Post-Birthday "Poop"

I miss posting graffiti it was the whole inspiration for this blog. So here's some more. Graffiti using the word "poop" always makes me laugh. It's so juvenile, and so opposite of all of the posturing one has to do in New York at times. It just breaks it down. I get so uptight about the posturing, but it's just a part of the game, a part of life here. Sometimes that's one of the reasons I feel like I have to leave this place. But the thing is, there are a few things I still have to do here. You know how your gut tells you you're not done yet, even though you feel like you should have been done years ago? Mainly, I think I've just been lazy and sad (one feeding the other) lately and not opening my eyes to see, so I've been lost. Time is passing and I'm getting older, and still have yet to do much I'm proud of. I'm working on it, it just hasn't come to fruition yet. For some of us it takes longer. I guess I just have to honor how long it's taking me.



I just turned 37 on Tuesday, and was having a conversation about failure with a friend the other day. And when you take the argument that you're a failure to it's logical end, you generally end up realizing you're not a failure at all, really, you're usually right in the middle of doing the things you set out to do, you're in the thick of making that success you long for. The main thing I want to try to remember is that I came from a very different kind of place. I mean, I grew up in a trailer park. For real. And here I am, trailer trash all growed up, having published only a couple of poems, but having gotten into a respectable MFA program, making a decent living in new media, having had at least a couple of big love loves in my life, blessed with interesting and kind friends and family, surviving in a machine of a city that can really chew you up, and finding at least a little happiness along the way. No, I don't have a tenured spot somewhere or a book deal, or scads of money, and I'm not out saving the world or traveling everywhere I'd like to go, but I have done well at trivia, hammed it up at karaoke and had a few good kisses in my time, and (the elephant in my head and virtual room here, if I'm honest) am no longer under the heavy thumb of poverty, and, well, that's a poopload to be thankful for. Happy birthday to me, if I do say so myself.