Why here, why now?

I experimented with journaling and memoirs in the past - neither did much to improve my writing style or psychological outlook. Was it all a less than firm grasp of protecting the past and my personal history? That's been handled much better through my photography and art. Was I trying to "figure out" things? Perhaps, but in the long run, it proposed many, many more questions than it conjured answers. I could have entitled the thesis "What the F*** is Wrong With Me?" and invite worldwide commentary and opinion and derision.

Although I am nearing 50, I have experienced so little in my life, memoirs are fairly counter-intuitive. Paragraphs of starts-and-stops, raging relationships and subjective travel tips do not make an autobio sing. Likewise, my journaling exploits were usually impotent diatribes on the cruelties of (bar) life, more than often created after a night of bourbon self-abuse (try deciphering drunken scrawl the next morning).

2013 may not be watershed in any shape or form. I hope to produce some decent artwork and be of use in some way. I may be sitting here in a year's time in pretty much the same place, space and time. I may be homeless, infirmed, deceased, still single. Maybe I will land a well-paying job, more than likely another dull time-filler. Perhaps welfare and food stamps await. But I feel some doorway needs to be passed through - whether the world changes in a major way or I do. Probably both.

What I lack in social responsibility (as I am, for all practical purposes, a recluse), I make up for in pursuing too many grains of interest. Too many books, too much music, altogether too many dvds. I would like to concentrate on just a few things and drastically, voluntarily reduce my clutter (physically and emotionally). I vow not to go on about job searching and the iniquities of middle age. I admit am being challenged with physical problems, for instance, (a frozen shoulder due to I-sit-at-a-computer-all-day), but I'm a huge follower of nutrition and sustainability, so there's fodder for blog-happiness. There will certainly be drops of southern gothic, some zen, crazy beat logic, old wave suspicion, Italian neo-realism, sax & violins.

So, I will move back and forth through time this year navigating my only personal relationship with the forces-that-be. Don't worry, I will avoid all cliches about hoping to emerge from my chrysalis a bright and shiny new mind.