It’s now been four weeks since I sold my teensy condo (relieving, at least momentarily, my fiscal crisis) and moved into a spacious apartment. Earlier in the year, my father’s slow demise (and my mother’s self-sacrifice in tending to him) finally ended. I’ve also been getting serious freelance gigs for the first time in nearly three years.

This combo of circumstances has helped to lift a veil of daily dreariness from my heart; to remove a stye of dimness from my eyes.

I’m only now, that it’s past, beginning to realize just what a sorry state I’d been in.

The nadir of this funk came, for me, with the publication, and marketplace failure, of the last print MISC in February 2003. I’d burnt myself out for nearly half a year on that magazine, only to find I could only afford a cheap digital printing job. Even had it been the slick-paper mag I’d hoped for, it still (despite the great work by a dozen fine writers and illustrators) had no strong “hook” to draw either readers or advertisers. A four-year dream for my own full-time publishing empire had crashed. Longtime readers of this site might note that was around the time my volume of writing here greatly diminished.

Back in mid-2000, when I still thought I could earn a living doing this online, I was writing a full-length essay every damn day. Earning a living from writing a small, deliberately wide-ranging website turned out to be as impracticable as most of the era’s larger dot-com money dreams.

Since then, I’ve become acquainted with all-around web programming guru and relentless self-promoter Dave Winer, who’s always believed one shouldn’t try to make any cash from web content creation. One should simply do it for the love of it, or to promote one’s software business, or to build a reputation one could parlay into lucrative speaking gigs at the Davos economics conference.

Of course, Winer’s also one of those guys who believes every musical act should stop trying to sell CDs and instead adopt the Grateful Dead’s business plan; despite the fact that non-“jam” bands are far less likely to sell tickets to every show on the same tour to the same people.

Winer means well, as I’ve learned from talking with him. He wants to warn street-level content people such as myself away from improbable materialistic fantasies.

But the notion that I was supposed to write only for free (or a loss) was not something I wanted to hear. Especially since I was already hearing it from myriad zine editors, small-press book publishers, post-dot-com-crash web entrepreneurs, nonprofits, political action groups, etc. etc.–essentially everybody who, at that point in my existence, wanted anything from me.

This was around the time when I wrote my impassioned plea here that I needed to find “something to do FOR MONEY, NOT FOR FREE, ABSOLUTELY NOT KIDDING DAMMIT.”

Do any of you out there know what it means to feel so totally un-valued? (I’d concurrently been through a streak when women only wanted me as a platonic friend, someone to listen while they complained about the men they did sleep with.)

I was in a downward spiral, but one with no apparent endpoint. I wasn’t heading toward death, nor toward any drug-assisted living death. No, I was in a living purgatory, with a life trajectory that promised only more of the same.

I was living off of credit cards, whose bills were charged to other credit cards. I had no career to speak of, and no prospects for one.

I’d signed up for a half dozen temp agencies and didn’t get a single day’s work from any of them. When I applied for day-job employment, I was more or less made clear that the restaurants/offices/stores demanded more hustle and more perkiness than I could even fake at the time.

Suicide was never an option. I didn’t want to become dead. I felt dead already. I wanted to become alive. But I didn’t know how. And it was hard to find anybody who could tell me how, in language I could accept/understand.

There were “up” spots, moments of achievement, among this. I wrote and published The Myrtle of Venus, and had my City Light, City Dark photo show; even though neither project earned back its expenses. I met several dear new friends thru the webloggers’ and photographers’ Meetups. I took a lot of photos, many of which I still think are viewable. I like to think I got closer to my family during my father’s extended illness, and even made up with the guy himself. I took some “life coaching” sessions, which got me asking some of the right questions about my life. These questions led me to certain authors and thinkers, from whom I found more questions.

How I got up from the abyss of what I called, at the time, “brutal despair?”

One slow, patient step at a time.

I experimented with meditation, guided-imagery exercises, and hypnosis tapes. The latter helped me get regular sleep, which helped clear my mind greatly.

I read a lot of self-help authors, some of whom I’ve mentioned on the site. Among the ideas I learned there: To stop mourning/ruing past events, such as my childhood or my divorce from the Stranger. To imagine myself as a successful person, as I personally define success (big imagination si, big Hummer no).

As I slowly found the path back to aliveness, things started to happen on all fronts. I started getting paying freelance gigs again. People told me they could see more color in my face (apparently I’d gone all ashen-pale from poor circulation during my despair phase; I never noticed myself). I’ve found myself engaged in serious flirting.

My weight, which always goes up in despair-mode times as my metabolism slows, hasn’t gone down significantly yet. But I trust it will, as I find the energy to get back onto a real exercise regimen.

I promised myself during the depths that, once I regained my life, I would write telling how I did it and how others might. Now, I don’t know if I can quantify the process, or even delineate it in a comprehensible (let alone saleable) way.

That will be one of my next life tasks.

The CBC, as one of several attempts to overcome the ratings disaster that is the NHL lockout, came up with a viewer contest to name The Greatest Canadian.

All summer, the network and its website asked viewers to nominate the most significant Canadian citizen, past or present. This fall, the network aired documentaries about each of the top ten figures (all male, and including two of the network’s own air personalities).

On a Monday-night live special, the winner was announced. It’s T.C. Douglas, founder of what’s now known as the New Democratic Party and originator of the nation’s universal health care system.

Douglas, a prairie populist of the old Depression-era variety, remains a big reason why Canada’s now a more progressive, more Euro-oriented land than our sorry place.

(Incidentally, among the non-finalists in the contest: Margaret Atwood, Marshall McLuhan, basketball inventor Dr. James Naismith, Emily Carr, Shania Twain, Sarah McLachlan, and William Shatner.)

…had nothing to do with the flu-shot shortage.

…sees links between the flu-shot shortage and Dick Cheney’s now-forgotten drive to make us afraid of Saddam’s supposed smallpox threat.

…The Death Clock, I’m going to live to be 98. And I’ll probably still be complaining about the older generation.

After a long, tiring three-day illness, I’m getting my energy back up. I’m feeling a slight numb-tingle on my left big toe; perhaps that’s a blood-sugar effect from having eaten so little lately.

This recent slight setback helped me to think about the nature of illness, a topic I’ve been researching a lot about anyway. I don’t have any spectacularly new insights of my own in this regard, at least not yet. But I did learn this: As much as I was sick of being sick and tired of being tired, my “dis-ease” came, by the end of day 2, to be an annoying yet familiar presence; a source of identity and even perverse “comfort.”

But now that I’m spending a little more time at my computer and a lot less in the bathroom, I’m viewing my bug (or food poisoning, or whatever it was) as an unwelcome guest I should’ve never let inside. My optimal state is one of adequate if not perfect health. The energetic, clear-headed, robust me is the real me.

AND THEN THERE WERE FOUR: The Bush FTC finally agreed to let the record industry further consolidate, allowing Bertelsmann’s music group (formerly RCA Victor) and Sony’s music group (formerly Columbia) to merge into a joint-venture company. It came after Time Warner sold its record labels to Canada’s Bronfman family, which had briefly owned MCA/Universal; that company’s current owner, Vivendi, had to hold onto it after GE bought the other Universal assets but didn’t want records. The other remaining major-label firm, EMI, has tried unsuccessfully to merge into one of the others. These are not signs of a healthy industry.

…has been felled the past 24 hours or so by a brief but nasty stomach bug. You don’t want to hear any more details; trust me. But I will say I tried to heal myself this afternoon by listening to an audio book by Vancouver new-age guru Eckhart Tolle about overcoming “the Pain-Body.” It didn’t work.

WHAT ALSO DIDN’T WORK: The traditional “bounce” in the opinion polls for a Presidential candidate after his nominating convention. Some polls showed little increase in John Kerry’s standing; others even showed him dropping a bit against Bush.

Why? For one thing, the convention’s TV coverage was divvied up into three dosages. The un-spun, uninterrupted coverage on PBS and C-SPAN was probably viewed mainly by political wonks such as myself. More apathetic viewers might have stuck with the measly three hours on the traditional Big Three networks, which contained only the big-name speeches and a lot of pundit-blather. In between these extremes, the three main cable “news” channels gave all-day coverage to their own (mostly Republican-leaning) commentators bashing what the Democrats were saying, with only brief cutaways to what the Democrats actually had said.

I must admit, though, that the Dems’ convention was a tuff thing to slog through in undiluted form. It was produced by a producer of TV awards shows, and felt just as long, dull, and self-serving as some of those shows are.

And, in keeping with a topic I’ve been researching of late, it relentlessly expressed a “positive” attitude. Very little speech-time was spent dissing what I believe is the worst US President since Harding; a sniveling suckup to looters and polluters who’s made this country less free and the world less safe. Instead, speaker after speaker (including, in short spots well out of prime time, our own Gov. Gary Locke and Rep. Adam Smith) recited the DNC-approved buzzwords about hope, help, strength, and respect. The effort throughout was to plug John Kerry as someone to vote for; not simply, as The Daily Show said in a fake campaign commercial, “Not George W. Bush.”

The problem with this strategy is it fits right in with the Bushies’ strategy—to make Kerry’s unproven qualities, not Bush’s proven failings, the chief topic of the proverbial horse race.

But there’s another front in this particular battle. The “527s,” independent progressive groups funded by the likes of George Soros and various Hollywood/Silicon Valley moguls, have gone where the timid Dem leadership won’t. Because these groups officially don’t work for any campaign, they can raise all the money they can to spread their messages. And because they’re not controlled by party bosses, they can tell the harsh truths in their ads. The big 527s (named for the tax-code line that defines them) include the famous Move On, Americans Coming Together, Howard Dean’s Democracy for America, and even Punk Voter.

Besides these fairly well-funded efforts, there are more thoroughly grassroots anti-Bush outfits as well, such as Seattle’s own “No Vote Left Behind.”

Then there’s the semi-satirical F___ the Vote, which asks “sexy liberals,” especially in the undecided “swinger states” (including Washington), to seduce and convert conservatives. Its home page claims, “Everyone knows liberals are hotter than conservatives—we look hotter, we dress hotter, our ideas are hotter, and we are infinitely hotter in the sack. We must use our sexual appeal to our advantage, as one more weapon in our already diverse arsenal.”

At last—a campaign tactic I can fully support. Sign me up today. I’ll show any Bellevue divorcee or Wenatchee church matron the road to a better tomorrow, metaphorically paved with multiple orgasms.

IN OTHER COMING-TOGETHER NEWS, a Seattle judge has ruled in favor of same-sex marriages. The case immediately goes to the State Supreme Court; there’ll be no official gay/lesbian nuptials ’til that court decides.

AND BY THE WAY, I’m feeling much better now. Sitting down to write always helps my energy level. So did the Hi-NRG music mix I’ve got on my iTunes right now—Serge Gainsbourg, game-show themes, Nina Simone, Petula Clark, Blondie, and more. I’m a word guy, but sometimes music can do much more for me than words.

…Geov Parrish has had a run of medical ickiness for some time. Now, he’s “fallen through the cracks” of this nation’s dysfunctional health-insurance system. Friends have organized a benefit concert on Saturday at the Trinity Methodist Church in Ballard. Geov’s a great guy and a devoted promoter of social justice. If you can, help him.

(on a package of Overload peanut butter cups, one of them topped with “rainbow candy” coated chocolate pieces): “Mars, Incorporated has no affiliation with the producer or distributor of this product and has no participation in the production of this product.”

THE FINE PRINT #2 (from the introductory disclaimer to the e-book The Top 100 Lovemaking Techniques of All Time): “Some of the techniques described in this book call for you or your partner to have cough drops, mints, ice cubes and other objects in your mouth. Be very careful not to swallow these objects while performing these techniques. If you think there is even the slightest possibility that you could accidentally swallow one these of these objects, STOP PERFORMING THE TECHNIQUE IMMEDIATELY. There are plenty of other ones that you can do instead.”

The latest wackiness from Marysville, WA: A little company called “Nature’s Advantage” is in legal trouble for hawking dubious beast-enlargement pills to teenage girls.

(on the back of the wrapper for a Brown & Haley Carbs-In-Line “Chocolatey Indulgence with Mint” candy bar): “Excessive consumption may have a laxative effect. Individual sensitivity may vary.”

I felt like a traitor to Fast Food Nation on Wednesday, when I got my “Go Active” Happy Meal.

The version I chose was the “Fiesta Salad.” For the same calories as a small burger and a small bag of fries, you get a whopping bowl of flavorless lettuce, sprinkled with some almost-as-flavorless corn-chip strips, a dollop of sour cream, and a few scattered ground-beef morsels. You also get a plastic packet of Paul Newman salsa, which is as mild as milk but at least adds need moisture to the concoction.

The package deal includes a bottle of Coca-Cola’s Dasani brand water (regular tap water with mineral flavoring added).

But the real reason I got the meal wasn’t edible (as if the salad was). It’s the li’l “Step With It!” pedometer, a friendly looking piece of clip-to-your-belt electronics encased in green and black plastic. The first thing, I trotted around the corridors of my multi-unit building until I reached the magic 2,000 paces (more or less a mile). As soon as we have a relatively rainless day around here, I’m gonna take the thing out and see how long it takes to reach the magic 10,000 mark just on my daily errands.

…“sick foods,” but I make up for it with well drinks.

…is good for business. Just not for the drug and insurance industries.

…of the reproductive-rights movement have influenced Hitler’s “eugenics” ideology?