Self selection

Exhausting overscheduling at work; overtime nontheless to help out other voicewriters; Hayseeds nearing picture lock; well behind on music video, manuscript editing, and manuscript submitting.

Had very nice linguine and meatballs for dinner.

It turns out everybody prefers how I look with messed up morning hair and a bathrobe, so apparently I am meant to be Arthur Dent. I do like sandwiches and being cross.

Ciro has found a picture of me on roller skates at age six, and has developed a strong emotional attachment because I very much resemble myself and am standing in the same way I still stand when I am determined about something, which means fists clenched loosely at my sides but out from my body asymmetrically, with my chin dipped a little but my neck very vertical.

Interview this morning with consultants analyzing the effect the Center for Creative Connections has had on the Dallas Museum of Art as a whole. It's nice to get to talk as an artist, especially about an organization I wholeheartedly support; I'm oddly much better at it than at being any other kind of thing, and ultimately is the only time I feel like me.

I've been feeling very sorry for myself lately about not really working in my field at the moment. Which is a bit unreasonable given Hayseeds and Drollerie Press, but I'm not being paid for those. It is frightening to produce a lot of work you're very proud of and then have nobody much care about it. Or to have people care about it but no idea how to get it in front of people who would enable me to keep doing it.

On the other hand, I did finally realize why I get so annoyed when people employed in the arts (and most specifically theater people and mid-level authors) tell you that you should quit unless you would do it out of love without pay and without any chance of success. I always thought it annoyed me because it sounds like an attempt to reduce the pool of potential competitors, wrapped up in obvious self aggrandizement.

But I figured out today that the reason it bothers me is it always comes from people who have succeeded in one way or another, and who therefore don't have an experience that allows them to know what they're talking about. They don't actually know if they'd keep doing their art if they experienced absolutely no success. So really what they're doing is telling the thus far unsuccessful people that they should also feel guilty about being sad about being unsuccessful so far, because it means they don't love art enough. Which is particularly stupid when it comes from people who've had a great deal of good luck or benefited from personal family connections, which it does at least 3/4 of the time.

Besides, if what we all ought to do is devote our times to the things we'd do for free out of love, the things that just feel like joy and not work, it means the most morally elevated people in our society are the ones who spend all their time drinking, fucking, and playing video games. Clearly, there is something else going on when somebody decides to pursue art, or teaching, or family medicine, or any of the other valuable things we're supposed to do purely for the love of it. "Yes, I'd quite like my art to have no effect on the world, because it's about my experience and my passion." Is this the type of person we want to encourage to continue in the field?

Save the Bottlenose Dauphins!

Exhibit googlety million in our national pregnancy hysteria (crossover with bad science reporting edition):

The actual study: Mostly low-income minority children who were prenatally exposed to a pesticide used (and probably overused) for bug-control in some low-rent urban apartments prior to being prohibited for interior use in 2001 now have IQ levels 2.7 to 5 points lower than a control population. A similar result was found among women in agricultural communities where the pesticide is still sprayed. No such effect was found on those with post-natal exposure.

The study as widely reported, notably on ABC stations: OH MY GOD IF YOU EAT FRUITS AND VEGETABLES WHILE PREGNANT YOUR CHILD WILL BE INCREDIBLY STUPID. Never mind that the studies weren't looking at diet, but at inhaling something deliberately sprayed all over the area where you live, and also showed a quite small IQ drop that is undoubtedly much less significant than the other developmental deficits almost certain to be experienced by low-income youth from disadvantaged neighborhoods, particularly those in bug-infested apartments.

But shit, we don't need to worry about poor kids. We need to freak out about factory farming again and terrify women into not buying any vegetables that cost less than $5* because they might be dangerous. People are dying of hunger, but that's cool with me as long as my rich white baby is completely pure and never touches anything which has not been personally and lovingly hand-raised by a doula specifically for its individual pleasure and edification.

* Embedded in the "so only buy organic" reaction is an assumption that organic is pesticide free. Nope, although it doesn't use organophosphates - it uses other dangerous stuff. One of the tools we have to reduce pesticide use without endangering food supply? You guessed it - GM crops, aka "frankenfood." Because when it comes to nature (brutish, short) versus science (vaccines, punnett squares), science rules. Other man-made technology which I think is a big step forward: shoes, telephony.