shad

I've had a bad weekend. Not bad, like my car got stolen or I was sick or anything. Bad like an artist bad, bad like I've been too maudlin for my own good and the good of my family. I've spent a lot of time questioning the wisdom of my past choices. For reasons too complicated to get into, I started making grave tactical errors sometime in junior high, and continued them with reckless abandon until maybe two years ago.

Most of this has to do with my writing. I was one of those people who did a great deal of talking about being a writer, and very little writing. As such, when I made the major decisions in my life, I used criteria other than 'what would further my life as a writer?' Bad criteria. As such, I went to a college where the writing program was very bad. They meant well, but I didn't learn anything, and that's as much my fault as the fault of any of my teachers or fellow students. And then I didn't go on to a masters program. I don't know. This all sounds so stupid, but I feel like I could have actually been a good writer. I feel like I have the talent, but I missed a critical developmental stage, and now I'm just a talented hack. I don't know. I would like to do something worth doing. I'd like it to mean something.

To borrow a line from Chuck: Today's weather is partly maudlin, with periods of inescapable systemwide rage.