in the past week, i have done all kinds of stuff.
not the least of which are turning down a headhunted position for twice my salary, submitting three works for publication, trying to figure out the rest of my life, and traveling to Toronto with
the purpose of the trip was to celebrate the recent gradumatation of
i am at a weird place right now. i am trying not to stress about money and failing. i am trying not to dwell on current events and failing. i have been reading Benjamin Franklin : An American Life, which i vaulted into after reading The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, which I felt I needed more information to assimilate totally. these are both on the tail of Salt : A World History.
all three are superb reads. salt offered a very interesting view of the development of world history. while there were many things i knew already, there were a few things i learned, which definitely made it worthwhile. i loved that the book offered culinary history in addition to cultural insight. it made me want to pickle stuff.
my quest for franklin comes on the wake of a discussion of heroes and anti heroes which devolved from a lj poll or some nonsense some time ago. franklin has always been a hero of mine. he is someone who walked the line between honest and straightforward and totally manipulative and duplicitous for the purposes of manipulation. regardless of his mode of action, he was someone who fought for what he believed in, made compromises when needed to, and put up his dukes when the compromises failed. as i much suspected, his memoirs are rather allegorical, and somewhat hazy on certain facts, but having a good basis for further research has helped round some edges, and sharpen some things i previously considered round about him.
reading about franklin’s life and times has simply made me more dissatisfied with the here and now. we live in a country with a bustling middle class steeped in ignorance and consumerism, with very little social mobility through useful tradesman labor. most of our issues regarding international debt, international trade, and the threats apparent to that middle class via globalism and off shoring and outsourcing are directly correlated to the death of the skilled laborer in our country. it scares me that there is no longer a frontier to escape to.
despite all my focus on reading for enrichment, it seems my brain has been pushing on only creative for several weeks. i have stories pouring out of my head, but little time to get more than skeletons put together. i need to make some tome to rectify that. i don’t know when though, as i will be spending the independence day week out and about, and have a couple other weekend engagements spread throughout the summer.
work is nuts. i foresee many many early mornings in my future, if i want to maintain a human schedule in the afternoon/evenings.
n other news, i need some new suits, a new mp3 player (mine is last-legging) and some sleep. wednesday is the solstice, anyone know of any good rooftop bars?