Thanks to those that responded to yesterday’s post. I love you. All of you.

I think 20 years this year is long enough to bitch about practicing law (although I took out a couple years to teach). I can either find a way to like it or find something else to do that will make me happy.

From ’68 to ’82, I had about six years in the newspaper business when I was happy about going to work the vast majority of the time. The other eight years, I liked it most of the time but not as much. Both years I taught, I looked forward to most of my days in the classroom and even those days I didn’t look forward to the day, once I got there, I found something pleasing almost every single day. Grading finals over Christmas break, not so much.

Since 1987, going to the office to practice law has been dreadful as the norm. Some of those years, I might only enjoy 10 days out of the whole year on a professional level. I rarely feel like it’s been rewarding. I can even do it fairly well, when I actually get down to work. It must hold something because I know happy lawyers who like what they do and make a good living. For me, it’s a beating. If I could figure out how to get there, I honestly believe I would enjoy being a Starbucks barista or a Barnes and Nobles bookseller more than this. I don’t think that’s what I’ll do and I hope I can come up with something even more fulfilling and satisfying, but as monotonous as those jobs may be I’d rather do that than what I do now. For one thing, you have a lot more pleasant interactions with customers at those two places than you have people with a problem. I don’t have so many pleasant professional interactions. People are under stress and emotional and/or are being paid $200/hr to give me shit and make problems.

I bet I told my children a hundred times “Do what you love and love what you do and the money will follow.” They both seem pretty happy doing what they do and they seem to get along somehow. Doesn’t mean they don’t have problems, it just means that neither one of them loathes what they’re doing.

Again today, I was told to write. In fact, I was told to write even if I know I’ll fail.

I’ve been doing this blog since Sept. ’05 and I’ve written more than enough original material to comprise a book. Hundreds of posts and comments on other blogs pad the accumulated writings of Blogblah. In addition, behind me at this desk is a four foot shelf of handwritten journals, year after year for eight years. The equivilant of at least 10 hefty books, although it’s a couple dozen slim volumes. I’ve written a dozen short fiction stories. I also have hundreds of pages of novel ideas that I got bored with and just stopped.

Want to know why I just haven’t jumped off and tried a writing career? I have a readership of 40, that’s why. I’d starve. I see people more clever than me writing and not getting published. Nobody reads anymore, folks. Maybe you missed that, but it was in all the papers. Publishing has turned into a tough game. I’d write chick lit if I could. Love to turn out a John Grisham, but that’s not what I write. I spend enough time at B&N leafing through Editor & Publisher to know a little of what I’m talking about. I’ve read books on getting published (it amuses me that such books exist) including books by Henry Miller, Anne Lemont and Elmore Leonard. Do you know WHY such books exist? Because there are so damn many people who want to get published. You can’t swing a dead cat in a coffee shop without hitting a would-be writer. The cup runneth over.

That’s why I blog. It’s what I do. I write. I write a lot. Often. Sometimes, more than once a day. Sometimes for hours. Look at yesterday’s post. Look at how many references to philosophers, popular culture and classic literature. Look at the length of that baby. Knocked that sumbitch out off the top of my head in about an hour. Not possible if you don’t write as much and as often as I do. It takes practice to turn out the drivel on this blog, baybee. Just exactly who do you think would pay to read that whining? Millions of Americans sitting on the beach just can’t wait to hear me kvetch about my pointless life. I write, but again, so what? If you’re one of the 40 people who have ever read this blog, you already know. Sometimes it’s OK, sometimes it’s boring, sometimes it’s better, but only if you already know me. It would be nice to have one of the two qualities most needed in a writer: I’d like to be clever or insightful, but I’m not particularly either one. So, if you want to know why I don’t kick off the traces and write, it’s because it would be pointless, stupid and meaningless, just like this blog.