Quietly Agnostic

I would answer a rather harsh criticism of my quotidian. First off, why would someone I don't know go out of their way to criticize my writing after reading me for just a week? Not sure I understand the motivation. If you don't like me, don't read me. Fuck a bunch of ugly words. I've built more than two dozen houses, I designed 16 or 18 of them, do, in fact, know about building. I've designed, type-set, printed, and bound between 60 and 70 letterpress books, at least that many broadsides, I actually do know about printing. I am a good cook. I tend to look closely at things. I'm pretty far to the left of most liberals. I really do cook on a wood-stove, I don't have running water, and certainly not air conditioning. I am a janitor. I buy art and books even though I live below the poverty level. I'm a funny drunk, a cheap date, and a careful driver. I'm Southern born, but talk without an accent usually. I can slaughter a hog, milk a goat, make cheese, and shoot well enough to keep the enemy at bay. I've designed sets, built sets, stage managed or directed maybe 150 plays, two dozen operas, a dozen dances. I'm a good listener, generally only offering my opinion when asked. I've built staircases that impressed other builders, I've composted my shit for 30 years, and have very little to hide, other than holes in my socks and a distressing history of relationships. I do seem to be hard to live with, so I live alone. I'm social enough, and a good conversationalist, but I don't drink and drive and I really hate bullshit and compromise. That's the drift. Someone said about me once that I was a floating nucleus, with a positive charge, and random electrons were attracted. I demand decent conversation, without which all is lost, if I'd taken up golf or chess I'd be unbearable, but early on decided words were my field, at least there I could be second or third best, after Stephen Ellis or Skip Fox or Brian Richards, god, that makes me fourth, out of the medals, but what the hell, within striking distance, a minor regional voice. I believe in very little, what I see, what I can touch, the tangible: bricks, crows, the way tadpoles turn into frogs. Almost everything else is smoke and mirrors, what someone wants you to believe. History is an Advertising Slogan, with lots of tits and ass, a construct that appeals to your baser instincts, and mostly we buy it, because we'd rather masturbate and believe than question the party line.