The California picture

Okay, another picture...some of you have already seen this shot...but it was taken of me during my year in Mississippi (hmmm...maybe there is an incongruity to my appearance, no?)

We dropped it through a "solarizing" filter and my hair turned from salt-and-pepper to blonde...so it was immediately nick-named the "California" shot.

Note how short my hair was, then...like most poets, I do have to work in the real world...even the most commercially successful American poets have jobs as college professors or musicians or pimps, and I had just taken my first 'tail off to take a job as a car salesman. It didn't last long...I found a better job, and the debilitating stress of being constantly asked to lie to people was brutal. I was glad to take my exit there...more about that whole bizzaro scene in my memoir...

Yes, I do still feel the connection to SoCal, and I know when I go there this fall for my daughter's wedding it will be tough for me to leave (some are wagering I won't leave...I'm tempted to lay money down on that). California was good to me...a very vibrant arts scene, and the opportunity to work in meaningful jobs like being the Alcohol and Drug Resource Specialist for a middle school in gang territory, or managing a county's "Friday Night Live" program, trying to keep kids from drinking and driving on a weekend, or assisting with mentoring programs.

There's more to life than the accumulation of wealth, more to life than getting what you want at the expense of others. There's beauty and honor and truth and charity and love and sacrifice and hope and joy. And none of those can be bought, only illusions of them.

As my fiscal situation slowly turns the corner into sanity, I am more aware of this than when I was holding a six figure job in consulting, surrounded by people for whom self-preservation was the highest virtue. I largely walked away from all of that to save the life of someone I care for, and would do it again (although maybe with a bit better nuance...re-entry was largely closed off to me by a floundering and foundering technical marketplace (thank you, Mr. President, for screwing up the US economy in record time) and my desire to finish the work I'd begun on my latest "project"...) although perhaps that is just my steaming pile of rationale for not being able to hang onto my position of authority when I turned the corner ethically.

But, I digress...anythewaywhoooooo...

Celebrate National Poetry Month. Sleep with an amomancer. (This has been a public service of the International Federation to Create More Muses and your local public library...)