At the sound of the tone, the time will be half past Tuesday... BEEP!

Well, that's frustrating.

I have this habit of starting and stopping blogs over and over again and then getting bored with them and leaving them by the wayside (this one is the only exception to that rule). Periodically I'll go back to the old blog and look through it and think about the person I was when I wrote those words. I just went to visit one of my old journals at journalspace and found that they'd deleted it. I guess I can understand - the site's going through an overhaul and I hadn't updated that blog in quite a while - but it still saddens me a bit. Basically it's like losing a shoebox full of old letters and notes you'd written to yourself. It's not essential, but it's still nice to have so you can look back and see how far you've come.

When I started that blog, I was married, living in Greenville, and six years (or so) younger than I am now. I think I've changed quite a bit, and I'm glad about it. I think about the person I was then and it seems like some kind of weird dream. I'm so glad I moved to Indianapolis - it's like the event that really kick-started my life into reality. I used to go back and read that blog and marvel at my own naivety. That, and my complete and total ability to dupe myself into believing that I really was happy the way I was. I didn't believe something was really wrong until April or so of 2004, when we moved to Lyman and I had kind of a breakdown that lasted a few months. I'm not proud of that time in my life, but I am proud that I lived through it and used it to make me stronger than I was.

I'm trying to think of the "important posts" that were lost when that journal got deleted. I remember blogging about Power Hour, and my friend from high school Kim that was killed in the war. And my grandmother's passing. All the writing (i.e. "creative writing") I pulled off the journal long ago for safekeeping. But still, it's sad to know all those words got flushed into the blogosphere sewer lines.

Oh well. From now on I'm going to do what I can to keep this blog active and only use it. It shouldn't be too much of a problem - this is by far the longest blog I've ever kept. It's a year and a half old and has 95 posts! Yeah! Go me! Hahahaha...

Real quick-like because I need to get back to work:

~ The trip to NYC was awesome. I took about 200 pics (no lie) and got some great video. I also journaled (rare for me) through the whole vacation, so I have lots of interesting little details to dump into my newest story, where my main characters are going to New York on the next leg of their journey. We went on a boat tour and saw the Statue of Liberty, and sailed all the way around the island of Manhattan, which was really interesting. There's a lot more green on that island than I realized there would be - the northern tip is basically not developed at all. I also saw a few tiny islands in the rivers around Manhattan that really caught up my imagination. There's one in particular called North Brother Island that's just hella cool. It's a tiny island that used to be home to a psychiatric institution/sanatorium and a surrounding village of little houses that the doctors and staff lived in. When NYC opened up the new hospital for psychiatrics this one closed and everyone moved off the island (this was in the 50's I think). Then nature basically just took over and now the island is covered in flora and fauna and the hospital and the surrounding village are crumbling away into decay in this middle of this forest that's sprung up. I mean, how frickin cool is that? I'm definitely going to use that in my story. Other than that, we also went on a bus tour of the city, and a carriage ride in Central Park, and we went to the MoMA, which was INCREDIBLE. And we had a lot of vegan/veggie food as well, not my particular cup of tea but it was still tasty grub in its own way. I'll post a whole entry about NYC very soon. Like maybe later today if I get the chance.

~ Been to see Iron Man (twice), Indiana Jones, Prince Caspian and Sex in the City. All were awesome (ESPECIALLY Iron Man), and Sex and the City surprised me, it was so good. I'd definitely watch them all again but I think my least favorite was Prince Caspian - Caspian annoyed me, Peter was being a whiny little shit and the whole movie just seemed... flat, I guess. If you're not a Narnia fan, I'd suggest waiting until it comes out on video.

~ Still working on the long piece, "Little Savior". Up to almost 10,000 words now. I'm excited about it but it's kind of slow going. The writers' group likes it, though.

~ I kicked my room's ass this past weekend and made it into something I really like now. The room was a fricking disaster area when I started cleaning on Saturday morning (imagine a huge, like 40MT clothes-dishes-unopened-mail-and-other-papery-trash bomb exploding in a tiny room, and you'll understand how bad it was), but I got in the cleaning groove and it was completely spotless by six. Then the next day I moved everything from my office down into my bedroom. Now when I walk into my room I immediately see my computer and have a visual reminder to WRITE. Plus, the room looks phen-fucking-nominal. I even put my Vinnie poster up on the wall above my bed. And with it being so spotlessly clean it's easy to keep it that way, for now at least. I hope I can get into the habit of cleaning it on a regular basis instead of once every three months or so.

~ I can't think of anything else and that wasn't real quick anyway. I gotta go back to work, my clent's expecting a project bid today and I need to finish it up.

Dear reader of this blog, hope all is well for you, whomever you may be.

Cheers!