May 03, 2007

A Very Bad Week

Let me first express my deepest gratitude to those of you who have responded to my latest forced exercise in public humiliation. I was able to pay my May rent the other day, and I'll get through this month. The remarkable kindness of many of you has even allowed me to put a little bit aside toward next month's rent.

I've been working intermittently on a number of essays, but the work unfortunately proceeds very slowly at the moment. The losses of the last several months have crashed in on me again this week, and the approach of another damned birthday has caused me to reflect on how pathetically restricted and unhappy my life is now. It is very unlikely that this situation will improve in the future; in fact, it's only likely to get worse. To observe that this causes me to feel profound unhappiness and despair doesn't even begin to capture my mood at the moment. Given my circumstances, I'm unable to see even a partial solution to this dilemma.

The generosity you've shown makes me feel that the lack of new essays this week represents a serious default on my part of the bargain. So I feel compelled to say that if anyone wants a refund, please let me know, and I will certainly comply with your request. I'm fairly certain I will be able to post some new pieces within the next few days, but I had thought the writing might go more easily today. It's not going any more easily, though; hence this entry.

I would say more about all this, but whenever I put up personal posts of this kind, at least a few people take mocking and unkind potshots at me. Perhaps I even deserve them; I don't know any longer. But I felt I needed to say at least this much by way of explanation.

...

Well, I had disregarded my own advice and started to say more. After I had written part of a fuller explanation, I realized again how ill-advised and probably unwelcome it would be. So I'll just leave this here. I'll do my best to complete at least a few essays in the next several days, but I don't feel I can offer any guarantees right now.

I hope to be back very soon. Thank you again for your kindnesses, for which I am enormously grateful.