In a meme in my livejournal, I stated that my future dream career would be an author, ergo I'd die a starving artist unless I find patronage, i.e. a sugar daddy. Now, it looks like I won't have to worry about starving for too long.
According to an article in the Guardian, writing poetry poses a health risk. I've always thought that reading too much crappy poetry, about unrequieted infatuation, love from above the moon in June, teenage alienation, etc, caused serious damage, but as it turns out, it's poets who are living dangerously and fingering the mortal coil.
In a survey of about 2,000 artists worldwide, poets on average died at age 62, while playwrights at 63, novelists at 66, and non-fiction writers live until the ripe old age of 68. American, Chinese, and Turkish writers die significantly younger than the average. The actual article isn't available online, so I'm going on what the article says, and can't give real details.
Apparently, it's worst for female poets, who are more likely to commit or attempt suicide. They don't say anything about gay writers, but going by national standards, I'm guessing that gay poets have it the worst. Lucky me.
It's a good thing I've branched out recently to one acts and short stories. Maybe I'll last an extra few years, which, at least at this point of my life, doesn't matter too much; at either 62 or 68, I'll still be damn old.
Then again, I'm pretty level headed, so it's doubtful that I'll ever live fast, die young, or leave an exquisite corpse, so I probably don't need to worry that much.
But still, I'm pursuing a dangerous job, like lumberjacks, policemen, and construction workers.
Who would have thought that a poet would seem so butch?
(addendum: Thanks goes out to the lovely Intertextual, who recently reviewed my site. While I didn't paint the painting (that would be the lovely Elizabeth Peyton), he's still a great guy and made my day with his critique. In his defense about the painting mixup, there was a rollover with credit, but I had forgotten some quotation marks, so it didn't show up. I didn't mean to take credit for someone else's painting. I've added a link to the sidebar to help clarify things.)
(Also-Intertextual says that on his computer the font is Times New Roman, while on mine it is Garmond. If someone could leave a comment stating the font on your computer, that'd rock.)
