Here’s the question, asked by lower-case eel paradise:
Hey, I have a problem: I haven’t read any of your stories in a while, since I have limited internet now I’m not going through your daily list to find something new, and I will not read anything old, even if I didn’t read it the first time, same with AVA, same with never not re-reading books, and rarely movies a second time, with the exception of “Oh Brother,” “Big Labowski,” and “Idiocracy,” at times…
Can you put a star next to a new one, are there no new ones?
Or???
I know mine on “Anything Goes” are usually old ones and I want you to read them and respond, but that’s just once a week, and an interesting genre I hope, so…
And what’s the deal? Why so many retreads every day, trying to get an archives of all your old Pathetic Life out there, or…
The TL/DR is, I don’t write as much as I used to. Through my whole life, I’m the audience I’ve written for, but lately I’m the audience I don’t write for.
Sometimes instead I ponder the hundred nail-holes in my bedroom wall, and wonder what paintings or posters hung over those holes in 1953 or ’67 or ’88, and who lived here and hammered those nails. Or I trance out for an afternoon, drug- and om-free but not even remembering what I’ve done or thought. It’s hard to squeeze more than a paragraph out of any of that.
Writing takes energy that’s run low, as my odometer spins through its last clicks.
My literary playfield has always been mostly piffle, which seems a waste of time as things have grown serious lately. Most days I’d rather weep than write.
I no longer work for a living, so there aren’t any urgent stories that almost write themselves, of incompetent bosses and backstabbing co-workers and all that. In retirement, I’m finding different things to do, which is interesting, but rarely interesting enough to write about.
I attend anti-everything protests once a week or so, but the rallies are my special happy place. To keep it pure, I don’t write about it.
Mostly, though, it’s plain laziness: I’d rather read a few chapters of a good book, than write another page about my flatmate refusing to die.
So yeah, the zine is now dominated by reruns and greatest hits. I have a notebook crammed full of ideas, but never have (or at least never take) the time to turn those notes into writing.
New pages are mostly movie reviews or the news. My latest genuine writing was nine days ago, Deep knee bends, but even that seems suspiciously like something I’d already written.
Here’s something new — this page — but putting a star on it would suggest that the new stuff is something special, when clearly it’s not. Unlike baked goods, fresh is not necessarily better. Stale is good enough, and less effort.
I’d cheerfully refund your purchase, but the site is free. If you stop reading and only post your smutty stories every weekend, my feelings wouldn’t be hurt, and I’d still read the smut. If you stop clicking this site at all, I’ll miss you here but keep reading your stuff in the AVA.
Love you no matter what, but I yam what I yam, and the site is what the site is.
4/15/2025
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