The Grasshopper and the Ant

I haven't blogged in WAY too long.  Sorry, all.  A lot has happened over the last week.  Firstly, I want to mention the people of Japan.  All my hopes and prayers to them all.  I watch the news and wait for something good to come out of it but the tsunami is still going.  Nothing but a giant wave of disaster and catastrophe.  I hope they catch a break soon.  Until then and after, nothing but well wishes from the rest of the world.

Secondly, I am going to be on a TV show called "All Night with Joey Reynolds."  It will be filmed Friday night and air on NBC NY Nonstop Monday evening.  Have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off ever since, scrambling to get things ready, work my job, and put together packets of books for mailing.  Makes me think of the Aesop's Fable "The Grasshopper and the Ant," where the ant works his butt off all summer while the grasshopper fiddles.  I feel like doing a bit of fiddling myself but preparation is everything right now.

I want to thank all the people who've read the book so far.  So many have come forward, some to yell, some to look slightly nervous but polite, but so many more to tell me it moved them, helped them in some way.  There's nothing more important to me than to help people with this story.  That's why I wrote it, that's why I laid it all out there, raw and often disturbing, angry and miserable, hilarious and irreverent.  It's a streaming-of-my consciousness pile of steaming angst, as honest as I could make it.  The voice of a lost shadow of humanity who dragged herself out of that communal darkness into the light.  I want all my brothers and sisters of circumstance to see that it's possible, even if they're a chickenshit like me, even if they're scared and humiliated and hate themselves so much they'll stay in the fucking pit just to punish themselves for being alive.  I want them to realize they are creatures of light every bit as much as puddles of inky blackness.  A person can be both, you know.  I am.  I choose the light now.  Darkness was in charge for the first half of my life.  I lived in it, I obeyed it.  Now I'm in charge.  It's tough and sometimes I actually want to slide back into the cool absence; the typical addict's itch to be miserable and using again.  But I keep going.  Thank you to everybody who's been moved by my crazy ass little story.  I hope it helps you.  I hope it helps the whole world.

Love, R