The more this site expands and changes, the harder it is to introduce. I have to rewrite this section every few months, each time I discover that the old exordium no longer applies. In June I said I had plenty of time but no money; now I have no time but enough money to make me wish I had time to spend it meaningfully. This switch may change my circumstances, but it doesn't change who I am.

And even though I have new subjects to write about, it doesn't change sobsey.com either. The more I do this, the more I'm convinced that making art and making life really have little in common. Since August, I have been working full-time as a middle school teacher, waiting tables at an upscale restaurant three nights a week, and writing theater reviews. If that sounds like a lot of hours, it is; and if you suspect that I often struggle to keep my head above water, you're right. It's an improvisation and a mess -- often a fun one, usually colorful and wild, lately flu-ridden, and always full of revelation and growth; but still a mess.

Writing isn't a mess. If you do it seriously, it requires deliberation, a commitment to abstraction annealed by precise purpose, patience, rhythm, and concentrated ferocity. My life these days resembles a swamp, so this web site functions as a dry, upland refuge for me. I take comfort here. I hope you will too. I can't possibly clean up the mess, but these entries remind me that my daily morass actually comprises discrete elements. Each one enthralls me.

The world is full of amazements. Won't we receive late pardon for our unavoidable human fault of gathering too many of them under our life's tiny canopy? I like to think that, as long as we make use of what we horde, we earn our morality. This site tries to put the marvels to work.

Adam Sobsey
24 January 2004