Unlimited carry-on

This one is going to be harder to explain. I may have to spread it out over multiple posts.

I think I mentioned earlier this series of dreams where my mother was gradually becoming more impaired and then disappearing, with more detail about her disappearance. They were getting progressively more horrible. That seems like pretty clear symbolism that as her dementia progresses, I get a clearer picture of that loss. 

There was recently a new dream that was much more positive. I was taking my mother back to see her family, and trying to remember my way to one aunt's apartment. This particular aunt died shortly after our last visit. Just as I remembered where to go, we got to a lobby and an elevator door opened and my aunt was there. 

I had not been worried about my aunt being dead, but I had been worried about whether Mom would recognize her and be happy to see her. They instantly embraced and were very happy and that was okay.

Yes, fairly clear symbolism there too, but this is good, and it corresponds to my beliefs, which still does not mean that event will be all happy feelings, I know.

One reason I hedged on accepting that meaning for the dream is that I was also traveling with my sisters and our father. 

Now, you can argue that my sisters and I are on this journey together, so it makes sense that they are there; not so for Dad! What was he doing there?

Another frequent dream occurrence that I don't believe I have written about is where I am trying to make my way into or home from work (and over a decade later, it is usually Intel), but I have my mother and I am trying to drag her along to my cubicle or get her situated, and it makes things harder.

She has not been my primary responsibility for a little over three years, but she was for a long time, and she still takes up a lot of my worry (and the hospice calls do come when I am working most of the time) so, yes, there is a way in which I am still carrying her with me.

I realized that my father is still always with me. I have made a lot of progress, but the impact of the years and the ways they have shaped my path are all still there.

This is why they call it baggage; it travels with you. Sometimes it is heavy.

For review, previously a lot of my baggage was this sense from before I can remember that there was something wrong with me, along with a sense of needing to try and fix everything and take care of everybody. I eventually was able to attribute that to misplaced responsibility for my father's own unhappiness with... himself, but it was always blamed on everyone else; I just took it more personally.

The way I dealt with that was trying not to feel anything, but there would be times (mostly during movies) when I could sense this deep pain, and it felt like it would just destroy me if I let it all out.

Sorting that out was important, and it has led to me feeling things more, without stuffing them down. This leaves room to feel other things.

What I am remembering now is my big frustration with my mother, from before all this, when her mind was still sharp. 

I'll feel more guilt for anything I say there, but I believe in healing, and I believe it requires truth. 

However, we have spent so much time on my father that I can wait and start with my mother next time.

Well, actually, I will probably start with a movie.

Black Music Month 2023: Other viewings

Let me start by saying that even though in last week's post I said I would probably have to give up on those last two movies for now, I was still trying to come up with strategies so I could somehow get them in this round.

It's just not going to happen.

Besides that, I got to see many cool things that I enjoyed a lot.

Slash: Raised on the Sunset Strip (2014)
Paris is Burning (1990)
Unsung: The Story of the Sylvers (2011)
Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (2021)
Reggae in a Babylon (1978)

Actually, I didn't enjoy Reggae in a Babylon all that much. The sound quality wasn't that great, and it didn't seem to have a strong point of view. What it did have was original footage from an important time, so there is an importance to it regardless.

The others all filled different places, but I liked each of them so much!

That previous post focused on serendipity, but the factors that made that serendipity possible were my having a lot of interests and frequently checking on those disparate areas.

(Actually, I believe a big help to my "book sense" is that I will periodically look though my entire to-read list, keeping the options fresh in my mind and allowing new associations to pop up.)

Anyway, The Sylvers and Slash both came up as suggestions on Youtube because of other things I had watched. I know the algorithms frequently lead toward white supremacy. Since I am often checking on things for research rather than taste, I also get a lot of suggestions that are irrelevant (no more jazz now!). However, sometimes things work out.

Slash was just a lot of fun. It certainly gives an idea of someone who must do music, but also it shows a whole Hollywood world of his childhood that I had no idea about. There is history of the band, but it's more than that.

Unsung is a whole series of episodes about various bands, many of which seem interesting. I hope to get to more eventually, but currently I have only watched two.

I had mentioned watching the one on Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam in a different post, but I knew about it because I had kept getting prompted to watch the episode on The Sylvers, singers of (among other songs) "Boogie Fever". 

Actually, when I combined Black Music Month plus Pride Month last year, as much as I knew Sylvester's music, I did not know him. My awareness of the artists who made the music was practically nonexistent until MTV (unless my parents played their records; that is a limited group). It has been enriching to learn more about music that is often so familiar.

That was one of the most intriguing things about Summer of Soul. It was great seeing the old footage, but especially touching to see new footage of people watching the old footage. Yes, that included Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. seeing old footage of their performance. More than that, there was someone who had attended the concert, and remembered, but also kind of didn't trust the memory. Was that real? And it was. 

That moment was just really beautiful.

Part of looking at history is tracing the path between it and the present. I have been looking back at things that are peripheral in my memory and bringing them forward. 

I remembered reading a review for Paris is Burning back in the day, and maybe even knowing there was a connection to the "Vogue" song. With the contemporary vilification of drag and seeing occasional references to Willi Ninja, it was just time to watch it.

It is easy to just have this impression of drag as garish queens. That is one cross-section, but there was so much more to it. Your drag could be military or a student, or just anything else that you wanted to try on. There was definitely a competitive aspect, and in that way I guess shows like Drag Race make sense. What stayed with me the most was the vulnerability of some of the house members that we got to know better, and then learning that they often didn't live very long. 

Paris was probably the least musical of the movies; the music was there, but not as much the point.

The points it did have were good, and ones we might be getting back to fairly soon.

More about my mother

The big resolution of the last thing that was happening with my mother (back in July) was that she was admitted to hospice.

(It was digestion related. Enough said.)

That sounds dramatic, but it initially did not seem so. She was having this one issue, and it was at a time when there were some staffing changes at the facility, and it just seemed like a good way to get her some extra attention.

Note: there may have been some denial in my reasoning, because there was another thing going on.

She was on an anticoagulant that builds up in your blood, so requires regular monitoring of the levels. That is the INR test. I had been the one taking the measurements because the pandemic had made other options unnecessarily difficult. Besides, I do finger sticks for my blood sugar all the time; it's not that different.

The INR requires a slightly larger drop of blood, about the size of a ladybug. The real test is how long it takes to clot, with the desired score being between 2 and 3. Lower than 2 means increased risk of clots, but higher than 3 means increased risk of bleeds. 

Earlier when the other issue was going on, her scores kept going back and forth. They were always out of range, but changing sides.

More recently, they settled on high, and getting higher. 

You want to avoid clots to avoid a stroke, but apparently bleeding can lead to a stroke too. The hospice nurse suggested quitting the anticoagulant and I agreed.

One of my sisters asked if we were just going to let her have a stroke then. Well, no, that wasn't it exactly. It didn't feel good.

Finally, after one of her falls (which are still not frequent, but they are more frequent), her pain was not going down. She had been on Tylenol for arthritis, but we recently added a small dose of morphine.

She is doing pretty well on that, but things were starting to feel a little dramatic. 

As we were admitting her, they said they could end up discharging her if she stabilized; that may have helped it just feel like a tool. It still brought changes. The focus is on making life comfortable, not prolonging it. That sounds reasonable, but then different medications aren't covered, and there is no more trying to diagnose... it is all logical but may not feel good.

Eventually, it was trying to explain the INR issue to my sisters that shifted my perspective. It's not about whether or not she has a stroke. Up until last month, we were able to use medication to keep her in a good range. The medication no longer doing that is the cause of her no longer taking it, not the result, but it's one more thing we don't control.

There has been the cognitive decline all along, but her physical health had remained stable. It's not anymore. That's why it feels so different.

One thing that kept us thinking we were in for the long haul was that not only was Mom physically pretty strong, but she had siblings who lived into their 90s. They were also mentally sharp. 

Okay, let's look at the family members who had dementia. 

Our mother has outlived her mother by eight years already. She is at the age when her sister died.

I am not exactly thinking it will be any day now, but I do not think she will be discharged.

That's part of why we are not planning any long or far away trips. Yes, money issues make that sensible, but it's not the only thing.

That is still not the new grief coming up. Grief over losing Mom has been present for some time, in multiple layers. There is something else too.

Related post:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/06/7-or-so-calls-to-get-to-know-my-life.html

Black Music Month 2023: Serendipity

One reason that I am always behind on various reading goals is that I am always juggling multiple goals. So, yes, I was working on Black music, but there are six other lists on my main tracking page and then other things come up, like books about birds.

(Because different materials tend to combine in surprising but good ways, I am okay with that, even if I periodically wish that I was 100 books or so ahead.)

My comics reading tends to be more spontaneous than planned, but there are a couple of series that I have been meaning to check out for a while and decided to get to this year. That had me thinking, well, how many volumes does the library have for Bee and PuppyCat and for Stumptown.

As I did a quick keyword search, there was this intriguing result, When Stumptown was Jumptown, A Sam Allen film. 

What is this?

It is a 45 minute film about the Portland jazz scene starting during World War II and for about 25 years after.

It is a student film, and I don't even mean a college student film. When he is talking about Century High, I was thinking he meant when he had been there, but no, he was a sophomore, and in the credits thanked a family member for doing all the driving, because he couldn't yet.

In terms of cinematic quality and editing and focus, it is not a great film. Also, Sam Allen is a little too enamored of himself as an artistic, musical, not-like-the-other-kids kid. Those are both probably age appropriate.

However, there in the first shot is the Aloha Mall! Then there are places I recognize in Beaverton, and Jimmy Mak's and Shute Park and Dick Bogle!

The movie itself is inspired by a book, Jumptown: The Golden Years of Portland Jazz, 1942 - 1957 by Robert Dietsche. I had not been familiar with him or the book, but he was a co-founder of Django Records. That name was totally familiar because the mother of one of my best friends worked there. (And I will read that book, but not this year.)

So there were all of these little flashes of recognition, which I enjoyed a lot. It is also important that someone filmed it, because we have lost of a lot of those those people since the movie release in 2005. 

It was a good find, and a surprise.

There was another surprise, though not quite as delightful.

For all of the movies and videos that I have been able to find, there are two that have been eluding me, and I just may need to put them off.

Joseph Shabalala: Music is My Life (2022)

The United States vs Billie Holiday (2021)

The issue is streaming of course. I know exactly where to find the Billie Holiday movie, but I don't have Hulu, and this is not really the time to sign up for new channels. If I do go that route, there will be other things I will want to watch, so I am not taking that lightly.

For the Joseph Shabalala movie, it may even be available for free, but my searches kept leading me to Apple TV+. I decided to sign up for the trial, and was shocked to find out that the free trial was only one week; most services give you a free month. I was just going to make sure to watch it right away, and then end the trial.

Once I completed signing up and signing in -- even though I was clicking on prompts to watch the movie to even get there -- they did not have it available.

However, they had a link to CODA (2021) which I have been wanting to see. It was really good, it gave me lots to think about, and I don't regret that.

I do think that Apple TV+ sucks the most out of all the different streaming platforms, and I do not love that business model under the best of circumstances.

Of course, CODA does not relate to Black Music Month (despite quite a bit of Motown), but it fits in with other interests. 

It will probably come up again.

Survived: First paycheck of 30

Some follow up from last Tuesday is required. A lot of people read it, and a lot of people commented. 

I hope no one is worrying too much. It felt important to write about it because I know I am not unique. If you are not in the same boat, great, but a lot of people are. Rising income inequality is going to increase that number. 

I gave up looking good long ago. I can only speak for myself, but I will speak honestly and openly. I hope it does help others.

I believe I can make this month's mortgage. It does require getting Maria's rent in, but today is her payday. We can survive that.

One thing that helps is that my last paycheck was not garnished. 

I get paid every two weeks. On the non-mortgage paycheck I have been holding back $300 so that the mortgage paycheck would go far enough. The amount being garnished is $318 per check. I held back some extra from the last check. Normally I would not need to wait for Maria's rent; that would go to groceries or utilities.

The next time the mortgage is due, both paychecks will have been garnished. Just for extra fun, it will also be a water bill month. (Most expenses are monthly, but water and garbage are every two months.)

Based on the amount being withheld and the amount granted, it will take almost thirty paychecks to pay off. That should make next Thanksgiving very exciting. (Unless one of the other creditors decides to sue me, but if they do they have to wait in line until Absolute Resolutions is done.)

Here is an example of my emotional state:

I have to inject a few times daily, and I use alcohol wipes for that. I noticed my box was getting low and had this brief upsurge of anxiety. Then I remembered...

1. I had more in the drawer.
2. I can use cotton balls and alcohol.
3. That is totally something Julie would buy for me. They are not expensive.
   

That is a common cycle: notice something, stress, calm back down. Not all of the answers are as easy, but we will get through this, just like we get through everything else. There surely will be some sacrifice, but that's life.

It is very fortunate that my most important hobby is learning and that our library system is so good (including their participation in Inter-Library Loan).

Two other things seem worth noting.

I do not doubt that some of the emotions on this are going to be harder because of things happening with my mother. I had gotten over this one source of pain, and now another one is coming into view. I am sure there will be more writing about that, but right now I am still getting familiar with this one.

In addition, allow me to mention that it is time for Julie's sabbatical. You will note us traveling. It may seem irresponsible. I would tell you it was already planned, but honestly, plans have changed quite a bit. That may have more to do with our mother than with finances, as spending longer times away seems like a worse idea now. 

I mean, we are always looking at being economical and efficient anyway, but this feels like extra pressure. There are a couple of overnight trips and one where we will be gone for two nights. 

The first time she had a sabbatical, we were gone for an entire month, but our situation was very different then. I did have more money, but I miss what we have lost with my mother more.

Black Music Month 2023: The Worst Part

The hardest part was listening to so many hours of free jazz; the worst part was reading two different books about the same two murders, and spending so much time in the mindset of cops.

Murder Rap: The Untold Story of the Biggie Smalls & Tupac Shakur Murder Investigations by the Detective Who Solved Both Cases by Greg Kading 

Labyrinth: A Detective Investigates the Murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., the Implication of Death Row Records' Suge Knight, and the Origins of the Los Angeles Police Scandal by Randall Sullivan

Those subtitles get out of hand.

I was a little irritated with the hero cop narrative in Kading's book, which I read first. I just re-read the reviews I left for both books, and I had put a line in there about how only cops minimize the Rampart scandal. That was because as I was reading it, I kept remembering a former classmate and police officer telling me how overblown it was, and it was just a handful of bad apples. Very familiar.

Sullivan was so much worse.

To be fair, he was much more willing to admit corruption, but all of it was the fault of the increased recruitment of Black and Latinx officers (not said so nicely). That was not just the source of all the corrupt cops, but was also because they lowered the standards so they even could have officers of color. And then that liberal thinking gave them a Black chief of police!

I know the corruption of white police officers became a lot easier to find after we started having video cameras everywhere, but that doesn't make it new.

The overt racism was astonishing. It's hard to tell how much of that comes from the detective, Russell Poole, or the author, Randall Sullivan. I guess they're a good match. There is just such enormous contempt for everyone who is not white, as well as a few white people who are too friendly with those others. There are some fairly contemptible people in it too, with some pretty terrible actions, but the book just becomes a work of racism, and an ode to Poole. Multiple sections start with quotes about how great he is, though they seem to largely relate to his time at the academy, giving the impression that maybe he peaked there, and no one (except Sullivan) had anything to say after the regular evaluations.

I have two more things to say about LAbyrinth. 

1. It is so thoroughly steeped in dominator culture that it is absolutely perfect that in the related movie Poole is played by Johnny Depp, who had a powerful influence on abusers suing their victims and successfully exploiting power.
2. I recently realized that I had another book by Sullivan on my reading list. It was set in Oregon and sounded interesting, but being familiar now with his writing and his racism, it can't possibly be interesting enough.

Otherwise, the conclusions of the books are pretty similar. Sullivan -- who is more likely to see weird conspiracy -- does suggest that one of the initial conflicts that played a key role in both murders may have been a setup. It's not impossible, but it doesn't really go along with the level of planning on everything else.

My overall impression from those books is yes, defund the police! The sooner the better!

But I already leaned that way.

I could leave it at that, but there were some other thoughts, and they came more into focus recently.

One of the interesting things in reading about Suge Knight and Death Row Records is that it seems that everyone eventually wanted out. Some made it out more successfully than others, but that's what they all wanted. As much as Knight could promise in terms of safety and wealth and success, those promises kept falling through, for multiple reasons.

There is a lot of violence -- some of it mind-numbingly stupid -- and that's not really a surprise. "Gangster" rap; it's right there in the title! But does it have to be that way?

That leads to the other thing I as thinking about.

I also watched Marley, a 2012 documentary about Bob Marley.

After, my sisters asked me if he were a pig. 

Well, he certainly wasn't a police officer.

They meant if he was a cheater, a not uncommon failing with professional musicians. I don't really know how to answer.

He did sleep with other women. Rita knew about them, but the other women did not always know about her. 

One of them seems to have been young, and one he started out by calling her "ugly" for having treated hair... like is this early negging? There are ways in which he isn't too likable, and he doesn't seem to have been the best father.

But also his father seduced Bob's much younger mother, and the mother of the half-sister he only found out about accidentally, and he wasn't really there for either of them.

Bob was shunned for being mixed, and then his mother moved to the States, which you would think was mainly for greater financial opportunity but it turns out there was also horrific political violence in Trenchtown. It was like gang violence, but going for elected positions rather than positions that are officially criminal. And even though he did not choose a side, just for wanting the perform a benefit concert and try and do some good he got shot.

Who am I to judge him?

He was a person. Despite a hard beginning he left an impression. He had faults (don't we all), but it is easy to forget how hard life can be, and how much we can be influenced by the world around us, often without even noticing.

So, no, I would not describe him as chaste or monogamous, but he wouldn't expect me to.

The new stress

Perhaps I should clarify that I am running at a higher stress level with my mother now, regardless. I think the events previously covered took us down a level, and I don't know how many levels we have left.

That is stress, but mainly in a way that makes me feel sad. This new one is more like sudden knots in the stomach, or an increase in breathing that seems like it might be going into a panic attack, but it doesn't get all the way there.

Brief review: In 2016 I was laid off and became my mother's full-time caregiver up when I realized she could not be safely left alone. That lasted until 2020, by which time she had lost all attachment to us and the pets and the house, and then after a very discouraging search I found a new job in 2021.

I lost a lot of ground financially during that time.

On the mortgage level, that has been resolved by a refinancing that changed the 30-year mortgage to a 40-year mortgage. That means that even though if you add up all of the payments, I have paid more than the value of the house once, but I will still have to do it three more times. 

There was no similar resolution for my commercial debt. I never got to the point where I was making enough money to pay that back. Periodically I would get offers to have the debt reduced if I would make a big payment, but that also required having money which I did not have.

I kept all the numbers in a spreadsheet, updating when I would get notifications about one of the debts being sold. I always hoped for a breakthrough, where I would be able to make some headway, but things never got better enough.

This Friday, my wages start being garnished.

For this particular stress, a big part of it is fear: how will I keep making the house payment? Or utilities? 

There are smaller things, like maybe sometimes being able to give someone a few bucks, or to order food in. It doesn't add up to enough to make payments, but it does make life better. There's going to be less of that.

I know the standard example is a daily $5 coffee or avocado toast. I spend less than that on myself, but for the record, a year's worth of $5 coffees would not equal one of the payoff amounts. Trying to cut enough to get a monthly payment... it's just not there.

I have to say, though, that a really big part of the stress initially was just the shame.

I know that is intended.

I actually did say in my job interview that if they were going to do a credit check it would not look good. They said they didn't do that, so, it's not like there were any shattered illusions. Still, my employer knows that I am a deadbeat. 

Looking over that paperwork, I feel so worthless. Loser!

I was really conscientious before. One of the debt collectors even mentioned it, back at the beginning. Eventually I just stopped answering the phone, because there was nothing new to say. I got used to not being able to pay.

Now I am still not able to pay, and yet I will be paying.

That is probably going to get worse before it gets better.

When I don't have a few bucks to give someone else, that will probably sting. I mean, I've been there lots of times, but this will be worse. 

Wanting things will be worse, but it may not be that bad. My needs are pretty simple.

When my sisters plan a trip, they will probably still take me. I like having some spending money of my own, but that's my problem. 

I could have it so much worse, and I know that, but you don't stop feeling things just for knowing that.

I am not feeling so hot.

I am trying to reject the stigma.

Black Music Month 2023: The hardest part

One of the books I read was Black Music by Amiri Baraka, though it is generally listed under LeRoi Jones.

His writing is lyrical -- perfect for music writing -- and passionate. I think he had a tendency to be passionate anyway, but compared to his writing about blues, jazz enraptures him.

As we have covered, I do not appreciate jazz. 

Well, I do seem to be okay with hot jazz but this is mainly free jazz. Avant-garde.

I do not hear what he hears. 

I had sort of made peace with it, in that some people seem to appreciate rock or jazz but not both, and I definitely lean toward rock. there is still some wish that I did understand.

For example, in Ken Kesey's Sometimes A Great Notion, Lee gets a rise out of Hank -- after they have been bonding over jazz -- by playing some Coltrane. I can get why he objected to Coltrane, but why not the others? 

Was some of it too modern where it's related to the times? Am I too young to understand it?

When SpongeBob and Patrick were trying to be sophisticated, I believe they showed it by listening to smooth jazz.

A friend recently told me about a Langston Hughes character, "Simple", who theorized that be-bop is the sound a police club makes on a Black man's head, so white people can't appreciate it.

I might be too white.

However, I would like to add that it was like when I was reviewing M83 and my dog left the room. The cats don't like jazz either. (They must not be hep cats.)

Anyway, Black Music has a discography in the back, and I made myself listen to all of it. I did not really enjoy any of it. I felt like I should do some daily songs, but picking was going to be difficult.

Listening on Spotify, when you reach the end of what you started, it brings up something else that it feels is related. I usually did not hate those as much.

So the daily songs for July are mostly things that came up after listening to an album from the discography. Sometimes the artists were people I listened too, but not from those albums.

I don't necessarily love these either. Some are chosen on the strength of the names, like "Boplicity",

Maybe someday I will be sophisticated, but it's not today. Still, I did make it through that discography, even though it was the hardest part.

And it was not the worst part.

Daily Songs

7/1 “Smooch” by Miles Davis
7/2 “Shu Shu” by Ike Quebec
7/3 “Brownskin Girl” by Sonny Rollins
7/4 “Caribé” by Eric Dolphy
7/5 “Volga Boatmen” by Ahmad Jamal Trio
7/6 “All the Things You Are” by Dizzy Gillespie
7/7 “Softly As In A Morning Sunrise (Rudy Van Gelder Edition)” by Paul Chambers Quintet
7/8 “Portal” by Matthew Shipp
7/9 “Angel Voice” by Ornette Coleman
7/10 “Bye-ya” by Thelonius Monk
7/11 “Boplicity” by Miles Davis
7/12 “Love” by John Coltrane
7/13 “Free” by Ornette Coleman
7/14 “Our Delight” by Fats Navarro
7/15 “Drum One” by Paul Bley
7/16 “Windows” by Chick Corea
7/17 “You Are My Lucky Star” by Sonny Rollins
7/18 “Eventually” by Ornette Coleman
7/19 “Giant Steps” by John Coltrane
7/20 “Care Free” by Art Ensemble of Chicago
7/21 “Shirl” by Horace Silver Quintet
7/22 “Monk In Wonderland” by Grachan Moncur III
7/23 “Tomorrow Is The Question!” by Ornette Coleman
7/24 “Blue Free” by Grachan Moncur III
7/25 “Ida Lupino” by the Paul Bley Trio
7/26 “Ankh #1” by Sun Ra
7/27 “Mascaram Setaba” by Mulatu Astatke
7/28 “Spirits” by Albert Ayler
7/29 “London” by Angel Bat David
7/30 “Addis Black Widow” by Mulatu Astatke, The Heliocentrics
7/31 “Sweet and Lovely” by Elmo Hope Trio 

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/07/black-music-month-2023-prelude.html

Potential additional factors in the pain

I believe that the stress with Mom was the greatest factor in the pain. I also believe that the amount of time that I spend at the computer and the position and the work stress -- which was made worse by that need to be available for Mom's issues -- was a big factor in the pain.

There might have this other thing, too, but it's weird. I had been thinking about it for a while, so it was old news.

Regardless of what other careers I imagined myself in, writing was always there. That's my thing. I love telling stories, I love passing along information and helping other people to get to know things, and I love language.

Five novels, nine feature-length screenplays, two pilots and treatments, contest submissions, and 3622 blog posts over three blogs later, I have made about $100 from it. Some of it was for people, requesting help. They did not pay. (This is very normal.)

There has been a whole journey with that. I remember when I was still young and fresh reading something about how it was impractical for people to have these side creative endeavors, because you did not really have the time for them and you were very unlikely to earn a living from them. Being young and fresh, I did have time and energy. That has gotten a lot harder, with a lot of discouragement along the way.

In 2015 was reading Scott Timberg's Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class, about how a lot of the types of jobs and programs that allowed people to get by long enough to establish themselves in their desired profession were going away. I could see the sense in what he was saying, but not long after people started doing away with paid internships. There were some signs of at least the possibility of more equality of opportunity.

The one that really encouraged me was the ability to submit unsolicited submissions to Amazon Studios. Attempts to get an agent had gone nowhere and I didn't have any connections. Having somewhere to submit seemed like a gift, except everything got turned down so quickly. They did produce projects, but they were all from existing materials, or had come attached to names.

There was really never a chance.

That had struck me earlier, but not that long ago. I might have needed to mourn my writing hopes, except they had already been dead for so long.

Then, quite recently, I was reading Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood by Maureen Ryan.

It's about how toxic Hollywood is, which in light of the strikes now, yes, there was a lot about how capitalism kills everything. I kind of knew, but it was worse. I started feeling like it was good that I never made it.

I am pretty sure that I could have avoided becoming corrupted by it, but I don't think I would have been able to overcome the system. That would have left me another person who has to walk away to keep their soul, possibly not before becoming utterly burnt out and bitter.

Okay, I got burnt out anyway, differently, but I am mostly not bitter.

That should have been a relief, like "Wow! Close call!"

Nope. I was really angry.

Maybe it hurt more to have the dream be crappy than unobtainable; I'm really not sure. Maybe I just felt too connected to everyone who got in and then suffered for it.

Then, again, looking at the strikes and the greed on the part of the studios, they are not that different from all of the other job creators.

I don't regret the writing. Some of the things that I have felt while writing, and the flow that I have been able to experience... that has been valuable. I know there are times when I entertained people, and times when I touched people and helped them with things through my writing. Numbers are low, but those people are real and I am glad for them.

I might regret ever entertaining the idea that success was really possible. I have some good talents and abilities, but the class I was born into has had more career and economic impact on my life than anything else. The loss of the illusion that I could escape... I knew ways in which the world was bad, a lot, really... but it's worse.

And possibly I just started feeling all of that weight on my right shoulder, and neck, and collarbone.