http://people.bu.edu/tgoss/journal.html is the link to Dora, with whom I attended CLarion in 2001. She comments extensively on being poor in August 2002 journal entry.

However, I feel Dora neglects one important aspect of being poor and that is the freedom to be as gluttonous and excessive as possible.

Being poor and unemployed brings great feelings of worthlessness and self-pity. Such feelings need to be harvested and cultivated through excess: binge drinking, heavy drug use, all night parties, and (for the exceptionally self-destructive) compulsive gambling.

The daily feelings of self-disgust can and must be accentuated by disgusting behaviour. Screw doilies and linens and group art-therapy. The poor and unemployed state of mind is best dealt with at 4 A.M. by cracking open a 40 oz. Olde English malt liquor.

For further thoughts on these matters, I recommend reading Baudelaire's "Spleen of Paris." That man knew how to wallow.

On a brighter note, I've been writing again. I even sent a few poems to "Mythic Delerium." I fall off one wagon and jump on another.

WALLOWING FOR DUMMIES