The freedom of blogging

It’s been years since I was blogging every day. When I was unemployed, I kept myself active by finding adventures to go on in my neighborhood, taking photos, and writing about whatever I wanted. Those days were some of the best days of my life. I felt sharp. I wrote all the time, every day, and even if what I had to say was insignificant, I still said it without embarrassment fear of judgment.

I felt free, and since I had little else to do I just did what I wanted. If I wanted to talk about a scary dream I had, I blogged about it. If I had an idea for a cool Halloween costume that I had no intention of putting together, I blogged about. I blogged about my day. I blogged about my cat. I blogged about my outfits. I blogged about my neighbor’s lawn gnomes. I blogged about things that annoyed me. And people read my blogs.

Before I was collecting my poetry and writings into documents to be published by indie presses, I was blogging and making zines. I didn’t know anyone in the lit world, and the people who were reading my blog posts were either finding them by searching on google and seeing links to my blog come up in keyword searches or they were fellow bloggers whose blog posts I read and commented on who were reading my blog in an act of community. It was simpler times.

I stopped blogging because I was trying to take my writing more seriously. I started getting my writing published by more established venues. In retrospect, my blog was pretty silly, maybe even cringey at times. I was just blogging my feelings, but in time I ended up deactivating my blog to prevent a larger audience from knowing about my feelings.

Now I have my own website. It feels pretty professional. And I’m trying to blog again. Or I’m realizing I can blog again. I can write whatever I want and post it on my own website. It feels good.

Baby Alexandra drinking tea at China Castle, circa 1989

a film adaptation of one of my POSEY TASTE LIKE poems

In 2017 My Posey Taste Like: The Paradise Lost Edition was published as a greatly expanded full-length edition of my 2015 Bottlecap Press chapbook, My Posey Taste Like.

My Posey Taste Like: The Paradise Lost Edition is a concept album inspired by Lana Del Rey composed of surreal landscapes and insincerity masked as sincerity and vice versa and limbo is always a place on earth with you with you with you.

I was recently contacted via instagram by filmmaker, Hunter Way, who had read a poem I had published in Lumen Magazine (which was later published in My Posey Taste Like: The Paradise Lost Edition) and wanted to make a video inspired by the poem. Here is Hunter Way’s artistic statement:

“To me, this poem gave insight into how relationships play out in today’s world. There’s no contact, and everything is represented by something else. Everything’s communicated through different texts, and moods, and everything’s somewhat vague. I attempted to visually isolate these characters’ identities, and use modern technology/communication as a way to accent the barriers between people’s everyday lives.”

Just for the record, I love getting these types of requests! I love that fact that anyone would want to interact with my work at all, and then to make something inspired by it is really quite complimentary.

Hunter Way submitted the short video for a film class, and received a good grade on it. Please check the video out here:

new rewards posted on Patreon

Social media is a mess these days. People are leaving facebook because they just figured out that the website has been selling our content for strategic marketing purposes forever. I want to be cool off facebook because it's an incredible waste of my time, for the most part, but I'm not going to delete it.

I want to stay connected with people and I want to be better at engaging with the literary community in a meaningful way. I want to stay in touch with people who make things, people who are doing shit. So I'll keep it and check it every so often but I'm no longer going to spend hours just scrolling. My time is better spent focusing on writing and making shit and keeping up with people who are doing the same.

So that's why I checked up on my Patreon page today. Go ahead, take a look, have a little laugh. I don't really know how to best use the site at the moment, but I'll figure it out. It seems like there is a lot of potential in the platform to keep myself creatively motivated while possibly earning a little extra dough to help pay some bills.

I hadn't checked my Patreon page since last July, but I went in today and edited the copy and added some new rewards. Do you think anyone will pay me $20 a month to get a personalized voicemail message? Or pay me $20 to receive a video of me rapping a verse by Nicki Minaj? I sure hope so.

I will rap to you

$20 or more per month

I love to rap (mostly Lil Wayne or Nicki Minaj, but I also write my own raps sometimes) and if you choose this reward I will make a video of myself rapping a hot 16 and will send it directly to you. Just send me your email address first, or maybe your phone number.

I will call you and leave a poem on your voicemail

$20 or more per month

You have to give me your phone number, though. Don't worry, I will only call once a month, and I promise I won't sell your phone number to some shady umbrella corporation if you promise to do the same for me.

This is a pretty cool reward if you never get phone calls and you enjoy listening to voicemails.