Crash

A hard-drive crash (as in complete self-destruction)…  losing several files, settings, etc…. the usual … took me off line last week.  Going dark for a few days has actually been good for me.  I’ve done more reading (of books… on paper… the old-fashioned way) and had to spend some “quality time” just catching up on my neglected personal life.

Which doesn’t mean it wasn’t a hassle.  I have commitments beyond the Mex Files that also require more time than is probably healthy sitting in front of a computer.

The Mex Files is only supported by donations (and the odd occasional  grant).  I have been able to economically justify the time it takes for posting every day in that this site builds “brand recognition” for Editorial Mazatlán and has been a tool for doing my job as “gestor de projectos” for my company — keeping me in touch with writers about, and in, Mexico.

One of those writers is Joanna van der Gracht de Rosales, whose “Magic: Made in Mexico” we are working overtime to prepare for publications, and have every hope will be in print and available by late November.

The Mex Files has also given me some name recognition as a relatively knowledgeable person about Mexico and Mexican culture.  Although my “real job” pays a livable wage, I’m conscious that I work for a start-up company, and have personal obligations that may not always be met from my present salary.  So, I’ve had to take a second job, as the “local expert” with a travel and tourism site.   As the “local expert” I am contractually obligated to post regularly on their site, about travel in this corner of Mexico, and have to invest time and effort in that.  Fortunately, I have a researcher to help with some of the work on the travel site (yeah, a rough job, checking out the margarita specials at the local watering spots), but still will have to edit and send out a couple of regular posts on that site, as well as daily updates.

I don’t write about tourism normally, and there shouldn’t be much conflict of interest, although there are a few areas I just will have to avoid writing about here.  As it is, the Mex Files was always meant as an extension of other writing, not an end in itself.  When I started posting, there wasn’t much available in English on Mexican political and contemporary cultural trends, a situation that maybe The Mex Files helped change.  At any rate, The Mex Files is hardly unique, and there’s really not much need for my own commentary on things like the “drug war” or inter-party political squabbles that are covered in-depth (and probably better) by many others.

My interest has been, and continues to be, not so much the daily news, but how  contemporary events fit into, or reflect, Mexican history and … for lack of a better phrase… “deep culture”.  It’s impossible to reflect on those concerns, though, when distracted by self-imposed expectations that I will write about some ephemeral event like the capture of the gangster of the week, or whatever.  I catch myself obsessing over my stats and the number of daily hits (which have been very good over the last year or so), but recognize that most are people only vaguely interested in some news event or looking for something that really doesn’t interest me, and I don’t have any particular insight into in the first place.  Or much interest.

And… finally… my personal life has always been outside the concerns of this site (and I purposely avoided writing a “My Life in Fulanotitlan” type site), but I do have one.   Feeling that I am obliged to post on a regular schedule interferes with that.  I considered just dropping this site, for many of the same reasons Jim Schultz dropped his Blog From Bolivia gave in his “farewell post”.  Mostly, too much writing is not good writing, and this kind of writing gets old. It’s not as much fun any more.

I don’t have any immediate plans to discontinue The Mex Files, but I’m putting it aside for the rest of the month to catch up on other things.  I plan to be back in October (don’t lose those bookmarks and feeds), but I’ll be updating as the spirit moves me.  In the meantime, there’s over 3000 previous posts to explore (and some worth my rewriting into a book form).