Greetings. I sit here in my home in Astoria, NY. It is early evening, and the only light comes from my computer screen, plus the ambient light coming through the second-story window at my side. All the buildings here on 29th Ave. are two-story row homes, probably thirty to forty years old. The nearest streetlight is across the street, and a second one is visible further away on a cross street, 23rd. In the distance, over the row houses on the other side of the street, i can see the lights of the uppermost portions of the Triborough Bridge. The only sound in the house is the music of Cassandra Wilson. It's a lushly beautiful album i'm hearing for the first time, which i bought recently because it contains a cover of "Harvest Moon".
Having a room with a window was very important to me when i moved here six months ago, as i spend many hours writing, mostly poetry and plays and before now. This window and the view therethrough have been lovely, except...it's one of those double-paned jobs, and moisture has seeped between the panes. Removing this moisture seems impossible, so my view of the outside world is a touch obscured.
Details...all these details. Why? Because life is in the details, if i may be so simplistic. Or more precisely, connection is in the details. If i hope to connect to you, i want you to know who i am. Nothing hidden, no layer of moisture obscuring our connection (i swear, i never had that metaphor in mind when i started rambling about the window).
And why a blog? When i first heard of such things, it sounded fine but a little too "geekboy" for me. Not surprising, as i've always resisted technology. I started writing in the nineties on an actual typewriter. After a few years i broke down and switched to a word processor. I resisted the internet until five years ago. I resisted cell phones even longer. But for about a year, i've been warming to this blog idea. In part because, as i go on in life, it is writing that captures more and more of my passion. It started about ten years ago with a play, a natural offshoot of my first creative passion, acting. I've long had a suspicion that writing might someday be a huge part of me. After a couple plays, i wrote a poem. This year has found me writing articles, and fun lists like "The 10 Worst Movies of All Time". So all these elements come together here in Astoria on this cold night.
Why "unboughtsoul"? I knew that my vibe wouldn't cater to any very specific target group; the most concrete description i can give for those who will be drawn to this blog are "free thinker". And the curious, for indeed my life is a bit of a curiousity when held up to the "average" american. The simplest way of describing me is to imagine me living with a sign around my neck reading "THIS SOUL NOT FOR SALE". I've always felt rather immune from the pressures to conform. I've done my thing, ignoring the mandates of middle class America from which i sprang. A large part of this is the rejection of materialism, and the idea of slaving away in the hope of a future day of leisure. I claim my right to leisure here and now. Understand though, i've been a hard worker all my life, generally standing out, be it in creative work or digging a ditch. I've worked happily for others, and more often freelanced. I won't say i don't know the feeling of prostitution, as i did spend some two months of my life in a Spongebob costume (one month would have been plenty). Sometimes i even embraced prostitute-like experiences, just to be in touch with that reality. But generally i've done what i wanted, had fun, and refused the 401K world.
Another thing that has made me different is my desire to live not in the past or the future, as so many do, but in the present moment.
So "unboughtsoul" seemed natural. Then i hesitated, not liking the religious connotation. I thought perhaps "unsoldspirit", which was better intellectually, but not as poetic, and "spirit" connotes a certain religiousity too, so i went with my first impulse.
And what will you find here? Aside from the obvious things like poetry and articles and lists, i'll make entries about the ongoings of my daily life. We unbought souls can be pretty amusing.
Silliness. Poetry. Randomness.
Today was a leisurely day. I masturbated. I answered a few e-mails about a poem that i sent to friends, "The Land Where I Grew". It's my first political poem...perhaps not great, but not bad and certainly sincere. I edited one of my plays. I took a bike ride to do banking and visit local thrift shops, looking unsuccessfully for a boom box (yes, i did mention that i was listening to music earlier, thank you for paying attention...my old cd player, a freebie from craigslist, is hanging on, barely). I met a very nice old man while out though, and bought a short story collection by a female writer about sexual awakenings in India, plus bought the movies FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION and GALAXY QUEST. With breakfast, i watched the first part of the movie DEATH OF A PRESIDENT, a fictional account of Bush's 2007 assasination. With lunch, i watched some of the documentaries that come with the STAR TREK classic series dvd set. The first one was rich, the second a little boring with the details of Shatner's horse passion.
And i wrote to you.
Such has been my life today. Not bad.
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