But it's half as much as it was before

There is something to be said about just being responsible for yourself.  I just escaped for two days, just me and the old man, no kids, no work, just us and island time.  And bicycles.

Did I mention Island time?

Kelley's Island.  It was wonderful for two days.  We biked the whole island more than once.  Made us wish that we could bike our neighborhood to get places.  Made us real sad that our neighborhood is not bike friendly for living.

Things we did:  had no kids.  So...anything we wanted, pretty much. Which consisted mostly of riding bikes around the island and eating food.  No complaints.  And feel like real people.

I love my kids, but it is just nice to love my husband and love myself every now and again.  It didn't even matter that it was overcast, cold and sometimes rainy.  It was wonderful.  This may be a 'duh' statement but my element is water.  Obviously, I hear you snicker, of course it is, we all knew that.  But, I truly feel so much calmer when I'm surrounded by water.  It's a good fun fact to know.

I had more I wanted to write.  But...I just got off of the water conference circuit, and back from a major mental reset.  I'm pretty blank. And I have one more day of vacation left, part of the back home stay-cation. I'll leave you with a half-ass written blog and some pretty pictures.

We never checked the price tag, when the cost comes in it's gonna be high

There's a song by Matt and Kim where they wonder what they might have been.  What they could have become.

I wonder that a lot lately.  I don't regret where I am in my life.  But I wonder, what if...what if I went to Japan when I wanted to, to teach english?  What if I stayed in education and taught high school biology?  What if i had stayed in college and gotten my PhD and became a professor.  What if I had joined the army and not backed out last minute? What if ....

Somehow, I still thing I might have ended up where I am.  Sometimes I think that is the truth of the matter.  But I don't know that I believe in a force more than just me.  Lots of music influencing me tonight apparently but I am who you say I am.  Yeah, I know I used Eminem in the last blog, too.  I'm apparently lazy.  I mean, there are already three different song references, Sleater-kinney , Matt and Kim and Eminem.  What more do you want from me?

I feel old. I know I have time and I'm young enough to still do stuff, change my life and all that, it just seems so hard.  It's not supposed to be easy. that's why it feels fucking so good.  (See, now we are up to four song references, awolnation, you're welcome).  Or that's what I'm told.  Does anyone ever really know what they want to be when they grow up?

Apparently I want to write smutty m/m vampire novels when I grow up.

The computer screen is bright and I'm sitting in the dark in my bedroom.  I keep seeing shit out of the corner of my eyes and it distracts me.  Enough so that I just wrote it.  And you read it.  Who's worse?

Sometimes I wish I would just shut up.  I hear myself talking and internally I'm just like, jesus christ, why doesn't anyone just tell me to shut up?  I feel like I am almost completely the most annoying person on the planet.  Sometimes.  I need to work on being fluent in another language.  At least if I'm unable to stop talking, as happens occasionally, you wouldn't know what stupid shit I was unable to stop myself from saying.

Once, in high school, i took a bet from a teacher of mine, that I couldn't go a week without talking.  I'm so annoying.  That annoying.  I won that bet but it wasn't worth it in the long run.  I got grounded because my mom was so annoyed with me at home, and I got in trouble in school when I used a small hand held chalk board for 'class participation'.  Some people just can't win.  And I just can't shut up.

I am who ever you say I am

Because if I wasn't, why would you say I am?

Having one of those nights.  So, eminem is a good rapper.  How does he sound like he's just talking shit but actually have great and complex lyrics AND they all rhyme?  Fuck him.

So, i'm feeling melancholy and a little self depreciating today.  I made a list of things I know about myself in the shower.  And then I wondered why I am how I am.  And why I am how I am.  And if I should want to change?  Sometimes my tea bag tells me that it's okay to be myself.  Then my fortune cookie informs me that it's never to late to take another path.  And then the internet says that I can change career in just 18 months.  And then that helpful podcast tells me that to be happy I should change what I don't like about myself.

What things should I like?  What things about myself should I not like? What things should I keep?  What things deserve to be trimmed away?

It's hard to tell.

Things I know about myself.  I am manic.  Like, nearly almost always.  I can't stop and I can't slow down.  No tea bag or fortune cookie or podcast about being happy has advice on how.  Sure, they tell me to slow down, smell roses and shit alike.  But they don't tell me HOW. How do you stop being you? Does being manic define me?  A little.

I was meeting with a guy at work who does not like me.  We are peers, and have had a very rough go of it.  We are on good terms lately, which makes me worry about the next fight on the horizon.  How sad and jaded.  I like to think I see the good in people but those previous statements prove I don't.  Anyway, I was talking to him and I could feel myself spiraling quickly into manictown, population me.  And I couldn't stop it.  Afterwards, I wonder how anyone can be around me and I understand why he has a hard time working with me.

So, maybe the problem is mine, a little.

Should I embrace my maniacal nature?   Just own it and be the crazy cat lady with the aomebas in her brain making her like cats a whole lot and also sometimes walks down the street with her skirt tucked into her pantyhose? (I'd have to start regularly wearing pantyhose...)  Or should I follow the advice of my fortune cookie and calm the fuck down?

PS...It would be totally awesome if I ever found a fortune cookie that literally said "you need to just calm the fuck down every now and again".  I would take it as a message from the powers that be.

You just take my breath away, I don't know what else to say

My boss from my first over-the-table job recognized me in my car, from his car, at the bank yesterday.  He rolled his window down and asked me if I had ever worked for him.  I recognized him and I told him that I did.  He made fun of my hair and told me he still had the restaurants.  It was weird.

But...he remembered me after, I did the math, 17 years. First, I'm old.  Second, that's a long time to remember some random high school student who worked for you for a few years.  I didn't even have the style of hair he made fun of at the time.  I must have made an impression? I tend to do that.  I hope it was good.

Thanks to everyone who was really nice about me finishing a book.  I was really stressed to even post it on here, or publicize that I wrote one.  Afraid of criticism.  That's me. I need to find a forum or something on line where I can post it and get some stranger feedback now.  I wonder....

Anyway.  I can't blame my kids.  I'm the reason we can't have nice things.

Love & peace, y'all.

Till there was little feeling, please work with what is left

Yo.  What's up.  You know what I did?  I wrote a whole book.  I did.  It took me six months of some writing here and some writing there.  But I finished it.  The whole thing.

But...now what?  I have no idea.  I'd like some other people to read it but I'm afraid to know what they think.

Also, it will have a pretty limited audience.  It's m/m urban romance.  I made dude who sleeps next to me read it.  He said he likes it, but he loves me, so he would say that, wouldn't he?

But..I think it's pretty good, and I hate myself on good days.  So, that has to mean something, right?  (Actually, I don't hate myself anymore.  Not really.  But...I'm still pretty not awesome.  Just, not hating.  Little teeny tiny baby steps.  Maybe I won't sound like the rest of the internet by the time the internet is in our brain stems or something.)

But you know what?  I wrote a freaking book.  23 chapters.  Isn't that crazy?  It seems like it to me.  Also, I'm three chapters deep into the second book.  Which is weird because the first one isn't really a book, just twenty three chapters sitting on my google drive.

But...fuck.  I did something.  I finished something.

Maybe I'm not listening

All it takes lately is just one small thing to send me tail-spinning into being super not happy. I saw an article today about how the rest of the nation thinks Americans are clinically narcissistic.  Too bad we can't balance each other out, you know?

Not doing so great at writing a penny rap.  Doing okay writing other stuff but I wish I had hours to dedicate to doing so.  It's really hard to do with only a snippit of time here and there.

I am looking forward to being done with the holidays.  I'm pretty sure if you go back and look at my old blogs I say exactly the same thing.  But, seriously.  I need it done. I'm so tired of just about everything right now.

Gonna fake some smiles and get some stuff done!  Yeah!  Fake it till you make it?

Sorta hoping that you'd stay

Trying to write a penny rap.  Trying to write this short story that is in my head.  Sitting at the computer and I have spent an hour somehow making absolutely no progress whatsoever. What the fuck.  Feeling so much and not much at all today.  Went for a hike in the woods today at work.  Wrong woods, with the right idea.  So, I'll try again tomorrow.  I need to take some stuff with me next time.  I feel really good in the woods.  I should have been a lumberjack.