I'm My Own Charity

Illustration by Gordon Studer

I finally landed a writing job here in Maine after trying for four years. Back in D.C. I wrote for the Washington Post and the Northwest Current and The Radio & Television News Directors Association, but here in Maine I seem to be less valuable, being from away. So I started writing this blog just so I could keep writing. Then I landed my "job," writing a weekly local news column for which I would be paid $35. When I wrote my humor column in Salt Lake City I got paid $50 per column, and that was like fifteen years ago, but whatever--this is Maine, where there are only a million people in the whole state.

So I write my column happily and in fact have written five already, or is it six, and have received one check and one check only. That's all. My editor said they pay every two weeks and that a check was sent or is coming tomorrow, but that was last week or the week before and still no check. It sucks when you accept a position that pays $35 and then you don't even get that.

I know, it's only money and hardly any to boot. I keep telling myself that I should be glad I don't have cancer or heart disease or diabetes or something even worse, like Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, that weird thing where your bones turn to stone. And I do have all four limbs in working order and I am glad about that--- I mean, who wouldn't be? But maybe soon I will stop writing that column because low pay is different from no pay, and it is demeaning to work for free; after all, even cleaning ladies get paid, and that's in addition to the immediate gratification of the gleaming toilet bowls and sparkling kitchen appliances. Anyway, if you want to send me some spare change for reading this blog, not to mention seeing those great illustrations by Gordon Studer, email me and I'll tell you where to send it. And the best part is that you don't really have to, you can just say you did.