Why is it every time I voice my opinion, it's like I'm throwing a Baby Ruth in the swimming pool?  The only person to take a bite is played by Bill Murray, who played Hunter S. Thompson once upon a time. 

I'm disappointed, having once had such high hopes of success as a writer.  That is to say: approval -- the value placed on one's craft by others, in a position to pay for said writing. 

The days of being paid 10c per word seems to have gone the way of the .com dodo, and I've yet to be paid the 25c per word promised
for "sales" to a children's magazine.  They leave me hanging like John Brown...

And he was a Christian, not a God-damned atheist. 

I'm at my wit's end,  but you know what Thompson said of the Edge.  (He wasn't talking about any member of U2.)

I wonder about Occam, what he meant.  

If you read me at all, you know my doubts about fantasy and science fiction.  You have some indication at least of my hopes, my sense of those genres' potential with regard to... what? my liberal, bleeding-heart agenda.  That we can be reasonable and put aside our sexist, racist prejudices and work together to achieve something far more worthwhile than we could have achieved apart.  That is to say I'm torn between optimism and realism.  I'm waiting to hear back from my inquiries regarding human nature and its condition.  That's up to you, I guess -- my readers.  I open up to you, I throw my Baby Ruth in your pool. Are you concerned with appearances, only?  or are you skeptic enough to take a byte of reality? and say what you think?