse path of the Oregon Trail.

What am I going to do with my life now?

About a thousand days have passed and the sound is much, much louder. And the answer changes, depending on which way the wind blows or what experiences I have that day. I'm wasting time and I know it.

On days like today, when there's a relatively productive domestic agenda including exercise, shopping, laundry and cooking, it's tempting to just chuck it all. Why do I bother coming to work at all? I make enough to support gas, insurance and a car payment, but I could make $10 an hour in Boston as a barista. Seriously. The Wife and I saw a job flyer at a Starbucks in Beacon Hill, one of the nicest neighborhoods in Boston.

It's tough, these gray, slushy days, to want to do much of anything. And still, I write this blog. Writing is important to me and I know that. Tomorrow, I'll cover a minor-league hockey game in Worcester, a Duluth-esque town an hour or so from Boston. Next week, I'll cover the Utah Jazz for 36 hours while they are in town and play a game against our beloved Celtics. I'll be torn about whom to cheer openly for, of course.

It's not much, but it helps. Writing pulls me out of my funk. I'm already in a much better mood than I was five paragraphs ago. My Mom is the only person who's going to read this, but that's OK. My parents and my grandparents were my only readers when I worked in New Hampshire and Vermont and that worked out all right.

There is, of course, a problem with this model: People don't buy newspapers any more. Newsflash. People still read newspapers, it's just online, very selective, and not profitable.

What's a guy with a love of alliteration to do? I still don't know. There's a book rattling around up in my head, somewhere, but for now the answer is simple. Blogging is cathartic. I'm going to stick with that for a while. Maybe I'll get involved in politics and maybe I'll go back and get a master's degree. But I'm going to do something. Because all that housework I did today? I did a terrible job at it. And writing beats stirring drinks at Starbucks. So, you're stuck with reading at least another 75 blogs 'til I hit 90.

Sorry, Mom.