In case you need to know: Squawk Back

I have been lucky enough to discover a web site called Squawk Back (see link above) and I wonder how much I owe to my own stubborn nature.  You see, this is another page devoted to literary scribblers who just want to get their name and work recognized in the web community.  What intrigues me most is that they have published all of the work that I have handed in.  According to what I have learned from the editor's own comments, if the work intrigues the person in charge, it gets in.  If not, get back to the keyboard and rethink your thoughts.

Just thought some of you would like to know...

There is something missing here...

Some days are harder than others, and sometimes you are not even sure why until things are put into a painful perspective.

Let's look at me, shall we?  In case you don't know, I am living in Montreal, in my thirties, single, teaching at a college, writing when I can, and lonely as fuck.  I did not really care about the latter point until this morning when I felt that something was knawing at my thoughts and would not let me rest.  I thought I knew what it was, but I see that this is different...

Ahh, yes. Father's day, or in some circles, Baby Daddy day.  I should also mention that I am West Indian in background and grew up, for the most part without a father.  Before he died of a heart attack when I was ten years old - and it was on the eve of Christmas, too - I knew him as a violent and dangerous figure of authority who did not understand how his own pain could not be erased by abusing me.  I know that I felt cheated and angry when he died and that I am still dealing with this today. 
He should have been my role model.  He had that chances, and now I know that his verbal and physical abuse masked a little boy who never grew out of his own pain to become a real man.  And this is why I feel very cheated an angry this particular Sunday in June.

Truth in Fake Advertising

Okay, I am no longer looking for what I will call steady work.  The college has me going part-time with the teaching through the summer and it feels like they want me to stay (no break to think about things).  I should be happy.  But it is not enough, so, I took a chance on an interview with another group.  And this is when things went strange...

 I thought that I was going to find a job with a video/media company that needed freelance writing. Instead, I had a sit-down with a man who worked for a group promoting anti-drug education.  Interesting how this is hitting me just at the moment when they have finally declared that the - ahem - the "War on Drugs" has failed.  Now, I don't mind helping him and his team out.  Don't even mind being paid for it.  But something about all of this bothers me.

Let me explain: This is not the first time that the prospect of writing as a career has been dangled in front of my dreams.  I have had enough experiences with too many fly-by-night publishers, magazine idiot-editors, and general misfits and scribblers with more fantasies than common sense.  I am not going to hold out much hope for this one.  Especially with how the interview went.  We met at a café.  He was ten minutes late, badly dressed (why am I always better dressed than all these sartorially-challenged people) and then he wanted to move.  Café was too noisy, so we went to an outdoor bistro, which was again too noisy, then we went inside, and had to contend with a very upset baby and her overly-considerate parents.  And I now have a stack of papers to read and an article (sample) to write (still not sure what the topic is, besides trying to stroke the ego of the group - name withheld until I think things are clear).

Just let this one work out for me this once.  I need to have something to wake up to when I think that there is only teaching on my horizon.