And what did we learn from this? Never tag your flickr picture “tits.” No matter how much it ups your view count, it’s not worth it.

On a side note: apparently I have the knowledge to be considered a Professional in Human Resources, or at least pass the stupid exam. I would’ve thought that my gratuitous overuse of “that’s what she said,” would keep me from being considered a professional anything, but apparently that has no bearing on my ability to pass a standardized test. Anyhow: woot.

I haven’t been feeling much like writing lately. I know that creativity comes in waves so I’m just trying to roll with it.

jackhammer knuckles
paper-bag lungs
caution tape mouth

no one has to wonder
where they stand
with me

unsustainable
tiptoeing around the bush
or beating on eggshells

brashness is a vice

I’m unrepentant
I refuse
to be seen and not heard.

I’m not going to waste your time or mine on pithy excuses.

What matters is, I need to face the real reason why I haven’t been writing.

I’m squirming in my seat, embarrassed to admit this puerile-sounding fact so publicly.

I’m jealous of Violet; specifically, jealous of her amazing writing abilities.

My feelings aren’t exacerbated by anything she’s done.  Violet is consistently encouraging, supportive, and patient.  Unfortunately, this verdant intransigence is entirely my fault, and my problem.

For years, my identity and my art were deeply entangled.  I was the writer. Writing helped propel me through my tumultuous adolescence. Dreams of weaving stories that shaped lives and moved hearts gave me the strength to endure high school.

In college, writing was still my saving grace. I intuitively understood how to bend words into compelling shapes to suit my rhetorical whims. When my friends needed help proofreading their papers, I was the first one they called. I still dreamed of publishing a novel, but I was beginning to understand that hard work and talent alone weren’t enough to realize my fantasy.

Occasionally, I made other things. I hooked yarn and splattered paint. I doodled in pen and ink. I captured moments, feeling, intent with a lens and a few pixels. These creative pursuits were fun, but they felt too playful to rightfully be called art.

Then I fell in love with someone who was also the writer. She had a writing degree and an ubershiny blog. She was asked to write for Punkass! Her fiction accrued more praise than my own ever had.

Instead of rejoicing in our shared passion, I felt threatened, inferior.  I shut down.  I wondered why I should bother to write at all, when Violet’s prose was more robust, more elegant, more supple than my own.

My feelings were, and still are, completely irrational. Why can’t we both be writers? Just because someone else I care about has talent, why should that diminish my own joy in the creative process? If I truly feel that Violet is a better writer, why can’t I shove aside my ego and learn from her?

I am still attempting to prop up my self-esteem with praise about my writing. Although I may have needed an ego crutch to survive in the past, that crutch has become dead weight. I need to let it go.

It would be nice to publish a book. Nice, but unnecessary. Money has a way of sucking the fun out of anything it gets involved in. I don’t want to have to hawk my wares to everyone I meet in order to make a living. Capitalism makes us all into whores, and I’d rather whore my ability to nod sympathetically and make spreadsheets than whore something that really matters to me. Therefore, I need to stop feeling like other artists are a threat, and their successes equate my own failure. Art is not a race, dammit.

Although I still feebly cling to my childhood dream of becoming an authoress, I can feel my emotional attachment to that fantasy transforming into something more rife with possibilities. Scarcity of talent is a fallacy: by surrounding myself with poetesses, painters, photographers, lovers, dreamers, and hookers, I am enriching, not eroding, my artistic self.