Seven Habits of Successful South Enders
Seven Habits of Successful South Enders
START THE DAY BEFORE NOON
At least on work days. The other five days, sleep in. You earned it.
LEARN HOW TO READ
Writing is no longer essential, but … the successful South Ender can tweet, twitter and text, even if spelling is marginal.
LISTEN TO OTHERS
Especially on Facebook and other social media. Keeping track of friends’ and enemies’ likes and dislikes is an invaluable tool in the South End toolbox. Decision making is easy, just see what the herd is doing.
WORK AT LEAST ONE HOUR A DAY.
No matter how severe the hangover, the lethargy, the ennui or excess hedonistic activities. Work isn’t ALL bad.
WORK OFF THE GRID
No South Ender worth his or her salt works in order to pay half his or her income to the IRS. Barter heavily with your neighbors and friends. Crab, clam, trap, fish, hunt or grow it! Food is free and food is fun! If you buy your dinners, food is neither.
LEARN TO REPAIR
Your own car, truck, toaster, wellpump, toilets, etc. You can’t barter or sell busted stuff and repairmen cost an arm and a leg per hour PLUS that service fee to drive half a day to and from your hell-and-gone address. Knowing a few handyman tricks can save you another part-time job at the fast food joints 50 miles away.
MARRY UP!
Chances are you’ve embraced an aesthetic lifestyle. You artists and musicians need supplemental income and unless you plan to work full time low paid minimum hour jobs, a second salary is essential. Marry one.
If none of these suggestions work for you, plan on moving soon. Life on the South End is mostly for those with alternative-fact occupational schemes. If you landed here thinking this was just a suburb of America, get yourself a GPS and head back to the mainland. Not guaranteeing jobs necessarily, but at least the possibility exists out there in Trumpland when America’s CEO brings them back. And those of us who stay, well, we could use the extra elbow room. Good luck to ya!
Hits: 260
Marry up!
Yes, and if done properly, one might then disregard the first six habits!
Take Ernst Hemingway for example. He took time to write in the morning while the rest of his waking hours provided opportunity for drinking, a little fishing, maybe a bullfight, and once drunk enough, on to quarreling with friends. And wives. It worked so well he married up four times!
If that’s not possible, an alternate method was “employed” by Henry Thoreau. Lunch with mom, then dinner at Ralph Waldo Emerson’s home. This is most practical if the pond on which you live is within walking distance from family and friends. Without a kitchen (or bathroom) Thoreau’s s cabin probably saved a fortune on plumbing and electrical repairs (Habit #6). Talk about off the grid (#5)!
Let’s not forget, in our haste toward upward matrimonial bliss, Ernie ended up on the wrong end of his own shotgun. Choose wisely the first couple of times!
Ha. I participated in a writer’s forum once where we were asked how to sustain a writing career in these modern economic times. When I said, “Marry well,” people seemed shocked. There were gasps and titters. The other writers on the panel would not talk to me after the event. Did I say something wrong?
Of course you said nothing wrong. Those other writers on the panel probably sold out by now and currently work on Trump’s transition team managing to squash faux news stories. Like the Skeeter Daddle Diaries. That’s Diaries, Mr. Bannon, not Diarrheas. Making a living at Writing, of course, requires — like playing the blues — a goodly amount of suffering. Marriage is a good prerequisite. Well, my first one was… Course now, happily married and living in La La Land, I abandoned the Great American Novel and took up the banjo. Ain’t much blues on banjo. Like JJ Cale used to say, just sit on the porch without no shoes.
I tried hanging out with writers once back in your village. Should’ve learned my lesson then, but no, I tried hooking up with artists out here a few years later. These are solitary ventures for a good goddamn reason.