or a source of income you don't have to get out and work for. Start off by refusing that. Not having a regular source for food and shelter will help you focus real fast. Just as sleeping in your car will. Millions of Americans face this situation now.

Read some books on the classic spiritual life to get ideas on how to structure your every day life. Set up a schedule and stick with it. If you had to work a regular job like the rest of us you would have to structure your remaining time for your creative urges. I just read in the NYT that one can pay to go on yoga or spiritual retreats at some places and help with chores and things. This might be a good option for helping with structuring your time.

Few people will make it creatively in this lifetime. I am realizing it now that I'll never make it. Drinking is looking awfully good as a coping mechanism to cover my own failures as a human being. But I suggest if you are young to NOT drink.

and upwards, and not living in a trendy urban neighborhood, I think things are different. If one is nonwhite, single, a teenager, working class to middle class (the poor get a contempt all their own from their social "betters"), one can't afford the huge expensive stroller, isn't shopping at trendy organic stores, and probably does not act entitled. I believe mothers are entitled because of the low status of women and mothers in our society. In fact, one of the things that attracted me to conservative catholicism in my late teens - I've since reverted to my non-christian radical leftism BTW - is that they actually do respect the hell out of mothers. The way a society treats its women, children, and poor and elderly will tell you about the values and worth of that society. But entitled well off people deserve to suffer in a revolution - their entitlement is at the expense of the rest of us, including other mothers, who do not have their resources. How many of these Brooklyn mother's houses are cleaned by poor women who must leave their own children in order to care for theirs?

the old Republican moderate, forget the changey-hopiness, thanks to influence of the likes of Rahm Emmanuel. What does Obama expect? He and his administration have thrown their supporters under the bus, they trash progressives, and have thrown their support behind the right wing and bipartisanship, not governing with their mandate to make substantive changes to the left. They've ditched DADT, card check, women's reproductive rights (they slightly walked back this last one - maybe the threat of women not voting Democrat any longer hit them in the balls), not closing Guatanamo, they find money for wars but not Medicare Plan E for all, bailout their friends on Wall Street while the rest of us become homeless and can't find jobs (even nurses). I know they inherited a huge mess created by Republicans and which Republicans knew Democrats would get fallout on when the mess couldn't be solved within a year. But the Democrats have had an extraordinary situation where they could have risen to the occassion like Johnson or FDR and created some innovative leftist legislation, grown spines of steel, and proved they could govern with the mandates given them by the voters - thus ensuring their reelection - but in true Democratic fashion have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and voters are turning from them. I plan to sit out future elections unless there is a candidate who actually stands for what "I" want.

health care bill they will come up with. They've proved they are willing to throw women and women's reproductive rights under the bus. They refuse to consider Medicare Part E (which is the only acceptable option for me). They are determined to appease Repbublicans. They are Republican Lite. Hell, they are Republican centrists. There is NO "left" party. I wish the right wing was correct in calling them socialists. They have no spine. They only care about the wealthy and Wall Street. They will not stand up for me. They refuse to dismantle to vampiric private health insurance industry. I will not give a cent to these insurance company leeches, so I anticipate getting thrown into jail, or getting fined, which I will refuse to pay. By the time this insurance kicks into effect, 2014 is it? they will have already lost elections. What fucking dumbasses. By this time I will have long since stopped voting for the Democrats or anyone else. Revolution is the only answer. But Americans have no idea what revolution means - except the "Teabaggers," of all people.

are just as sexist as more openly misogynistic males. Ask any radical, marxist feminist. Just proves feminism is not, nor should it be declared, dead.

My parents favored my younger brother over me by never criticizing him, giving him private lessons, bragging on him - when I pointed this out they said I was crazy, had penis envy (!), and needed a psychiatrist. I was constantly told I was crazy. My father hated women, treated my mother like crap, and she laid down like a doormat. They neglected my health needs completely and I wound up with untreatable physical conditions. I think my childhood would have been very different if I had a yucky penis. And my family were white bread midwesterners.

Big, big hug to ClaraWalpole (ms?)

and will now sit out elections. There are a few candidates out there who actually walk the walk and talk the talk. I'll continue to vote for them. This changey-hopiness crap has turned out to be another load of hooey. Obama gives a good speech, but not much else.