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2014: The Year of Making Changes
Jan. 4th, 2014 11:57 amSo, the new year is a mere four days old, and it's already beginning to feel like ... well ... a new year. Beginning to make some moves and take some leaps to move my life forward in the direction I want it to go. Even if I didn't think of it that way, I think I spent the better part of the last few years waiting for someone to change things for me. That doesn't work. Maybe some people are that lucky, but I've never been one of them.
The first change has been Lea and I freeing ourselves from cable TV. Don't get me wrong: I like television. I think it's a fabulous medium to tell interesting and innovative stories, and even a lot of the "garbage" has something to offer. But increasingly, it got harder and harder to justify the cost, especially as we were almost always a day behind on everything anyway. And after some remarkably emotional conversations with the cable company, and several bungles on their part, the nice gentleman from Charter stopped by today to take our DVR. From here on out, it's all Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime and Netflix. Which, between them, have most of what we previously watched, at a fraction of the price, for considerably less. Indeed, we already had Amazon Prime and Netflix, so Hulu Plus was the only new expense. We also shelled out some money for a Chrome Cast device and a tablet, to help facilitate watching Web-only content, but even that expense pales before what we were paying for cable.
I don't know if we'll be watching less TV, but over the past couple weeks of experimenting, I've already begun to feel the rhythm of how we watch TV change. That, and a few extra dollars in our pocket, count as small victories. We'll see how it all pans out as we go.
***
Almost all of my non-professional writing effort has been poured into my manuscript, Why We Should Suffer For This. Right now, I'm in a holding pattern. I have a few friends looking at the latest draft, to help me discern what needs to be done to improve it in the next draft. Note, I didn't say "if anything." I know full-well there are flaws there, and indeed, the feedback so far has born out a lot of what I suspected but didn't verbalize. This is why you turn to smart, honest friends.
It's hard not leaping back into the editing fray, but I promised myself I'd wait until the end of January. I'll be reading excerpts from the manuscript Jan. 24 at Annie's Book Stop here in Worcester, and excerpts from the manuscript will be published about that time in the fabulous online literary journal, Amethyst Arsenic. I figure the feedback from all of the above will give me enough information as to how to approach the fourth draft.
This all feels a bit like I'm writing in public, but it seems to be working for me.
***
My poem "Traveling by Map" appears as part of Matthew Mars' exhibit "Written on the World: 21st century Cartography," starting today in the Mike Kelley Gallery at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice, Calif. The exhibit runs through Jan. 26, with an artists' reception 3 p.m. Jan. 5, where there will surely be poetry and music. Alas, I can't make it to the West Coast for this one, so please, go have fun for me.
Over at the T&G, I have a few things up: First off, I have a list of my favorite music videos from 2013, including work by Prince, David Bowie, the Evil Streaks, Little War Twins and more.
I also have up an essay called "Looking for a New England: C. Anthony Martignetti, Jack McCarthy and a place's voice." It's one of those overly ponderous pieces I do, this time meditating on what it means to be a "New England writer," focusing in on Martignetti and the late McCarthy.
For the most part, I still see myself as a SoCal writer, still think that's where my voice best resonates and where I think it finds its natural inflection and diction. Not that it really matters much, but there it is. Some things just never get out of your blood.
Lastly, my first new music discovery of the year is the sharp-tongued Conn. singer-songwriter, Anastasia Markov, and Radius has poems up by Franny Choi and Sean DesVignes.
And that's about it. Lots of work ahead, but I'm feeling OK about it.
But first, more shoveling ...
The first change has been Lea and I freeing ourselves from cable TV. Don't get me wrong: I like television. I think it's a fabulous medium to tell interesting and innovative stories, and even a lot of the "garbage" has something to offer. But increasingly, it got harder and harder to justify the cost, especially as we were almost always a day behind on everything anyway. And after some remarkably emotional conversations with the cable company, and several bungles on their part, the nice gentleman from Charter stopped by today to take our DVR. From here on out, it's all Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime and Netflix. Which, between them, have most of what we previously watched, at a fraction of the price, for considerably less. Indeed, we already had Amazon Prime and Netflix, so Hulu Plus was the only new expense. We also shelled out some money for a Chrome Cast device and a tablet, to help facilitate watching Web-only content, but even that expense pales before what we were paying for cable.
I don't know if we'll be watching less TV, but over the past couple weeks of experimenting, I've already begun to feel the rhythm of how we watch TV change. That, and a few extra dollars in our pocket, count as small victories. We'll see how it all pans out as we go.
***
Almost all of my non-professional writing effort has been poured into my manuscript, Why We Should Suffer For This. Right now, I'm in a holding pattern. I have a few friends looking at the latest draft, to help me discern what needs to be done to improve it in the next draft. Note, I didn't say "if anything." I know full-well there are flaws there, and indeed, the feedback so far has born out a lot of what I suspected but didn't verbalize. This is why you turn to smart, honest friends.
It's hard not leaping back into the editing fray, but I promised myself I'd wait until the end of January. I'll be reading excerpts from the manuscript Jan. 24 at Annie's Book Stop here in Worcester, and excerpts from the manuscript will be published about that time in the fabulous online literary journal, Amethyst Arsenic. I figure the feedback from all of the above will give me enough information as to how to approach the fourth draft.
This all feels a bit like I'm writing in public, but it seems to be working for me.
***
My poem "Traveling by Map" appears as part of Matthew Mars' exhibit "Written on the World: 21st century Cartography," starting today in the Mike Kelley Gallery at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice, Calif. The exhibit runs through Jan. 26, with an artists' reception 3 p.m. Jan. 5, where there will surely be poetry and music. Alas, I can't make it to the West Coast for this one, so please, go have fun for me.
Over at the T&G, I have a few things up: First off, I have a list of my favorite music videos from 2013, including work by Prince, David Bowie, the Evil Streaks, Little War Twins and more.
I also have up an essay called "Looking for a New England: C. Anthony Martignetti, Jack McCarthy and a place's voice." It's one of those overly ponderous pieces I do, this time meditating on what it means to be a "New England writer," focusing in on Martignetti and the late McCarthy.
For the most part, I still see myself as a SoCal writer, still think that's where my voice best resonates and where I think it finds its natural inflection and diction. Not that it really matters much, but there it is. Some things just never get out of your blood.
Lastly, my first new music discovery of the year is the sharp-tongued Conn. singer-songwriter, Anastasia Markov, and Radius has poems up by Franny Choi and Sean DesVignes.
And that's about it. Lots of work ahead, but I'm feeling OK about it.
But first, more shoveling ...
