Amani: 'Whatcha been up to?"
Griftdrift: "Just working the craft".
Amani: "How's that going?"
Griftdrift: "Not that good".
Many days I'm jealous of Jim Galloway and Thomas Wheatley. Deep in my lizard brain I know there are days when they also struggle, but the surface cortex, where the whining centers are located, wonders what it must be like to spend the day surrounded by other writers. Of course it is fantasy but it can be difficult to get past the image of bourbon soaked, smoked filled bullpens where somebody yells, "My god! Did you hear what Glenn Richardson's done now?"
I've been contacted by several people asking why I don't blog as much lately. When your in the depths of a whine binge, the mind roils around every conceivable excuse.
I've been travelling a lot lately. This is a fact but when I sat in my wifi-enabled hotel room not wanting to write about my latest poker adventure (something I know entertains my readers) something else must be amiss.
Everybody's got everything covered. Due to changes in my little business ventures, I've turned into a vampire. By the time I wake up each morning, the old guard and the new guard have covered everything under the sun. They do it well too and I feel I have nothing to add. I know there are certain readers who do not read every blog in Georgia and only come to my place to catch the latest news, but I can't force myself to be a simple repeater.
I became addicted to real reporting. Recently, I was interviewed by a grad student about new media. And if she's reading this I haven't forgotten about the release - I'll send it soon. She asked me what it was like to break a story and I told her it was like suddenly finding the pot of gold at the end of a treasure hunt. It's intoxicating. And addictive.
Soon, I wasn't satisfied with simple commentary. I had to find real stories about real people and tell them in practically real time. Fortunately for me, a few months ago a tip came my way about a potentially explosive story. After weeks of hunting, interviewing and researching I concluded either it wasn't a story or it was a story that was beyond simple ability. For the first time I felt despair. Failure is a terrible low after the highs of previous success.
But ultimately I realized the reason I wasn't writing was I felt awash in the negativity. I believed a Presidential election, especially one this important, would be a writer's dream. Instead, as the usual oil slick of awfulness began spreading across the land, I concluded it was only a vapor.
After writing six months about such obvious injustice as Genarlow Wilson, can one really get worked up about Barack Obama saying he visited 57 states?
This wasn't passion. This wasn't even parsing. This was nonsense.
But as it has in the past, last night poker taught me a lesson. Every poker player goes through a bad stretch. I call it swimming through the cold water. When you are in the ocean, through the vagaries of currents and thermoclines, you will suddenly find yourself in shocking cold water. You can't swim backwards. You can't stay there. You can only move forward and find the warm water again.
Poker also taught me something else. After a particularly hard turn at the tables, sometimes the negative can become your friend. Sometimes you must perform mental judo and flip the negative back on the blackness from which it comes.
Sometimes you have to embrace the hate.
