Oh, no, is he still depressed?

Well, yeah, he is.

I can read all y'all's minds, and sense you're not digging reading about my Black Fog. Neither am I. But it remains, and that's that.

No spilling my guts about the Really Important Stuff, though. I just finished writing a long screed to a friend pouring it all out to him, and am not inclined to repeat it all.

So I'll just bitch about work again, which, aside from the Really Important Stuff, seems to be taking up 99% of my waking life.

Got my itinerary for the Daytona Beach trip this morning, and found it's a six-day gig. To keep it above the minimum-wage line, I'll have to generate five stories out of it. That won't be particularly easy. It's gonna be chicken-with-its-head-cut-off time, baby.

While I only made it halfway through another article today, it's a near-miracle I got that far. Haggling over future stories was the big thing: I'm still to-and-fro-ing with PR weenies on a major piece. I mentioned it before; they are still being creeps, right up to the moment when they either cave in or I get loud & abusive and cancel the whole thing.

Spent another hour talking to an editor from a book* I seldom contribute to. I stay away only for budgetary reasons, I assure you; I love the editor -- not that way, though she is incredibly smart, well-read, super-nice to work with and easier on the eyes than a Visine bath -- and would be a happy boy indeed if I wrote only for her**. But because the stories take much effort for little return. Still, she comes up with pieces I want to do (if only to be able to gab with her) and I can't resist. We discussed what I'm preparing to send her, and she loved it enough to ask that I expand it considerably with info she knows I already have. Oh, well, they pay by page count....

Do you see a problem coming up here? It's this: I can't juggle 'leventy-seven stories at once, and it seems I will be doing that for some weeks to come. More than once during the day I have had to simply walk away from the desk and go outside to stare at the seagulls lest I put my fist through the monitor.

This is a big deal to me when I'm happy. Imagine what it's like to wade through it all when it seems so completely pointless.

That's where the Really Important Stuff comes in.

Which is a good place for me to sign out.


* We Real Magazine Writers call magazines "books," probably to give ourselves some fraudulent but much-needed dignity.

** If her "book" covered a wider range of topics, that is. Some years ago, I put in time doing a major selling job to get a fancier magazine to hire her. If they had, I would be their word-slave. They dug her too, but didn't offer her enough money to make her want to relocate.