Hey, somebody should pay me for this shit.

I was going to write about 9/11 today, being that it’s 9/11, but it looks like that material is going to get repurposed into episode 2 of season 1 of the Touched with Fire podcast, which I’m hoping to get out by Tuesday, called “#NeverForget”. On the one hand, nobody really gives a shit about what I have to say about 9/11; on the other hand, there’s a certain meritocracy of opinion in blogging, inasmuch as I can only get you to care about what I have to say by saying it in an interesting way. Perhaps if I were a policy wonk or a politician or had been a serious national journalist for a long time, I would have built-in credibility on the matter. Instead, I’m just a guy with a keyboard. The only way I can get you to care is by being interesting about it. We’ll see if I’m able to do that. I keep writing the script, and it keeps wandering off in weird directions. I could probably do like 10 episodes on 9/11, but I think people would lose interest after a while.

Anyway. I don’t have a hell of a lot to say, today, because most of the day has been spent trying to write that thing and not really getting it done. I feel like I kinda exhausted myself with that post about Friends that I wrote earlier this week. I was enjoying it, but I got to the end and thought — why didn’t I get paid to write this? This is better than most of the shit on the AV Club.

The answer to that is that freelancing profoundly freaks me out. For some reason I don’t get bummed out by fiction rejections anymore (or at least I didn’t before I had my agent, who kinda does that shit for me now). But proposing an article and being told no, over and over again, really gets to me. I guess it’s because I prefer to just do the work and see if anyone will buy it, rather than try to explain what it’s going to be before I even open up a word processor. How would I have pitched that Friends piece? “Friends was actually a pretty crappy show. I think it’s because they cast it for hotness rather than talent. Also, I’m going to dither about some social issues, and there are going to be footnotes. Lots of footnotes. No, I still haven’t finished Infinite Jest.”

Here’s the thing: I think that piece, mispellings and a couple of stemwinder sentences that got away from me aside, is about as good as it can be. What if someone did accept it, but they were like, “Lose the footnotes”? Or, “Lose the part where you harp on about no homo.” I think that stuff makes it interesting, and I’m not sure being told that my wonderfulness needs to be placed in check by some stranger on the internet is going to do me any favors.

But still. I spend two hours writing that thing, the least I could have done was made some money off of it. If I charged just 10 cents per word, that would come to more than 300 bucks. Daddy needs some new pants. That’s enough for three pairs of chinos from Banana Republic. I could make my one skill — writing, and quickly — really pan out for me, if I wasn’t such a poop about it.

Anyhow. That’s enough of that. I’m going to watch football now. Look for “#NeverForget” to drop on Tuesday. Here's a picture of my cat.