Ooooooh my god I’m all over the place right now. See, Blake and I have these marathon conversations about life and creativity and expression that are both brain numbing and inspiring at the same time. I love when we talk like this, but unfortunately it’s almost always late at night and by the time we’re done, we’re both exhausted. He’s gone to bed but my brain’s going a mile a minute.

Here’s the thing: I feel like I’ve kind of been in a rut for maybe the past year. Being on proper meds and getting my bipolar disorder under control (more or less) has caused me to change some of my habits. For example, I’m not longer hypergraphic. Prior to getting my meds in order, I would go through a paper notebook usually once a month and I would literally spend like, 4 hours a day just writing writing writing. But now I don’t do that anymore. I still keep a paper journal but I only write in it maybe twice a month and each entry only ends up being a 2 page, bare bones account of what’s happening in my life at the moment rather than a sweeping saga like they were before. Likewise, my blog entries have become a lot more sanitized than they’ve ever been before and Blake & I agreed tonight that that’s somewhat of a problem because I write to process things and if I’m not writing, I’m not processing things, I’m keeping it all inside and that’s A) Not good for me, and B) Not me. At all.

The problem is that for some reason I began self-censoring myself, and rather harshly, and I don’t really know why I started doing that and now it’s gotten to the point where I’m completely frustrated by it. Blogging is like, the fucking wild wild West and there aren’t really any established rules on what you can and cannot write about or more importantly WHO you can and cannot write about. All of that is really left up to the writer and over the past year or so I’ve had trouble reconciling what’s right and what’s wrong as far as what I can write about that’s happening in my life.

Certain people – well, really only one – have asked me specifically not to write about them, not to even mention them, and I’ve honoured that…but there’s a “but” coming. The person who specifically asked me not to write about them no longer deserves that kind of respect and as it turns out, never really did in the first place. With the exception of that one person, my policy has always been that if you are a part of my life, I’m going to write about you at some point, plain & simple, because to do otherwise is self-censorship and that makes me a sad panda, it really does. The other policy I’ve always had with this whole blogging thing is that if you don’t want to be portrayed as a douche, don’t do douchey things. I mean, I think that too is also a pretty simple concept, don’t you agree?

So self-censorship…obviously there has to be some but I think I drew my line in such a way that it left me very little wiggle room and I just don’t write the way I used to and I hate that. I like being an open book, I like being a ridiculously honest person, I like that part of me and this week I realized that I’ve lost a lot of that and dammit, I want it back. My moods are stable, my meds are working, my light therapy is working, I’m making progress in so many areas as far as immersion therapy, it’s time to reclaim certain aspects of myself I put on hold for so long.

For example, a large part of the reason I left Camwhores 2 years ago was because I wasn’t stable and I didn’t really trust myself to have an outlet to instantly broadcast anything I wanted to. Near the end there, I was sad one day and I posted a picture of myself crying – for the first time in my (at the time) 7 year camming history. That was when I realized that I needed to reign myself in and get better before I could go on. I hope that makes sense.

During that time, as most of you know if you’ve been reading along, I stopped writing about certain things. For a few months there my entire Live Journal was just Loud Twitter updates because that’s all I could handle at the time. I stopped seeing the world in the unique way I normally would.

But I’m okay now, or close to it. I’m stronger. I trust myself and my own judgment and it’s time to jump on the floor and bang on the ceiling  with a broom (as my shrink puts it) and maybe shake some things up. Wake up my little readership and get them writing again themselves as so many seem to have abandoned their blogs and Live Journal for Facebook and Twitter. Have opinions. Talk to me.

I want to write about the things that are actually happening in my life again. Y’know the expression “dance like no one’s watching”? Well I’m going to write like no one’s reading. Until tonight I had so much fear and I don’t even know where it came from. I had fear about writing about Wayne & Judy in case Judy’s daughter Ashley was reading and her interpretation in telling them about it would be negative. I had fear about writing about my mother for fear of her getting pissed off at me. I had fear about writing about Blake’s mother because I know she reads and she’s the one who asked me (through Blake) specifically never to even mention her online. But in talking to Blake tonight, we sort of found the problem. When I first started writing publicly about my life, the internet was still relatively small and no one I really knew, except for Blake and some of the Scratching Post kids, was reading the things I wrote. And then my mom got online. And then Blake’s mom started reading. And now Blake’s co-workers are reading. And with all of these people reading, I kind of froze, almost like stage fright, and now I’m in this stupid rut of mine.

But Blake and I talked about it and he said to me that who is he to tell me what I can and can’t write about? And who is anyone else to tell me the same? People have to trust my judgment and if they don’t like what’s being written about them they either have to, as I said, stop doing douchey things, or start doing things to portray themselves in a better light. All I do is write what I see and feel, I simply write the truth. If I want to tell you that last night Wayne & Judy drank 28 beer and Wayne was so drunk he pissed all over the floor and toilet seat, well dammit, I’m going to because that’s what happened. If Wayne doesn’t want me writing about something like that, then don’t fucking do it. (Although honestly, I doubt Wayne would care and the incident was actually really funny. Plus they don’t even have internet and wouldn’t read a post even this long so I don’t think they’d see it or care if they did.)

So, starting today, right now, I’m going to once again be more open and honest about the happenings of my life and that includes everyone in it. People who are truly my friends and really know me will totally understand and be totally on board with this, others…well they may not be but that’s just too damn bad. I’m done censoring myself out of respect for people who don’t deserve that respect. What am I talking about? Well, keep reading, here’s where things start getting  juicy.

But where to even start? I guess the biggest thing happening in our lives right now, or at least the biggest conflict is Blake’s mother, Brooke. Right now Blake and Brooke are battling via e-mail over comments she made about me when Blake was in Michigan last month. See, when I first met Brooke – 8 years ago now – I thought she was pretty cool but that facade quickly dissipated and I found myself in a monster-in-law type of situation. I don’t even know where it all began, really, this has been an issue that long, but maybe I should start with after Blake & I got married because I don’t feel like telling the tale of our actual wedding which neither of our mothers were invited to.

After Blake and I got married and I was pregnant with Wes, Brooke would call the house constantly and if I picked up the phone it would either be something inane like what size of clothes Madison wore because she was out shopping at the time and saw something Madison might look cute in – despite the fact that we’d told her Madison’s size at least 5 times prior to that and strangely these cute things for Madison never seemed to appear. In other words, these calls were just calls to call. To this day I don’t even know what their purpose was. Other times when I’d pick up the phone, she’d give me all kinds of bad and unwanted advice and would basically tell me that I wasn’t doing enough as a wife and mother, so I stopped answering the phone.

But here’s the thing: I’ve never really been a phone person, that’s just not how I communicate, so it was a special effort to answer the phone for her in the first place so to be put down just about every time I did, didn’t really encourage me to keep taking the calls. See what I’m saying?

So once I stopped taking the calls – and again, keep in mind that I don’t take calls from pretty much anyone – that’s when she’d start calling Blake on his cell and complain that I never answered the phone. Well gee lady, I wonder why. Blake explained to her that I’m not just a phone person – for YEARS – but the complaints didn’t stop until about two years ago. Without going into huge detail (maybe I will one day, just not tonight), about two years ago Blake and Brooke had basically an e-mail war that lasted almost a year. I can’t even remember how it got resolved off the top of my head, but it did and ever since, I’ve done my best to continue being nothing but nice to this woman. I answer her e-mails, we send each other Growing Gifts and things like that on Facebook with little notes attached and while it all seems like minor communication on the surface, it’s actually huge for me and here I thought after 6 years of her flat out disliking me and flat out saying that I wasn’t good enough for her son and that Blake wasn’t living up to his full potential because of me etc. that she was finally starting to get to know me and maybe even liking me. In fact, I think it was her last visit last fall where she gave me a gift of these neat tin ladies with great quotes on them that I have hanging in my office. I thought that after all these years, we were finally starting to make progress and maybe even bond a little bit.

But then Blake’s cousin’s wife died and he had to go to Michigan for the funeral last month and on one of the nights he was there, his mom got two drinks into her and just let loose saying all kinds of negative things about me. Want a list? Here it is:

• *Everyone* has mental illness, the people she knows who are mentally ill are worse off than me and they can do things I can’t, like work. (“my whole family was mentally ill and half were institutionalized and we could all work. . .”)

• She’s scared I’m taking advantage of Blake. That I “make” him do everything. (When in reality I don’t “make” him do anything and while he does do more than I do, I don’t exactly sit at home and eat bon bons either. I mean, who did she think was looking after the kids, the house and the dogs while Blake was in Michigan?)

• She claims she doesn’t read my site or anything but she’s pissed because I apparently made a blog post where I said that because I stay home and I’m an artist I’m better than people who work. (“she said that you were basically saying how much better you are than people who get up with their kids every day and how much better you are than people who have jobs. She basically said you were saying you’re an artist and anyone who works or takes care of kids all day is a sell out and not as good as you”. This one baffles me BECAUSE THAT SOUNDS SOOOO MUCH LIKE SOMETHING I’D SAY, so I asked Blake to get more info but there was none to be had.)

• Blake said she said, “I may have neglected to tell Joyce the part about you not wanting the present because you wanted the kids treated as equals” or something like that. This is a long dead issue but Joyce is Blake’s mom’s best friend and she wanted to buy a savings bond for Blake’s “first born child” and we freaked because we want our kids treated as equals and Wes was NOT Blake’s first child. Blake’s mom hounded us forEVER about getting Wes an American SSN so they could buy bonds for him, but Joyce supposedly had no intentions of getting any for Madison, so we cut her out of our lives and said thanks but no thanks. According to Blake: “Joyce never knew we had an issue with anything, so we were just ungrateful fucks.”

• She wants to get our kids AMERICAN FUCKING PASSPORTS for Xmas. When I asked why, Blake said “she thinks that being Canadian will hold them back in life, but if they have official US docs they will magically be better off”.

For the last two years I have been nothing but nice to this woman. I’ve met her half way as much as I’m capable of. I reply to every non-fwd e-mail she sends me. I write on her Facebook wall. I send her Growing Gifts. I used to play Scrabble with her on Facebook until Blake told me she uses a program to cheat. I do way more for her than she does for me as far as meeting someone halfway and this is the shit we get? It’s obvious that she still has a deep dislike for me, the same dislike she’s had since day one, meaning that all of the stuff we’ve been doing together that I thought was progress was all meaningless and phony on her end. Here I was being genuine and trying my best to be what I thought she wanted me to be but the whole time she was reading my site and feeling negative about all the things I do. She was a troll, by my definition, she just doesn’t leave comments (to my knowledge).

Worse, she seems to think she has to “enlighten” Blake on what a horrible person I am because he’s apparently too stupid or naive to see it and that’s completely insulting to him.

Again – and I cannot stress this enough – until this very moment I have been nothing but kind and humble towards Blake’s mother. When she cornered me in her kitchen a few years ago (the last time we went to Michigan) to literally tell me that Blake is such & such a way and that I’m holding him back from his true potential, I took it in stride and never fought back or stood up for myself or anything. I just took it. (I’m not good with confrontation.) She pulled a similar move in my own kitchen a few years ago as well and it was the same thing, I just said something neutral and walked out of the room. I have never been hostile or negative or anything like that towards this woman EVER and as I said, within the past two years here I was being honest and thoughtful and trying to build a relationship and the second she gets Blake alone, she tears me down.

I think Blake was more upset about the things she said than I was. I was hurt by them, yes, because I honestly thought we were building a relationship here and her actions were genuine and when I found out they were just an act, it stung because I was making an honest effort…and it apparently got me nowhere. When Blake got home, he said that he’d let the dust settle from the funeral and when things had calmed down, he’d e-mail his mom and settle this shit once and for all. I don’t know how many e-mails have flown back and forth at this point, but the first e-mail went out last weekend and they’re still battling it out so who knows when this is going to be over or if it’s ever going to be over. I mean godammit, Blake and I have been together for 8 fucking years, we have a solid relationship and a happy marriage that works, I’m here to stay. At some point she’s going to have to accept that and accept me or we’re going to have no choice but to live our life without her – and that’s pretty much what Blake’s been saying in the e-mails from what I understand.

What he’s leaving out though, is that she also needs to accept Blake for who he is. Blake has a job he loves in a field he loves and he even acknowledges the fact that he wouldn’t be where he is right now – and be happy – without me. Blake’s mom, according to Blake, expects him to have made his first million by now and have a trophy wife who will host Superbowl parties, attend dinner meetings and have a power career of her own. While we’re happy and accept each other for who we are, we have Blake’s mom who sees both of us as nothing but a disappointment.

And did you know that when I was in the hospital in 2006 because I was having a psychotic episode Brooke’s advice to Blake was to pack up the kids, drive down to her house in Michigan and fucking LEAVE ME? I mean what reality does this woman even live in?

She says she doesn’t even know me because she’s only met me about a dozen times, but at the same time, she’s been reading my site since Blake and I got together and I’ve most definitely met her more than a dozen times and while she claims she hasn’t gotten to know me well enough to love me, she’s certainly displayed that she’s gotten to know me well enough to dislike me and feel negatively towards me.

Blake’s been saying this the whole time we’ve been married: that there is nothing I can do to please his mother because I’m simply not the woman he was supposed to marry. Right now he’s told me to stop even trying to make an effort with her because the two years I  did try obviously got me nowhere so what’s the point? He says his mother needs to examine her feelings toward me and resolve them on her own before we can move forward and until she does that, I’ll never get anywhere with her.

I don’t know how long this is going to take. I don’t know how long this e-mail war is going to last. All I know is that I’m staying the fuck out of it and leaving it between them because there’s no place for me in this discussion even though it’s pretty much about me. I don’t know what the right thing to do is anymore – I thought I was doing it! I’d rather do nothing than misstep and at this point in time I simply give up.

The other aspect of this is that Brooke and her husband Charlie want to come up and visit but until this situation is resolved somehow that simply can’t happen. How can I have someone in my home who feels so hostile toward me? Why should I have to put up with being put down in my own comfort zone? The fact is, I don’t have to and I’m not going to and Blake completely agrees.

To expand upon that topic, according to Blake, Brooke and Charlie don’t like coming up here because they get bored. Well if you’re so bored and your grandchildren aren’t entertaining enough, then don’t fucking come up! In a recent phone conversation with his mom, which sort of turned into a fight – while he was at WORK – she said that Charlie would like to do home improvement projects with us and got all offended when Blake said that if we needed to work on the house at all, we’d probably enlist the help of Phil (my dad) because he’s only an hour & a half away and he does this shit for a living, every single day and has a truck if we need lumber or drywall and a million other reasons. Well Brooke took great offense to this for some reason and started a fight about it, saying how Charlie (her husband, if that wasn’t clear) put in someone’s window in something like, an hour or whatever and Blake was just like “where the fuck is this even coming from?” I mean the fact of the matter is, we don’t really DO home improvement projects and we’re certainly not going to call on Charlie to drive 5 hours up here to like, paint our living room ceiling or tile our shower. We’re not going to start a home improvement project when we have company coming (them) and we don’t have the money to just start a home improvement project when they want to come up just so Charlie will be entertained. It just doesn’t make any sense.

But where did this all come from? Well I talked to Blake shortly after his mom had called and he told me about it and I told him exactly where it was coming from: that day or the day before I’d made a post about us moving on Live Journal and how we’d need to fix up our house a bit to sell it and that Wayne had offered to help. THAT is where it all came from, I’m fairly certain. But the thing Blake and I both wonder is: does Charlie even know she’s saying all of this stuff on his behalf? We kind of doubt it. Charlie, as far as I’ve ever been able to tell and Blake agrees, is a pretty laid back, go with the flow, sit & chat kinda guy. It was certainly news to both of us that he suddenly wanted to help us drywall our bathroom because he’s bored out of his skull when he comes up otherwise.

The other issue with them coming up, according to these phone calls Blake gets from his mother while he’s at work, is that it’s too expensive. See, they can’t stay at our house because 1) Our house is very small and our futon isn’t very comfortable, 2) Charlie’s apparently allergic to our dogs and 3) I don’t really want to be alone in the house with them when Blake & the kids go to school and work because his mom corners me, talks down to me and puts me down, so that means they have to stay at a hotel or do what they did last time they came up (for a week) and get a time share somewhere. And this is apparently where the boredom sets in. While the kids are at school and Blake’s at work, they’re left to their own devices and they get bored. I don’t really know what I can do about that. If it were me, I’d do some Googling to see what was around and find something to do, but by the sounds of it, that thought’s never crossed Brooke’s mind. She’d rather complain that they’re bored.

So if it’s boring and too expensive, then I say don’t fucking come up! Plain & simple. If it’s such a chore, such a bother for you to come up to spend money only to not have a good time, then why bother? I mean I don’t have a solution to either problem and neither does Blake. I’m sorry my house isn’t bigger? I’m sorry Charlie’s allergic to my dogs? I’m sorry our kids aren’t entertaining enough for you? I mean what are we supposed to say to that?

What comes to mind is what my mother used to say to me when I was a kid and complained of boredom. She said, rather nastily I might add, “I’m not your entertainer!” and dammit I’m not. If you can’t keep yourself occupied, that isn’t my problem. Complaining about it to us isn’t going to solve your issue, you have to be proactive and go see what’s out there or I dunno, stay home!

I don’t know how to move forward from here. Everything is so convoluted at this point that I worry there’s no turning back. The harder Blake pushes the subject, I think the more his mother is going to resent me, but at the same time, I think he has no other choice than to bring this all up to the surface and address it rather than smile while staring daggers, know what I mean?

And of course Brooke is going to read this post and probably flip out but at this point I don’t even care. Blake doesn’t either. He told me tonight to write whatever I felt I needed to write and I think that’s what I’ve done here, as far as his mother is concerned. Until this whole thing blows over or runs its course or does whatever it’s going to do, I’m just gonna lay low, observe and, for the most part, keep my damn mouth shut on the subject. I wish I had a crystal ball so I knew how this was going to play out, but I don’t and I hate not knowing what to expect, I hate not knowing what to do. Is this post going to make anything better? Definitely not, but I’m sick and tired of pretending this aspect of my life doesn’t exist when it’s been a problem for the entire 8 years Blake and I have been together. It’s a constant drain on both of us and a huge source of anxiety for me. Every time I even think of Blake getting another e-mail from his mom, I have to pop an Ativan because my stomach knots up.

But enough about THAT drama I’ve said what I need to say right now and that’s just what is going on and yeah, Brooke will be making an appearance in my writings again at some point, but that’s enough for now. In the meantime, wanna know what else is going on in my life? Well my friend Jesse has pretty much abandoned me. I’ve sent him e-mails, I’ve written on his Facebook wall several times, I’ve sent him messages on Yahoo, I’ve tried to add him to Last.fm but he won’t add me back….I haven’t seen him since like, the winter and I don’t even know why this is happening. Blake’s talked to him and Jesse claims he’s not mad at Blake or myself, he’s just been “busy” and “doesn’t get online very often anymore”.

Blake went over to Jesse’s house on Saturday to retrieve the CDs he’d borrowed from us because I’m so convinced he’s distancing himself from us on purpose I wanted to get them back before he moved or something and he was apparently all sunshine and lollipops. He said he’d get online and e-mail me, but so far that hasn’t happened and I don’t expect it will.

I don’t like thinking bad things about my friends, but the only reason I can think of for Jesse blowing us off like this is the fact that I don’t smoke pot anymore, so I can’t be his stoner buddy and there’s no smoking in our house anymore so we can’t sit around smoking and talking like we used to. He used to come over at least twice a week, I’d talk to him usually every day on Yahoo, what happened?

The last time I talked to him was on Yahoo at the end of June because I asked him to come to the Hypercube event with us and he said he’d ask for that day off and we haven’t spoken since despite my attempts. Something’s going on there and I don’t know what and while it used to bother me, I’m at the point where I guess Jesse’s been moved into the “acquaintance” category and out of the “friend” category for the time being and that’s why I wanted all my CDs back. It was a “closure” kinda deal for me. Now Jesse can fuck off and do his own thing and I’m not even going to worry about it anymore. If I see him in the grocery store, I’ll talk to him, but I’m not gonna chase him down anymore or make myself crazy wondering what I did wrong. I’m just going to take him at his word that I didn’t do anything wrong and leave it at that.

In other news, Alex and I had our first fight last week. Here’s what happened: Blip.fm posted on Twitter excessively drives me nuts and Ronny is the worst offender on my list. But I love him so I just put up with it and grumble to myself when he’s on a Blip marathon and scroll past them or ignore Twitter until he’s gone to bed. But one day last week, I checked my Facebook live feed and there, from Ronny were a bunch of Blips. Now here’s the other thing about Ronny and I, for some reason Ronny tends to bring out the snark in me, so I commented on one of the Blips on Facebook and said something like “Are you seriously going to make me put up with these here too?” thinking he was posting tweets to Facebook and not realizing it was a Blip application that I could block. I thought in order to not see them, I would have to block Ronny altogether and I didn’t want to have to do that.

So anyway, I got busy talking to Blake or doing something, I can’t remember, and when I opened up TweetDeck, here were these bitchy, passive-aggressive Blips from Alex that were most definitely directed at me. So me, always one to make matters better because I’m talented like that, I posted a Blip of my own…of the Bloodhound Gang’s “I Hope You Die” and mimicked one of Alex’s passive-aggressive Blips in my message to which Alex replied “……..” and then “You’re a real bitch sometimes,” or something to that effect. I replied with “At least I’m honest,” and then a few second later I said something about how I’d rather be a bitch upfront than a passive-aggressive one and that’s when Alex announced that she was too “tired and cranky for this bull” and that was the last I heard from her on Twitter.

So after that I checked my e-mail and there were Facebook notifications where Ronny and Alex had commented on my original Facebook Blip comment saying that it was an app and I could block it and that no one was “forcing” me to do anything. I commented back, even though both of them had gone to bed, that I hadn’t realized it was an app, that I thought I’d have to block Ronny altogether and I apologized for the misunderstanding. Then, later that night I got thinking about it and while yes, Alex was a bitch too, I started it, so I decided to be the first to apologize so we could forget this ever happened. So, I texted Alex with “I’m sorry. I love you.” at like, 1am so she’d get it in the morning and when I woke up the next day, there was a text on my phone from Alex saying the same thing. Everything’s cool now and I think we just caught each other on bad days, but it was just a weird situation because Alex and I had never fought before and I’m glad we have the kind of relationship where we can just apologize to each other and let bygones be bygones. I was proud of us that day. So many women love to let drama like that play out for as long as possible and make it snowball and I really dig that neither she nor I are that type of woman. Or maybe we are a little bit, but at least we both value our friendship enough to just step back and be cool about things. I love Alex.

Saturday night, which those who follow me on Twitter already know, Blake & I went over to Wayne & Judy’s to play euchre and drink a little bit…or in their case, drink a lot. Apparently they started drinking at around 6pm, we showed up at 9pm. Blake & I don’t really drink that much or that often, so he had a 6-pack of beer and I had two 4-packs of Mike’s Hard lemonade. Wayne’s one of these guys who thinks men are superior to women so he always wants it to be men against women and…Judy & I beat them 5 games-0. Wayne knows the game now and at least 3 times renegged and once he decided to go alone on a hand that had NO trump whatsoever. He said “Blake, ya gotta trust me, this hand is ours,” and Blake was like “Wayne, if you don’t have the best hand ever and win this, I’m gonna punch you,”…and then it turned out he had NO trump while Blake had a hand that was almost entirely trump. Since Blake couldn’t really punch Wayne, I did. Later that night, as Wayne got more and more drunk, he wobbled upstairs and when he came down he started bitching at Judy that they need to change the plate cover on the light switch in the bathroom because when he’s drunk he can never find the switch to turn it on. (Their light switch cover is bumpy and has frogs on it and it makes the switch a bit recessed.) And then he tells us that as he was peeing in the dark, all of a sudden he started peeing on the seat. So we were all like, “why didn’t you have the seat up?” and he slurred “oh I never do that, I don’t have to” and I was like, “well if you’re pissing on the seat then apparently you do!” None of us were sure if he was serious or not about peeing on the seat, so all 4 of us went up there to investigate and lo & behold there was piss all over the seat and a huge puddle all over the floor. I don’t think he actually got ANY in the bowl. From that point on, especially because they have a cracked, squishy toilet seat, I went over to my house to pee. But it didn’t really matter because by that point Wayne was so drunk he was practically passing out at the kitchen table, so shortly after the bathroom incident, Blake and I left to go back to our house and while I tried to drink the rest of my Mike’s Hard and actually get drunk like everyone else, I just wasn’t into it so I dumped mine. We tried to play a game of Monopoly but I was just too tired and not really feeling well so we packed it up and I went to bed instead.

Sunday I was hung over which I think is totally unfair since I didn’t even get drunk the night before. Because I felt like crap, I basically just slept most of the day and rested up for the Mad Men finale (which was excellent).

And then of course, after Mad Men was over, Blake and I started our marathon conversation on blogging, creativity and life in general which brings us back full circle. The fact of the matter is, I’m not painting right now because I’m discouraged but that doesn’t mean I can’t be creative in other ways. I’ve got a short story bordering on a novella sitting here that I could be working on. I don’t know if anything will ever come of it, but it’s here waiting for me to write it. I have a million stories from my past left to tell and a new audience to tell some of the ones I’ve told before to. There’s no reason for me to remain in this rut and to become stagnant, waiting around for something to happen.

Another thing my mom used to say about boredom was that only boring people get bored, and the thing is, I’m not boring, I have this wicked imagination to keep me entertained so I might as well use it.

And I think that’s all I have to say.

PS. This entry is 6300 words long.

PPS. This entry was supposed to be posted at about 3:30am but our ISP had an internet outage so that’s why it’s being posted this morning.