Start Your Engines

It feels good to be back in a routine again. I need to get back to work on my website, but I’m taking my time. My day ran away from me faster than I expected. I thought I had a lot of time and then it was gone.

I’m starting the process of looking for another job. If anyone would like to commission some writing or knows of an interesting writing position for a freelance writer, please let me know. I think I have to take my writing more seriously and get my name out there. The website is the first step. I’m just getting started though.

Internet Love

I’m not sure how I’ve managed to spend the last two weekends in random places. I’m wondering what will happen next weekend, even though I have a feeling it will go back to normal. I always find it odd though that I don’t miss the internet when I’m out of town because the same can’t be said when I’m at home. If I’m at home and the internet goes down for whatever reason, I obsess over when I can use the internet again. It’s a mental thing and fortunately I know I’m not alone because many of my friends have told me the same thing happens to them. When you’re distracted by other activities, you barely think twice about the internet, but when you’re in the environment where you use the internet the most it’s hard to know that it isn’t available for your use even if you don't want to use it. It's just nice to know it's there.

Enough about the internet. I had a great weekend.

Emotional status: I was sad Thursday and Friday. I felt good on Saturday. I feel good so far today.

Blah, blah

Another hard day of working. I wish I was writing stories instead. I can tell I’m going to write for a while tonight because I’m in my writing mood. I'm going to watch the American Idol results show even though I didn’t like the show last night. I can say with certainty that they are not the best top ten in American Idol history. I can think of much better seasons.

Emotional status: I was sad when I woke up, but I started feeling better as the day progressed.

I Am Legend

Today was nice. I got a lot of work done. I had a good day. I spent some quality time with my family. I watched I am Legend. It’s the kind of movie that I’m happy I waited until it came out on DVD before I saw it. It seems a lot of movies now start out really slow and by the time they pick up you’ve been lulled in to a non-caring state by the slowness. I like parts of it and I liked the general concept, but it didn’t make me want to read the story it’s based on. Mostly because of the ending though. I’m not a big fan of that kind of ending and I’ll leave it at that.

Emotional Status: Feeling good because I was really productive today.

Home Sweet Home

Sometimes I wonder how my time manages to slip by me so quickly. I was in West Virginia most of Friday, Detroit on Saturday and part of Sunday and then I was home. I didn’t know what happened all weekend, but I had a welcomed surprise on Sunday, when one of my closest friends who I hadn’t spoke with, outside of instant messaging, for at two months called me to wish me a Happy Easter. It made my day and then when we called one of our friends and spoke with them, I felt even better. It was good to hear their voices as opposed to just seeing their words on the computer screen or on my cell phone. Instant messaging and texting are great and I use both because I’m not big on talking on the phone anymore, but occasionally it’s nice to be able to laugh with someone and follow that up by making fun of their laugh or how hard they’re laughing. I’ve had some good laughs from messages I’ve received but you can’t share that laughter with the person who caused it unless you’re communicating directly with them in a more personal way.

How sad is it that now an actual phone call can be considered personal? I’m not that old, but when I was younger, seeing someone face to face was personal contact and telephone calls were a way of instant communication. Things change no matter how hard you fight against them. I tried not to become a texter, yet my friends pulled me in to it anyway. I love texting though because it’s a great cop out for me on the days when I don’t want to communicate on a more personal level which is most days. I text my message and I don’t have to worry about thinking of something else to say or talking about something I may not want to talk about.

Emotional status: Happy to be home and writing again.

Be Back Soon

I'll be back tomorrow with more random thoughts.

Good as New

I worked hard today but I wished I was writing instead. I had a lot of ideas that I jotted down but I’m trying not to write any more short stories until I finish some other things first. I haven’t even started putting up the previews of my stories on the site. That is on my to do list but it definitely isn’t a priority.

I was washing dishes, the old fashioned way. I started scrubbing a saucepan and the thick brown layer on the outside started to come up. The next thing I knew, I spent an hour scrubbing the pot until it looked brand new again. The pot is as old as I am, but it doesn’t look that way anymore. Gone are the signs of how well used it truly is and back is the silver shine that was once there along with the smooth feeling as your fingers touch it. I do that from time to time: scrub away the rough spots on a random pot or pan and make it look like new again. There’s joy in it for me and a lot of satisfaction. I don’t do it all the time, so I won’t act like it happens on a regular basis, but about once every 8 or 9 months I’ll wash something and feel the need to clean it as good as I can. All the scrubbing is relaxing to me and I do a lot of thinking while I scrub. The worst are the pots or pans that I can’t scrub clean; the ones that I have to give up on. I don’t like that. I like the idea of being able to fix things and make them almost as good as new. Although I guess that is reflective of my nature in general and not just my random scrubbing moments.

I notice strange things about myself sometimes.

Emotional status: At one with the universe.

Don't Kill the Beatles.......Again

I’m tired of hearing about race today and wishing America had something else to talk about. I got a little writing done and I’m hoping to get some more done tonight. I’m feeling good even though my mental to do list for the day only has one thing checked off. I’m hoping I can watch American Idol and not have the singers butcher every Beatles' song they touch like they did last week because the Beatles were amazing, but the American Idol contestants killed the Beatles' songs last week.

Nothing much to talk about today, besides things that annoyed me and that’s no fun.

Emotional status: Mostly good with a speck of sadness.

Back Again

I thought about updating yesterday but I decided against it. It was a really good day though and I watched a few television movies last night. I’ll confess right now and say I watched Wisegal on Lifetime and then Cutting Edge 3 on ABCFamily. I loved the first Cutting Edge and I didn’t think a sequel could do it justice so luckily my standards were not very high for the Cutting Edge 2 and Cutting Edge 3. I won’t say the movie was a complete disappointment because I got what I was expecting, which wasn’t much.

Today was another unexpected day. I was hoping to make changes to the site, but someone else made plans for my free time and before I knew it, I blinked and I had been gone all day. I got home and relaxed a little, then I wrote the following poem:

Between the Sun and the Moon

I wake up this morning with the sun burning my face
White comforter, wrapped around me snugly, not warm enough to take your place
Staring at the sun hoping to be blessed with visions of you and memories of us
Soon I’m losing myself beneath the covers
Wishing I was losing you instead.

Acid falling on my pillow, brushing my cheeks and burning my nose
My eyes hang pictures of you smiling in the shadows
While my hands sculpt your image and mold it to my heart
Rays of sunlight darkening what once was bright
I paint your image on the wall, hoping to see it again in the moonlight.

Emotional status: Today was mostly good.

It's Not Over

I feel compelled to attempt to be consistent for the first few days of my site but today has been a very trying day so I don’t have much to write about. I was thinking I should update either this or the news blog because there’s a story that’s been bothering me all week, but now that I’ve started I think I’ll update both.

Today has seemed never ending and it’s still not over. I’ve been all over the city and now that I’m home, all I want to do is cuddle up with my laptop and write the night away. Hopefully I get my wish and have some peace tonight.

Emotional Status: Today was a depressing day but I managed to make it through with a smile on my face.

I Did It!

I still can't believe I actually started my site. I was excited and nervous this morning when I checked me emails and when I read them I had a good laugh. Yesterday after the site went live, I went to the site and immediately thought I was going to have to change the blue background because it seemed to overpower everything else, then I received the same critique in a few of the emails. First, I'd like to thank everyone who emailed me and inform you that I changed the blue background this morning. I'm still trying to think of something to spice up the home page, of course I'm welcoming suggestions for that (hint, hint).

Personal news: I seem to have strange dreams in bunches. It's weird though because sometimes I remember every detail and then other times I remember the way the dream made me feel and the general concept of the dream and I can see images from the dream, but I don't remember everything. Yesterday I remembered every detail. Today I just remember images and feelings from the dream I had last night. For the record, it is not a good feeling to be hunted down in your dream. My poor heart must have been in overdrive while I was sleeping!

Anyway, I've had a few people give me interpretations of my dream from yesterday. Apparently there really may be some significance to the theme of being chased and the idea of not being myself. Although I do have an overactive imagination so my dream could have been influenced by something I saw, which may be partly true because I think the ride part was from a story I saw on the news. I guess it depends on who you ask.

Confession time: I should be working now and I usually am but I can already foresee changes in my schedule. I am easily distracted and these new ventures are definitely big distractions, but they're good distractions though and they're already serving their purpose. I feel inspired, at least for the moment, to finish a few things. I'm not sure how long my inspiration will last because sometimes I have the attention span of a fly, but it feels good to be looking forward to ending something.

As for my emotional status, yesterday I was just feeling kind of blah with a lot of nervousness about my site and today I feel good and I'm a little less nervous.

At Long Last

I woke up this morning and decided today was the day I would announce my website. There was no significance to the date or anything like that, I just had a dream that freaked the hell out of me and I felt the need to get something done today. I've been talking to people about starting my author site since like November of last year, but I never did it. I started building it and then I didn't finish, which is unfortunately the story of my life. I'm a chronic beginner and a rare finisher. Beginnings are easy and simple for me, but the finality of ending something and actually getting it done bothers me. Hence why I have stories that are done, and yet I haven't posted the new chapters. My mission this year is to be more of a finisher. I think the website and the blogs are my first steps in the right direction because I'm hoping that I will be able to be more disciplined since they will require my attention on an almost daily basis.

On a completely random note, are there any dream interpreters out there reading this? If so, then you have to tell me what this dream means even if it just means that I have a vivid imagination. This morning I had the following dream:

I was walking down the side of the road and it was my street, but it wasn't my street. Anyway, I passed this white house and there was this old woman sitting in a rocking chair and she called me over. I didn't go because I didn't know her. So I walk home, and again, in the dream I feel as if the place is my home, but its nothing like where I actually live. The dream skips ahead and I'm sitting on a plush white chair and this man who is my brother in the dream comes in the house, that has now magically transformed to an apartment and he says he has someone who wants to see me. He opens the door and the old woman is standing there. I don't want to talk to her but I feel like I have to so I step outside the apartment. When I reach the hallway, the old woman is sitting there next to an old man and a middle aged woman. The old woman says she's not trying to scare me but they have to warn me so I won't die. They then each take turns describing different aspects of the death that I need to prevent. The old woman tells me of this tall structure that kind of looks like a ride and either is a ride or is by a ride but she's fuzzy on what it is exactly, the old man says there is a block near it with the date it was constructed inscribed and the middle aged woman says its near a cemetery. They say I'll know it when I see it because it will feel like deja vu and when I get that feeling that I'm looking at the three things they've warned me about, I need to turn and run away.

Then I'm suddenly in a hotel and I'm not me. I'm this averaged sized guy with a crew cut and I'm watching myself like you would watch a movie. I'm trying to find the elevator that will take me to my apartment but it isn't where it's supposed to be and I end up like in the basement of this hotel and I see a man and a woman dressed in black shooting a man who is laying on the ground. I panic and I try to hide but they hear me moving so they start chasing me. I manage to get away, then I see the old woman and she waves me over. She hides me in the back of this store and then I understand that the death she was warning me about wasn't my own, but it was this guy who everyone was seeing me as and that was why I didn't recognize anything and yet it all felt so familiar.

I know I have a vivid imagination, but this dream was definitely not due to snacking, because I had this dream in the morning after I woke up and used the bathroom and then went back to bed and dozed off for a few minutes.

Something about the dream struck a cord with me and I woke up feeling like this blog was something I had to do. I could just be crazy though.