Hey! You're squishing me!

Since I'd been so antsy the weekend before last, whining and moaning that I didn't know what to do with myself, I asked whitey if we could please go to the coast to take some photos. We haven't done that since last year and I felt the irrefutable need to go out into public on a Sunday because I've gotten bored with slamming my face in a cupboard door so what better way to torture myself then try and find a parking space at a San Diego beach in the middle of summer on a lovely weekend morning?

Needless to say, it was difficult. And then I had a parallel parking freak-out and we almost scrapped the idea all together (well, it was me who yelled "oh forget it" while whitey looked at me like my hair was on fire) until I found a space I could pull in to. While the boy nursed his coffee, trying to rev up his brain after I woke him at 9:30, (even though I'd been awake since 6:30 and had waited around patiently for 3 stinking hours loudly crumpling paper and maybe on purpose heavily throwing my big camera bag onto the bed hoping to stir the coma-sleeper) we got out of the car and I readied my camera and surveyed our surroundings.

Holy bajeesus, the place was packed. Unbelievably swarming with people, dogs, kids, picnics, a wedding, cars, kayaks, divers, snorklers, and cute lifeguards. I knew we had left the house too late as it was but I was mostly worried about the light, not thinking we'd be shit out of luck at our first location as we wound through the slalom course of parked cars then saw a steady stream of auto-vultures trying to wishfully find a space that was not going to become available until someone got stung by a jellyfish and went crying off to the nearest ER or the sun went all the way down.

It was daunting and a bit of a bummer, even though I know we can't expect to have any public place to ourselves, ever. Hell, I've been in what I thought was the middle of fucking nowhere in the mountains thinking there couldn't possibly be another soul around and just when I was about to drop trou and pee on a tree here comes a person whistling Dixie, blissfully unaware that they almost saw my money maker in a most unflattering way. But this was regoddamndiculous.

Crowds are something I didn't used to have a problem with. As long as I had a personal space big enough that a stranger wasn't literally crawling up my ass, I'm looking at you Disneyland lines, I was OK. I even used to like going to compacted clubs and squeezing my way into the middle of a sweaty hoard to dance off my rum & Cokes. But not any more.

These days I don't like it. I already live in a major tourist town and one of the largest cities in the United States and frankly, I'm feeling a bit claustrophobic. Squeezed out. Crowded. And besides the physical confines of living with so many damn people, it's making me think about other areas that have turned into virtual mob scenes and I just don't know if there's room for me.

Take the internet, or more specifically, blogs. There are millions upon millions of them. Is there room for another cranky girl who writes about whatever and is occasionally funny, sporadically admired or randomly read? I don't know. Why do some blogs take off in a short time and others putter along with hidden gems and no feedback?

I've had this conversation with whitey a million times and it's his opinion that a lot of bloggers whore themselves out like mad when they first come onto the scene, leaving comments on as many sites, posts, other blogs as they can just to start their own fan base. I'm inclined to agree, but that can't be the case all the time. Demographics play a part as well, I'm sure.

I don't have kids so I don't write a mom blog. I could regale you with crazy stories of my insane cat, like last night when a stranger kitty perched his orange ass on the windowsill and caused Rascal to fly into a blind rage of white fur and clawless paws and I'm sure we were 2 seconds from her crashing her hurtling body through the glass but I saved her by yanking her back through my wood blinds she was almost breaking and threw her into the bedroom with some fucking catnip. But I don't want to write about my cat all the time either, like some nameless bloggers do that get 192 comments whenever they post a fucking photo of their cats doing nothing but sitting in a box!! But I digress.

I'm not political, I don't post pictures of my tits, fabulous as they are, I'm not selling vibrators on the side. I haven't gotten fired for my blog (yet), I have no shopping section, I can't see a publisher ever asking me to submit my goofy memoires to sell on Amazon, and I'm not part of the Blogher inner circle of women writers that all seem to know each other and go weekending in Napa every 3 months having wonderful times with expensive bottles of wine and even more expensive cameras. Not that I'm jealous of that in the least. ~wahh~

It all boils down to competition, which is something I've never been very good at handling. I hate to lose. And when I use the word hate I mean hate as in I would rather dive into a pool of used syringes than take second place or worse. I'm trying to reconcile those completely rational ha ha feelings because it's stupid and eventually leads to giving up at the first sign of struggle which is also stupid. No one can win all the time and personal goals are just that, personal. There doesn't have to be a trophy at the end of every race.

A sparkly tiara, maybe.

But what if you set a goal and because of the sheer numbers of other people who have the same goal make it so your goal is never going to be reached? Is there enough room for everyone at the table?

This is what I don't know.

I've been so desperate (this could be part of the problem) to be considered an artist my entire life while watching my friends draw their little asses off while I scribbled my lopsided circles. To have something, anything that could be deemed an artistic talent. And of course I'm my own worst critic, although my mother comes in a close second (ha ha, mom, I win!) I am occasionally pleased with something I've written and now that I'm getting really passionate about photography I've experienced the same pride there.

And then I see other people's work and I think, omg, I'm crap. I have a lot to learn and I'm willing to do that work, but will it make a shit of difference? There are so many people doing the same thing. So many people that are already there. Is there room for one more and most importantly, room for me?

And what if you want to make a HUGE career change that is artistic in nature and is known for its practically unbreakable glass ceiling and high level competition. What I see now is a world saturated with people doing the same thing I want to do. Others recognized for it, some deserving, some not, others seemingly successful and happy. Does there need to be an empty space to fill before you feel content and accomplished? Should outside accolades be part of the goal? Is self-satisfaction with one's art enough? Does that really matter? Should it matter?

Is there room for one more?