Miracle Recovery. Being Naked.

My computer is back, courtesy of the diagnostic geniuses at Apple. Best of all, they fixed it but didn't charge me anything.

I've gotta examine why I get so pessimistic quickly these days. My daughter excoriated me for this today, "I thought I taught you to stop being a pessimist. It's not nice!"

Last night's school dance was a challenge for my youngest son. He'll be a teenager himself in two months & change. But for now, it's just all too awkward.

***

Like many Americans, I get daily emails from President Obama and his team. We may have our first Spammer-in-Chief (just kidding). It is pretty nice to see Barack in my inbox and most of "his" messages have substance of interest to me.

The curious battle to get a stimulus passed appears to have been resolved, thanks to a coalition of adult Republicans and Democrats in the Senate. It all looks good, but there's nothing in there for those of us who live by our art, music, or writing as far as I can see.

Way too bad the Obama team lost my application for work. Well, it wasn't really an application; it was a proposal for how to reorganize government. Only occasionally have I lost a piece of writing due to a technological glitch, but apparently that is what happened this time.

I thought that I had saved and copied my ideas, but no, that appears to be untrue. Therefore, I can never recreate what inspired me on the day I wrote it. Of course, I know the general drift of what I proposed, but it was the way it was written that has been lost.

Every writer will tell you that as much as content matters, style matters even more to us. We are communicators. Sometimes we play with ideas -- we float conceptual balloons, we pose as different people than you think us to be.

I do this relentlessly. Monday I write from the left. Tuesday from the right. Which person is me? Either, neither, or both?

I don't know. I'm exceptionally open to ideas, always have been. I loved my Dad, whose instincts were conservative. I loved my Mom, whose instincts were liberal. As a youth, I was a radical, even a Marxist (in theory).

Later, I fell in love with the power of private enterprise, and I discovered a libertarian, free-market streak deep within my psyche.

At this point, I realize that I have never actually been privileged enough to become a true liberal. Lacking any sense of entitlement whatsoever, for whatever reasons, I identify with the poor, weak, disadvantaged, the out of favor. I always root for the underdog, except in the cases of "my" schools or teams.

Writing demands, finally, for the writer to stand naked before the world. Physically, no (that would not be a pretty site); but emotionally, yes. My weapons are my words. I have no gun with ammunition, no knife except a fishing knife.

Then again, though I know my words can cut, I'm not a slasher-writer. I mean to do no harm. I write out of a sense of love and responsibility.

Someday my kids will all grow up. Maybe one of them will read this stuff, assuming that I don't (in a sudden fit of self-censorship -- the worst disease any writer can suffer) simply delete all of these electronic signals some tyrannical night, from their virtual existence.

Even then, Google will retain them on a server somewhere, I'm sure. That's okay.

Writers are not really able to be like de Kooning. We can't erase what we have said, because someone, somewhere, out there, has a copy. Do you read me? This is what I meant about being naked.

BTW, this photo is of my bud, Oliver, who seems to have shed his collar recently but came to visit today, and let both of the children mentioned above hold him, stroke him, and let him know he is always welcome here in Weirville...

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