second coming

America is a culture of materialism, entitlement, and ownership. Everyday we live within the confines of the frontier attitude of obtaining more and more, of plunging our stars and stripes into the face of the moon or through the hearts of the oppressed.

What better way for a regular citizen to celebrate this than by caving in to a false sense of self-importance and scouting out a plot of cyberland to nail up a billboard of themselves? That's all this is. Self-indulgence.

But I live by enhanced feelings for the worth of my own expression. I'm a writer. Sure, everyone with a pen or a keyboard can call themselves a writer, but I have squandered a stable future on it. It lays there at the top of my résumé like a beached whale, a grotesque vision on the eyes that interviewers never ask about.

Even though I deftly define the skills involved that apply to the asinine day job that's on the table at any given juncture, they bypass it for one of my innumerable short term positions. Perhaps they don't even perceive writing as real work since I don't have a boss to answer to or always a paycheck to cash. Maybe they're jealous that I can go to work naked, even though I never do. Come to think of it, I'd probably make a nice hunk of change in court if they did ask about it. Or they could read writer and have misconceptions based on the chain-smoking, binge drinking that frequently represent the field in films ...