The Future

I have been writing specifically for journals and competitions recently. It takes up all my time. It has been interesting finding out what I am good at and what I enjoy doing. I would have never called myself a poet, but put together a 100 page poetry book for a competition. I would never have called myself a short story writer, but have written extensively for competition. It turns out that what I like to write and what I do well is horror. The autobiography has to be written at some point, but is so painful that I can barely force myself to do it. Instead autobiographical elements in my work are there, but not the focus. It is easier that way. I love writing about music, but there is not the outlet for it.

My blog is going to transition to an outlet for my musical musings, and for my occasional rantings and ravings. I have to try and break through, get an agent, earn money, and for that the blog is going to have to take a backseat, because it just doesn’t pay. I will be putting up one music-themed piece a week, and a couple of blog entries from here on in. If anyone has a band or an album they would like to see getting the Detroit treatment, list it in the comments and I will get to it! I will also do the occasional book review. I am particularly interested in new literature, so any recommendations are appreciated.

I have learnt so much from just writing for the blog. It helped me find my voice, and carve out a style for myself. It is comforting to know if I ever want to spill my guts on the page, The Paltry Sum is here and I am the editor. Publish and be damned! I can say that penis owners do not belong in female spaces, and that lesbian online dating is a garbage fire of dick and patriarchal gaslighting and no one can stop me. That brings me deep joy. I have managed to haul my lesbian self out the closet and actually come out. I have never been so unguardedly me before.

When I first starting writing for my blog I was so scared of anyone knowing anything about me. It felt dangerous, and perhaps it was. Maybe it still is. However being silenced, being scared, living a life in the shadows hiding, is no way to live. In fact it is impossible to keep up forever. I have plenty to hide from but there is much I can be open about. I can say I don’t like Sgt Pepper’s, that my sleb crush is Natasha Lyonne, that when I went out wearing a shirt and tie I felt really good about myself, and that I think safe supply is the way to go to save the City. I can even come out as being a gay woman…but here it gets more dangerous. The Patriarchy does not like women who tell men no. It does not like women who tell men they are not women and can never be women. It doesn’t like women who tell their abusive husbands that is The End and they are leaving. It does not like women who tell the world to go fuck themselves and instead chose to live free. The Patriarchy, my friends, does not like me and has spent decades trying to destroy me. They haven’t succeeded yet, and partly that is due to the Sisterhood closing ranks around me. For that I can never say thank you enough.

The days wind on here, and my real bricks and mortar life clicks on apace. Days come and go, the weather gets crazier by the year, and the world keeps trying to end regularly. Men need to hand over the reins to women. This Russia business is making me nervous. Biden is weaker than my grandmother’s tea. Putin is insane in the membrane, the Ukraine is not going to bow down to the Russian bear, and nor should it, but holy cow, who wants nuclear war! Not me.

I survived the nuclear meltdown during the 2011 Tokyo earthquake. I was downwind of the invisible menace, and can tell you that when you can’t see it, but it can kill you and those you love, it is incredibly stressful. You worry about your food, the water – and rightly too. The selling of contaminated food, and provision of contaminated water should have been a crime, but it wasn’t. It was repackaged, processed outside of Fukushima and sold just the same. I spent far too much time trying to feed my family without raising their cancer risks. There should be no nuclear power, no nuclear bombs, none of it. We can guarantee not its safety, but instead that eventually, somewhere something will go wrong and when it does, us little people are the collateral damage. Men use up the world as if people are expendable and they have a fresh new clean one to go to.

Cheery today, aren’t I? The thing is outside of the blast zone, there will be many survivors and it is not going to be very pretty. In short. I am afraid. I am afraid that the men and their Patriarchy who could destroy me, could destroy all of us in a fit of egotistical rage. Something has to change.

But not today. Today I am going to walk downtown and people watch from a café. I will go say hello to the water and get back in time to watch the Yankees. Today, at least some of today, I will spend being carefree and happy. Who knows how much longer I have left to be happy. Who knows how much longer any of us do.

…If you want to buy me a cup of coffee, my Patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/ThePaltrySum