Well, okay, some bad news to report tonight, which actually happened four days ago but I'm just now getting around to announcing -- I am no longer with MetroProper. I'm not going to go into the details, for reasons I'll explain below; but I will say this about it, in that they're pretty easy things to guess, and also are important to know for the rest of today's entry to make sense:

1) It was over a payroll issue.

2) This issue was dealt with in a way I found personally just very offensive and insulting. And man, if you read this journal regularly, you know how usually impossible it is to personally offend or insult me about anything; how it takes something really special anymore to rattle my cage.

3) And yeah, I'm out a big chunk of money because of it all; nearly all the total pay I had earned at that point (over $2,500, less than $5,000), only a little of which had actually gotten paid to me at the point when I quit. And no, I'm not really expecting to ever see a dime of that money, to tell you the truth.

And yeah, I admit it; this pissed me off. It pissed me off mightily at first, in this rapturous Old Testament kind of way, the kind of anger I hadn't felt since I was 27 and taking a swing at some fucking dick in the middle of the night at a poetry reading. And so I spent the first day or two after quitting doing a lot of storming down sidewalks, and kicking things across my apartment, and screaming vague curse-filled streams of consciousness in the air, and just generally being the kind of out-of-control hellion I haven't been since developing a reputation for being a hellion in the first place.

And let's face it; this is not the place you want to find the former number-two of your company. Because the fact is that I know a lot of sensitive information about the company at this point, things that would cause it a lot of legitimate problems if I made public; details about its finances, the owner's personal finances, the company's competitive strategy, its upcoming top-secret new features being released over the next year. And as many times as I reminded the owner of how important this was, he still never got around to having me sign a non-disclosure agreement before I quit, which means I have the perfect legal right to jump right on this site if I want and publicly post the entire thing. And indeed, this is exactly what I thought of doing for the first day or two after quitting, over and over again, envisioning all these Old Testament platitudes to justify it all, being in the Old Testament mood I was. "If I'm going down, everyone's going down." "If I'm not getting paid, no one's getting paid." "Vengeance Is Mine, Sayeth The Lord." Etc etc. Yeah, I know, pretty ballsy statements for an atheist. I was pissed, okay?

And then I got to day three...and I calmed down. Not for good, but definitely some. Just like I knew I would, because it's happened over and over in the past like that too. Which when all is said and done, really is the main difference between my twenties and my thirties -- that in my twenties, I wasn't smart enough to wait for myself to calm down, and ended up just running around taking action in the heat of anger all the time. And that's what led to the fistfights, the poems that used to piss so many people off, and all the rest in my twenties that led to the reputation I still have among some.

It's not just some bullshit tale told by grown-ups; you really do acquire more and more wisdom and maturity, the older you get. I can state it definitively, that I handle crises in my life better now at 37 than I did at 27; a whole lot better in most cases, in fact. For me it just boils down to a variety of things that you can guess at; being more patient with myself, being more patient with others, trying as much as possible not to react in knee-jerk ways to sudden situations. I'm done with prolonging anger, you know? Anger happens, for sure; I couldn't have stopped my thunderous Old Testament thoughts those first 24 hours after quitting if I had tried (which I didn't try, which is why I instead unplugged my computer and turned off my phone for 24 hours too, to make doubly sure I didn't do anything I'd regret later). What I mean is that I'm done holding on to this anger; of hoarding it like a precious heirloom, clutching it to my heart, defining my life around it and devoting all my energy to it.

I spent a big portion of my twenties and early thirties doing precisely that, and I got tired of it. I got tired of how much anger and hate wears you down, I mean physically wears down your body after awhile. I'm done with making this anger last longer than it needs, with prolonging it and making it part of my identity; what I find myself wanting to do in my late thirties is to simply get rid of this anger as quickly as I can, and simply move on to something more productive.

So, that's why I won't be blabbing all of MetroProper's secrets here at my blog, even though I easily could; and that's why I won't be pursuing legal options to get the money I'm owed, even though I easily could. I'm just done with it all, you know? Wash my hands; wring them dry; and ready to handle the next big thing in my life. And besides, all you freelancers know this already, that any situation like this is a calculated risk; and that the bigger rewards there are at stake, the bigger a risk there is, and the less chance there is of you actually seeing any the money you were promised. And there were huge rewards at stake here -- millions of dollars in revenue right in the first year, me owning a piece of the company (and therefore a piece of those millions of dollars), me finally having health insurance, me being the number-two in charge of an entire corporation. And that's why I was willing to take the risks I did, including the risk of not actually getting paid for any of it until it was all over.

That's why they call it a risk, after all; because in this case the risk was too great, and the entire thing blew up in my face. And yeah, as I mentioned in a previous entry, for all of you out there who hate me, this now gives you the moral right to write some snotty little entry at your own blog about how much I suck, how I couldn't make this happen, how I made all these big statements about it all and had the whole thing blow up in my face. But Jesus, people. You can't do great things without taking risks. Why is this so damn hard for some people to understand? I will never regret taking a risk, and I will never stop taking risks, because they are the only way to make great things happen. And if you're not taking risks, then you're some bored insurance adjuster in a dumpy ranch house in Ohio with a loveless marriage and indifferent children. And there's nothing great about that.

So anyway, that's that -- that's the story of the six weeks in 2006 that I was an internet-startup rockstar. Wow, that was enough, you know? No more internet-startup rockstar shit for me anymore, thank you very much. Oh, and I'll tell you this as well -- not ever, not ever again, not once ever again in my life, will I make fun of someone for trying to open a new small business. Lord ALMIGHTY, people, you have no idea. You have NO idea.

So some of you are already guessing what this all means, by the way, and I know some of you are already happy about this, based on the emails I've received over the last six weeks; that my full attention can be given once again to my new arts organization, the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography. Oh yeah, that's right, that was the plan all along this year, wasn't it? And speaking of which, I have lots more to tell about that as well, including a new employee to announce (that is, in addition to Nikki Patin, not a replacement for her), new venues, new shows, new Fellows, new Members, new new lots lots cool cool yeah yeah! But I'm tired of writing tonight, and the Simpsons are on anyway, so I think this is where I'll call it a night for now. Keep your eyes out for another new entry coming soon, probably just in another two days or so.