I am the busiest unemployed person I know.

Seriously.

I'm at my computer from about 8 in the morning till at least 5 or 6, if not later. Usually, I'm working on a post, or, as of late, trying to draft this article for the Alumni Quarterly. I'm usually not on the phone, but I'm often on email. Lately, as I've been thinking more about community, I've been spending alot of time visiting other blogs, reading, leaving comments when I feel appropriate. My brain is constantly searching out patterns, considering conversation, getting theoretical, talking about algorithms.

I don't understand people who say that if they weren't working a full-time job, they wouldn't have anything to do. I don't understand people who feel that if they didn't have children to keep them busy, they wouldn't know what to do with themselves if they were home.

Not me. In my world, a full-time job is a distraction. If I had to get up everyday and go sit in an office with a bunch of people I would probably not choose to socialize with in any other setting, I'd eventually have to re-consider my sanity. Or lose it. If I had a small person wrapped around my ankles who needed me at long periodic intervals in the day, I'd wonder after awhile where that person ended and, once again, I begain.

Okay...so I'm currently not rolling in dough. And, because of this, there are those who would view my life and judge what I'm doing as nothing more than mental masturbation. In my view, though, there is something in this, something that is, right now, numinous...but is not constituted of ectoplasm and will eventually make itself corporeal.

So, while I currently sacrifice income for my art (or is it "mode of expression"), my business is not futile. Furtive, maybe...but not futile.