I don't have much hope for the venture, but, after my last entry was so all over the place, I'm going to try to be a little more cohesive in my writing, especially given the disjointed hodge-podge of information I wish to convey today. I've been trying to distill the noise to just one subject to discuss (one would hope, engagingly), but instead, have many. From the instinctive heroic deeds of everyday people who step in to lead when those entrusted to do so, have failed or are failing, to seeking some kind of meaningful work in life, and ordinary loss and the grace sometimes found unexpectedly amidst failure.
I went to look at pottery equipment yesterday and found the wheel but not the kiln, serviceable. She's offered to sell me the wheel separately but I'm not exactly sure what I'm to do with a wheel but no kiln. I've been in that situation before, toting unbelievably fragile "green" pots across town to fire them (even being able to bisque at home would help), and I swore I'd never do it again. Still, I have no place to put a kiln, much less fire one, at least without blatant violation of my landlord's rental policies (not that I'm all that opposed to a little blatant violation now and again, just to keep in practice), so I find myself back to square one as far as that goes. Perhaps I'm being foolish to even think about it, although it seems fair enough, considering that I've spent my entire adult life (since I was 21) believing that was what I wished to do, what I was happiest doing and knowing that whenever I've put some effort into doing it every day, it's brought me great joy AND made some money (not a lot, but always some).
I've started my work for my internet marketing client and I'm very excited about that. It's certainly logistically easier to do than becoming a working potter, although finding and servicing enough clients to quit my day job seems considerably harder than selling pots, if I could only figure out how to get them fired. Ideally, I would do both. While making pots appeals to the elusive calm center of my nature, online marketing (guerrilla, direct, targeted, viral, relationship, interactive…) appeals to that part of me that is attentionally diverted, hyperactive, that benefits from being easily distracted in order to actually see disparate dynamics, and having that be of value to an enterprise. I’m surprised at how many web developers sell sites and services without Search Engine Optimization (SEO), or without even mentioning its existence to their clients. It’s simply not that difficult, but those selling it wish it to remain a great mystery, treating it with reverent secrecy as if it were somehow proprietary to them, so that they can charge clients more for producing it. I’ve encountered one hosting company, BlueHost that advertises SEO with their hosting packages but, only after getting signed up and paid does the customer discover that this SEO they’ve supposedly bought includes neither the actual code that needs to be embedded in the site nor where and how to insert it (that costs extra), and those who already know what to do will find that, if they’ve used a template or BlueHost’s site-builder feature to create the site, they can’t even copy and paste in the HTML with their tags (key words). Well, you can enter it but you can't save it. So, one might be asking what BlueHost means when they tell you, before they have your money, that their hosting packages come with SEO? In fact, each site owner gets to submit the site to the search engines, to call the bots one time to crawl the site, presumably after paying extra to get what they need to actually optimize for the crawling. It ought to be illegal. On the other hand, an established company like Register.com, offers SEO with their hosting packages, but they deliver, providing instructions, code and unlimited opportunity to make sure the site is crawled. I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention that Blog-City does a great job of making optimization easy.
There's an interesting article in today's New York Times Sports section today about what happend in the Superdome during the days following Katrina's landfall from the perspective of the folks working there, support and administrative staff as well as management. It's in Sports because they're readying the building for its return to football, and because other things are filling the news sections of the paper, but it was extremely moving. It's another great story about everyday people stepping up during the crisis in the complete absence of any shred of government support, their heroism necessitated by the official failure. It's a great read. Some of the same folks who suffered the immediate Aftermath, trying to keep the crisis from boiling over inside of the Superdome are now getting the venue ready to welcome the Saints back on September 25th against their long-time regional rival, the Atlanta Falcons, our Dirty Birds. I expect, that at least that one time, I'll have to cheer for the other guys. (Aside to PR: does that please you?)
Tomorrow is Monday, and with every week I find less to look forward to at the KnockingShitDownCompany. It seems more and more a distraction that's keeping me from work that could be much more satisfying and, perhaps most importantly, more financially rewarding. Change is hard sometimes, though, and I'll stay true on a track out of inertia until something knocks me into changing. I think it might be different this time. I feel it coming.
I don't know if I've done what I aimed to do when I came here today. I'm pretty sure I haven't achieved cohesiveness and I fear that I have not really discussed ordinary loss or the grace sometimes found unexpectedly amidst failure, except that crawling out of an unhealthy marriage and being on my ass (or at least my knees) brought me to work at a job I didn't like in order to care for my family, and that taught me the value of doing what we love, 'cause life's too short for anything else.
Peace, out, ya'll.
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