Desperate Times, Desperate Blogging

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The newborn, as much attention as she requires, has become part of each day's normality; the new house is slowly shaping up, not the least in that one can now walk in straight lines across the basement and the garage; and the two-and-a-half year old has rebounded from all of these huge changes with, if anything, more cheerfulness and, far from regression, advancement in development. So, that leaves just one hole (which has introduced me to a biological marker of stress, recurring nausea): our very low income.

During the week that my wife and I actually signed the papers to buy our house, I was apparently overly optimistic about my immediate prospects for interviews and employment. A more-accurate view wouldn't have affected our real estate decisions; circumstances had opened a brief window in which it made sense to buy, and our previous rent was not so much lower than our current mortgage as to make the purchase significantly more daring than simply staying put. Still, it's August, and I have to admit that the next page of the calendar could flip with crushing weight.

It is therefore with a sharper sense of immediacy than has characterized my previous appeals that I ask for help now. I'm much better endowed with abilities than I am with resources or connections, and my need to convert the former into either of the latter is rapidly approaching desperation.

I'd be more than happy if that conversion were to come by way of donations to this blog (click the PayPal button in the left-hand column). Better still would be donations disguised as purchases of my Just Thinking book, A Whispering Through the Branches (my novel), or both. As helpful and rewarding as any such income would be, however, what I'm looking for above all is work.

As my résumé (PDF) shows, most of my more-advanced experience is in the general area of publishing. Obviously, I write. Professionally, I edit. And through freelance and self-initiated projects, I've built up a portfolio related to graphic design, typesetting, and other activities on the production end of the process. All of my various abilities and interests coalesced in two editions (so far) of The Redwood Review, for which I did all of the work — from concept through fundraising and production to distribution.

Before I returned to college in the late '90s, I established selling fish off a truck as my most promising career option without further credentials. I'd prefer to find a job that helps me to justify the lost years and accumulated debt of higher education, but I'm perfectly willing to consider those expenses as investments in personal growth and take a path toward other careers. If it's back to scales and shells, so be it; hard work is no stranger, and late nights pursuing extracurricular interests are as familiar as the gurgle of my coffee machine. Still, I'd like to put the knowledge gained through all those late-nights already spent to productive use — earning me more time to spend with, and supporting, my family.

So please, if you're able to offer me any assistance — from guidance to contributions to employment — please don't hesitate to do so. I can be reached by email, at jkatz@timshelarts.com, by phone, at (401) 835-7156, or by mail, at P.O. Box 751, Portsmouth, RI, 02871.

Posted by Justin Katz at August 4, 2004 2:48 PM
Diary & Confession