springading.com

You know that big, gigantic snowstorm, the one that’s hit pretty much all of the midwestern United States? Yeah? Well, it’s hit pretty much everywhere but here.

That doesn’t mean we’re not feeling the effects though. We were warm enough to get rain yesterday, sure, and a few degrees lower, we would have been in trouble, too. We were lucky. However, by feeling the effects, I don’t mean rain. I mean that our other offices in both Illinois and other parts of the country shut down and calls were routed to our office–the type of calls, I might add, we were not trained to handle. When they announced this yesterday at work, we were all pretty freaked.

I managed to get lucky. I was never put on the phones. In fact, I don’t think many of the phone units were even put on, and the ones that were put on reported that there weren’t many calls.  And you know why? Because everyone is trying to survive the snowpocalypse, not call their insurance company. HA.

Anyway, I got lucky, but it’s one of the few times that I have been. Sure, I don’t work in a phone unit anymore, but it seems like when anyone from the written unit has to get on the phone, I’m one of the first people on.

But that was yesterday. Today, I didn’t go to work, but it had nothing to do with weather–it had everything to do with a really nasty headache I developed last night after I got home from work.  (I blame it on Jim’s smelly hamburger. Okay, I really doubt that actually caused it, but I noticed that my head started pounding and I felt nauseous when I was cooking it, so naturally, I connected the two.) It wasn’t just a regular headache. It was the kind where your whole face hurts. Jim wasn’t feeling great either, so we opted to stay home.

When I woke up, I found that I had gotten an emergency email from work advising that our office would be open while the others would be closed, and that, once again, their calls would be routed to our office. I’m not surprised, and part of me feels bad that I wasn’t there to help out–yet, the other part of me is really glad I stayed home. That would be the LAST thing I needed on top of the monster headache.

So because my “day off” was mostly sleeping and moaning about my head, I don’t have a lot to report. No pictures of monster snow mounds because all we got were some ice patches. No cool craft projects to report on because I was too exhausted to do that, either. What little work I did on my priest on Warcraft didn’t come until later this evening, after my headache eased up.

So here’s what I did do, once the headache subsided a bit: Bake cookies for Jim (he hit me up for them as soon as he saw I was starting to feel better, heh), work a very little bit on Alsana, and finish reading Runaway. It’s about time I finished that book, as I started reading it per my old roommate’s recommendation a couple years ago.

I thought about doing a review on Runaway. And maybe I will. But right now? I’m still pretty exhausted and, honestly…I’m just not feeling it.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not a bad book. And it’s certainly not a genre I dislike. It’s literary fiction, which I do love. I don’t need plot heavy stories to make me happy; honestly, I admire anyone who can find and create stories using the everyday stuff, especially if they convey meaning through literary “tricks” such as metaphors, foreshadowing, etc. I like when you have a story on the surface and something a bit deeper right underneath.

So, I love that stuff. And I know that Alice Munro is supposed to be THE SHIT when it comes to this stuff. But, with the exception of a couple of stories, I just found it lacking in…something. I haven’t put my finger on it yet. But when I do, you all will be the first to know.

For now, though, I think I’ll take my second bath of the day (I always take a lot of baths and showers when I have headaches) and read Unholy, which I am excited about. It’s a bit more plot-heavy than I like my books these days (lover of literary fiction, remember?), but you know what? It doesn’t pretend that it’s really there for anything but plot, and plot, it does really well.

It does make me miss our D&D game, though. Here’s hoping we pick it back up soon. Assuming, of course, that both Jim and Phil feel up to it. It seems like we’re all getting sick or having something come up at some point or another these days.

Oh, well. Off to the Bath-mobile!

(Just had a mental image of a tub on wheels. Not a happy sight.)

Jim has written over 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo.  Those of you familiar with the contest knows that means he’s “won.”  I put “won” in quotes because there is no tangible prize for completing this task.  But there is something to be said for having a sizable amount of text to work with when you want to write a novel, of doing what you set out to do.  I mean, c’mon–how many people say they want to write a book someday but never actually do it?

Jim’s excited and (deservedly) proud of himself.  I’m proud of him, too.  And yet, for some reason, I get credit.  Here’s what I mean:  Last night, Jim told me that there is something called a “Shout Out” on the forums on NaNoWriMo’s website.  He told me that he thought I’d be interested in what it said.  So I logged in today and took a peek.  Here’s his entry:

I win. I wanted to take a second (even if no one reads this or cares) to thank my lovely, perfect, gorgeous, adoring fiancee. If she hadn’t put me up to this, I would still be whining about WANTING to be a writer. I’ve gotten the majority of a decent novel finished now, and if it hadn’t been for her (and this competition) I wouldn’t have doodly squat.

Thank you Spring. You’re my light, and my world.

Awwww.  I’ve got the sweetest man in the whole world.  Anyway, I’m just glad that Jim did it.  I wanted him to see that he could.  And now he knows.  Rumor has it, that’s half the battle.

I would really like to play Warcraft now, while my Internet isn’t total crap, but I thought I should stop by and say hi.

Hi.

I forewarned everyone that the blog posting would slow down during November while Jim participated in NaNoWriMo.  That, at least, was a November event that we had expected and was preparing for.  Also, there was a wedding.  What we didn’t expect was Jim’s nana’s wake, both of us getting sick (pretty routine for me, rare occurence for Jim), us missing the wedding, stress of my own at work, and the death of one of Jim’s old gaming friends.  These events have slowed us down.

Poor Jim has been coping amazingly well with a lot on his plate.  Admittedly, the stuff that’s been  happening affects Jim more personally than they do myself; it affects me only in the way that I hate seeing my man suffer.  And, as you can imagine, all this has really put us back on our D&D game, but that’s life.  And, apparently, that is also death.

What I find really sad about the death of Jim’s gaming friend is that I had heard that she had wanted to drive down from St. Louis to play with the guys in their Friday night Marvel game but couldn’t because her health was declining.  I suggested to Jim that he see if the other guys were willing to take the game to her.  Jim thought it was a great idea and was going to talk to the others about it.  Never happened, though, because she died within the week of the suggestion.  Instead of having the next game with her, the next game was cancelled because about half the group was attending her visitation.

Although Jim wasn’t very close to the girl (he knew her because she had dated one of his friends), I think in some ways, this death shook him up more than his nana’s.  Yes, he was close to his nana, but he also knew that her death would be sudden because of what she had.  And, I hate to say it, but we expect that of older people.  But this girl was only 22 years old.

So Jim’s been kind of “off” and edgy, worried about his friend who had been dating-but-not-dating the girl (“it’s complicated” is what Jim told me), but still, in the midst of all this, he has managed to pump out a shit-ton of words for NaNoWriMo.  Maybe it’s given him something else to focus on.

In fact, I know it has.  He’s been very excited by the way his story has been turning out, although he’s worried that it’s not something everyone would want to read.  This is the impression that I’m getting:  Jim thinks the story idea itself might sound dumb or uninteresting, but he’s actually executing it very well and it’s turning out good.  He told me something to this extent while describing his book to me in the car.   This allowed me to go into my diatribe about how, damn it, people should not dismiss a work based on a  mere summary.  You can have a  dumb idea, but if you have the right person writing it and writing it well, I think almost any dumb idea can be pulled off and turn out really good.  I just think it takes skill.

Now, I say that people shouldn’t dismiss things just because it sounds dumb.  I must also admit that I do this with movies ALL THE TIME.  Just last night, I said to Jim, “I watched something called Let’s Go to Prison and I liked it?  Are you SURE?”

(Oh, yeah.  For those who don’t know me or don’t know me that well, I ALWAYS forget what movies I’ve seen, and whomever I’ve seen the movie with usually have to remind me.  And, no, it’s not uncommon for me to ask those people if I liked the movie.)

(Also, I still don’t believe I liked anything called Let’s Go to Prison, but Jim insists that I did.)

At any rate, I plan on reading Jim’s book as soon as it’s done.  I imagine that he’s got a lot of cleaning up to do, since NaNoWriMo is about quantity and not quality.  I’ll wait until Jim says it’s ready.  Luckily for Jim, my background in creative writing means I have a lot of experience dissecting stories and knowing what works and what doesn’t.

Unfortunately for Jim, it’s way harder for me when I’m close to the writer.  But, damn it, I’ll try my best.  Because that’s what Jim’s been doing all month.

Time for me to go play Warcraft.

I was checking out Jim’s word count.  Hot damn!  Check it out.

By the way, Jim is not 20, like his profile says.  I don’t even know why he has that.  I might be older than he is, but I am not that much of a cougar, thank you very much!

Normally, right now, I’d be getting ready for work.  Instead, I’m home, making coffee, thinking about starting laundry, and wondering what today will be like for Jim.  On Halloween morning, we got the call that Jim’s grandmother died.  We were surprised.  I mean, we just saw her in the nursing home about a month or so ago, and she seemed fine.  Jim had gone several more times on his own after work, and he didn’t notice her health declining or anything.

However, she had dementia.  I don’t know much about dementia, but Jim told me that people who have it tend to go very suddenly.  By the way, if Jim hadn’t told me that she had dementia, I would have never known it.  She seemed very lucid.  Jim also says that was a problem–convincing doctors and nurses to believe him and his mother over his nana.

So, today is the wake, then some kind of ceremony (his nana is getting cremated), and then dinner at his mom’s.  So far, Jim’s handling it all right.  I was–am–a little worried about it; Jim was pretty close to his grandmother.  He was very quiet most of Halloween.  Originally, we were going to buy and carve a pumpkin.  Those plans, of course, we cancelled.  Instead, we went out, and I bought him Assassin’s Creed for a bit of an escape.

By the way, that game looks really cool. 

Anyway, those are our plans for today.  At some point, Jim is going to work some more on his NaNoWriMo project.  I’m even happier now that he’s participating in that–it’ll take his mind off things.  On that note (and because I’d rather end my posts on a happy note rather than on a OMG, guess who died? note), Jim is doing very well so far.  He thought the word count was 150,000 words, so he was hammering like hell on the computer last night.  He managed to pound out around 7,500 words, and he was shocked when he went to log his word count to find out that he only needs 50,000.  We calculated it last night:  After only one night of writing–and after work, no less–he is already 15% done.

Very cool to see Jim on the brink of becoming a novelist–even if it’s an unpublished one.

I suppose I should pop in here and say hi once in a while, especially while I can.  As I’ve mentioned before, November is National Novel Writing Month–or NaNoWriMo–and I’ve managed to convince Jim to participate.  With only the one laptop, though, it means I’ll have less time on it.  And, no, I’m not complaining.  This will tear me away from the computer to try to finally hammer out Jim’s Lego Pirate Ship Blanket–especially since I think after I’m done with it, I’m going to dust off my knitting needles and make a blanket for my dad.

Although Jim just requested a new crocheted dice bag.

Jim has gotten excited about the contest.  He’s been throwing around ideas and ran two of them past me last night.  I like both and hope that he writes about both eventually.  Unfortunately, the conversation about what he plans on writing turned into a conversation about what I’m not writing. 

Not long ago, I had told Jim that I wanted to write some sort of fantasy story.  I even asked him for short stories or novels so I could get a better feel for the genre.  (It might come as a surprise to you, but I’ve read way more sci-fi books than I ever have fantasy, so I wouldn’t say I’m very knowledgable in it.)  Jim happily recommended books.  And then last night, I announced I didn’t want to do it anymore.

Jim was disappointed.  And then I got defensive.  And then I got psychoanalyzed about how I don’t do things that are easy for me, which, incidentally, includes drawing, which Jim (I can tell) gets a little bugged that I’m not more into, yadda, yadda, yadda, and I don’t think Jim gets it.  Writing literary fiction is easy for me.  That’s just what’s in me.  I don’t think I have what it takes to write a fantasy story.  So if the argument is that I only want to do things that are a challenge for me–bzzzt!  WRONG.

I think writing a fantasy story would be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write.  And keep in mind that I used to have independent study poetry classes with Judy Jordan.  (Hint:  She’s made people cry in her class before.  I was not one of them.  I was lucky–she named me as the best writer in both the undergrad and grad departments.  Huzzah!)  So my point?  I don’t wanna write a fantasy story because I work all week, I need to do more overtime, and I don’t think I’m gonna have time to do something that I think it going to be very difficult for me.  I cannot tell a lie:  I don’t think I’d be good at it at all.

In all honesty, though…if I ever do write something in the fantasy genre, I think I’m going to set it in Jim’s world of Valt.  I’ve asked Jim, and he seems happy with this.  He actually thinks because I haven’t read a plethora of fantasy books or participated in a bunch of D&D games, I could put a fresh perspective on it.  We’ll see.

Okay, seriously?  Let’s quit talking about writing.

So, I thought about posting earlier this week, but honestly, I don’t have a lot to say.  My life is fucking awesome.  Oh, there are a couple problems.  The student loan people are trying to tell me I make too much money to defer my loan any longer and want me to pay over $400 a month.  Which, HA.  HA.  HA.  Yeah, that’s not going to happen.  I sent them more current payment info that clearly shows that, no, I do not make enough.  We’ll see how that turns out.

Also, in not-so-cool news:  Something is up with my cats.  Not one, not two, but three accidents in a week.  And I think it’s Emmy, which is weird because Emmy just doesn’t have accidents.  She acts fine, but I’m starting to worry if it’s because she’s so old and she just can’t hold it like she used to.  Poor girl.

Work has been great.  I seriously like my job now.  Before, I wanted to try to get rid of bills and find a way to get my master’s degree ASAP.  Despite how much I love southern Illinois, I wanted to find a way out of here.  Now?  Now, I want to pay off my bills, get married, have kids (er, maybe, I don’t know about that one), buy a house, and stay here because I don’t see a point in quitting a job I like that pays well. 

And things with Jim, of course, are awesome.  The other day, he sneaked a little love note in my purse; the other night, he suggested I light a candle when I went to take my bath, and I found that he had carved “I love Spring” in it.  I laughed so hard, but honestly, it was the sweetest thing EVER.

If I could just figure out why I’ve had nearly constant stomach problems for the last week and a half and get bills squared away, I’d say I have a perfect life.

Anyway, I’m going to run.  Hopefully, there will be another “Homebrewed” post up sometime next Friday.  So far, we’ve missed three weeks in a row, and I’m hoping we don’t miss tomorrow’s game, too.  I’m actually looking forward to it–it’s been too long, and I feel bad that we just left Natalia, Iema, Corin, and Sunshine hanging in the Underdark.  Right after Iema had died and been resurrected, no less…

Until then!

It’s a rare night with Jim out of the house, so I thought I’d update and talk about my plans in the upcoming month.  I had meant to do this earlier, but I was waiting for Jim to get out of the house.  Of course, Jim didn’t leave when either one of us thought he would, so that’s kind of messed up my plans for tonight.  This is the second time that has happened in the last week, by the way:  I count on having some “me” time while Jim’s out with a friend (or friends, as is the case tonight), and then he’s barely gone, and I get nothing done, no me time.   There are just some things I like to do alone.  Writing is one of them.

Speaking of writing, I’ve been seriously contemplating in participating in NaNoWriMo this year.  Lately, I’ve been feeling the itch to write again.  Fiction.  Seriously.  I haven’t really written anything since I was an undergrad in the creative writing program.  I just don’t write crap unless someone makes me do it.  That’s why I think NaNoWriMo would work for me.

A couple of issues with it, though:  I’m really in the mood to try to do fantasy, and I don’t know if I could do genre fiction.  My stuff always comes out literary fiction.  I don’t even mean to do it.  My brain spews out metaphors and symbolism without even meaning to, which lends itself wonderfully to literary fiction, but I think it would just slow genre fiction down.  Admittedly, I think Jim would be better at the genre stuff than I would.

Also, I’m more of a short-story person.  I don’t think my writing style would lend itself to a novel, but I don’t know if fantasy would lend itself well to the short-story.  I haven’t read any short fantasy stories, anyway.  Unless anyone wants to recommend something to me…?  (Hint, hint.)

The other issue?  The time spent writing 175 pages for NaNoWriMo would be taking away time from “Homebrewed.”  Poor Jim’s still patiently waiting for me to get it caught up.  Luckily, I’m only one game behind now, but still.  I feel bad when I ask him what he wants, and he says he would really like for me to finish up “Homebrewed.”

Also, I’ve been toying with some joint projects with Jim in the back of my head, also writing-related.  So maybe NaNoWriMo isn’t a good idea.

Hm, what else?  Oh!  My sister got me the name and number of a pastor who is actually looking for couples to marry off for some extra money.  WOOT.  I think Jennifer (my sister) said that this woman marries people off in a vineyard…?  I haven’t made the call yet (that was something I was going to do earlier tonight and didn’t), but dude, that would be COOL.  If not, well…whatever.  In the end, I just wanna marry my man.  I don’t care where we do it.  And I want to celebrate afterward in Giant City Park.

So, so far, I’ve mentioned that next month, I’ll be debating participating in NaNoWriMo and attending to (small) wedding details, including (I hope!) getting my engagement ring resized.  What else?  Oh.  Next week, I’ll be leaving work early for a couple days.  One day will be to return to the dentist for my permanent crowns.  I’ll be glad to have them; right now, I can’t bite into things with my front teeth because I could break them off.  Watching me chew can be interesting.  I have actually been tearing my sandwiches into bite-sized pieces at work.  It’s goofy.

The other appointment, I just made yesterday.  As anyone who knows me is aware, last summer, I had some major medical stuff going on.  I would start shaking like crazy, had constant headaches, nausea, and vomiting, all of which prompted me to go to the doctor.  They confirmed that my blood sugar kept dropping low–like, dangerously low–but they told me that I was not diabetic.  I did need to start eating snacks.  (Oops.  I kinda quit doing that.)  Still, they never did tell me if I was hypoglycemic either.

Well, other things have cropped up.  I have a permanent blur in one eye; one doctor had mentioned that it could be due to “diabetic changes,” although no eye doctors I’ve gone to have pinpointed for sure what it comes from one way or another.  And then the latest:   Sores on my foot.  Sores that I have no idea where they came from.  Sores that have been there for well over two months.  Sure, they look better, but they’re taking forever to heal.

Another symptom of diabetes.  So I’m going to go back to get checked again.  Keeping my fingers crossed that I don’t have diabetes, although I know it’s just a matter of time.   I’d really like to eat cake on my wedding day, damn it.

I’m so annoyed about the foot thing, just so you know.  The recent roller derby craze got me interested in picking up skating again.  (Er maybe it’s not a craze, and I’m just hyper aware of it because one of our supervisors is on the local roller derby team.)  As I’ve mentioned before, I used to be good at skating.  I doubt I am anymore, but once upon a time, I loved to roller skate.  Granted, I’m not so interested in roller derby, but I kind of miss my old past time.  Now, with all my foot problems, I don’t think that picking up skating again a good idea.  Last thing I need to do is introduce blisters to the foot-trouble equation.  *Sigh*

Moving on!  Meagan (I hope!) this weekend while she’s in town for a wedding.  She said she would like to meet Jim, to give her “approval” before we get married.  I had to laugh at this. 

“Well, I mean, of course, I’m going to approve,” she admitted.  “I mean, it’s pretty obvious that the guy is crazy about you.”

Oh, yeah.  You guys don’t even know the  HALF of it.  Of course, I’m pretty crazy about the guy myself.  But Meagan wants to meet him to give her “official” approval; I think Jim’s looking forward to meeting her as well.  I’m not surprised.  I’ve talked her up to him quite a bit.  

Also on the social calendar, a birthday party.  Maybe.  I was invited, but I haven’t done anything like that in so long, I’m now anxious about the idea of being around a lot of people.  The last birthday party I went to was…Nestor’s.  In 2008, about a month before I met Jim.  Damn, has it been that long?  I guess that’s probably a sign I should get out of the house more.

And the best way to start?  Getting off this damn laptop.  Signing off!

*poof*

I’m just kidding.  I’m not going out.  I’m just off to make my lunch, take a shower, and probably head to bed.  HA.

For once, I’m not posting before work.  It’s 9:30 at night, and it’s a rare night here in our apartment.

It’s quiet.

One of the things I love about Jim is that he’s opposite of me in ways in which I prefer him to be opposite of me.  As a general rule of thumb, I’m the quiet one, he’s the loud one.  So, as you can imagine, in our apartment, there’s usually a lot of noise between him, the TV, and me teasing Jim mercilessly.  But tonight?  Tonight, we cooked, ate, cleaned a little, then curled up on the couch together, just reading, me Dexter and him some sci-fi book he picked up at the library’s book sale last weekend.

By the way, when I was quietly reading, actually managing to bring myself to go through a couple chapters, I suddenly thought, “Huh, reading…I remember doing this before.”

Not a good sign, also an indicator of how I little I read these days.  I’ve been reading Amy Tan’s Saving Fish from Drowning during lunch, but only a couple pages at a time because, well, I just don’t have time.  So it was nice to sit down for a good chunk of time and actually knock out a couple of chapters of Dexter.

So, tomorrow’s Friday, concluding an interesting week at work.  For one, they announced today those who got the written positions.  Yours truly didn’t get one, but hell, I didn’t really expect to (most people in that unit have been there forever), and I was surprised that I actually managed to get as far as an interview.  Most people I know didn’t get even that far, so the way I see it?  I’ll definitely have a shot at the next go around.

The cool thing, though, is that between all the competition for those coveted five positions between our office and Springfield, someone in our own unit got a spot, a girl I used to sit next to up until a couple months ago.  So that’s really cool…although I think everyone’s going to miss her when she goes.  She really livens up the unit.

The other cool thing at work:  Another co-worker–this time, a girl who sits across from me–came in all happy.  The reason?  Her boyfriend had proposed to her that morning.  The funny thing is that I had been talking about mine and Jim’s own engagement to her the week or so before, and she had told me that she was waiting for her boyfriend, pointing at her wrist, saying Let’s move it already.  So we were all happy that he “moved it” (heh), admired her ring, and it was suggested we have a potluck soon to celebrate all the September birthdays, as well as her and my engagements.  My guess is we’ll include celebrating our co-worker’s getting promoted to a written unit as well.

Enough work talk.  This weekend is a three-day weekend!  Even better:  Jim actually got Monday off, too!  Just gotta haul our butts through tomorrow. 

There was no D&D game today, so that gives me extra time to post the “Homebrewed” from last week’s game.  I know!  I still haven’t gotten it up.  I’m such a slacker, right?  But, on the bright side, if you want to read a little bit more about the world of Valt, Jim started posting the dieties of his game.  This post starts off with Lolmoro, which is Natalia’s god.  Good place to start off, yes?

Instead of our game, Jim and I went out to eat for breakfast, did a little shopping, hung up his new Demolition Man poster that he got from his sister Wendy, grilled some dinner, and now we’re lounging around, watching X-Files.  I enjoy our game, but it is nice to kick back and do something else for a change.

But next week!  Hell, yeah!  Natalia needs to have some plans.  Anyone want to help Natalia come up with some plans?  Something that would be in-character for Natalia, that is.  I’m a stickler for trying to stay true to my druid, which, I have found out, Jim really likes.  And here I didn’t think it was a big thing, but apparently, according to Jim, a lot of veteran D&D players don’t do that, thus negating the whole “role-play” aspect of the game.

I’ve also been working on hacking away at this template to create one that is a little nicer.  I’ve forgotten so much, and without my old software (Dreamweaver and Photoshop) and my old CSS know-how, it’s a lot more difficult than it used to be.  The new site will be the same as it is now structurally; I’m just changing some colors, adding a picture, and tweaking a few things here and there.

Hm, what else?  OH.  I’ve read some of book Jim’s been working on, and so far, I LOVE it.  Not just saying that, either.  I’m very excited about what he’s doing and what he’s writing about.  I can’t wait for him to write Raelan into the story.  At least, I think he’s writing Raelan into the story.  I’m not 100% sure, nor am I sure that he’s going to keep the name.  I hope he does.  I want to see some of my favorite characters from the game make it onto paper.  I hope Jim writes more, but I guess he’s never going to if I don’t quit hogging the computer.

On that note, I’m outta here!

The look of this blog will inevitably keep changing in the next few weeks or so.  So far, I just can’t find anything I really like.  Most themes are too complicated.  I don’t really want a five-column blog.  I want two.  Maybe three, tops.  I don’t want it loaded with graphics that mean nothing to me.  But the more simple-looking blogs are so boring. 

I also prefer not to have a dark background.  What am I, some sixteen year old goth kid?  (The right answer, by the way: Hell.  No.)

So, I’ve determined that I’m going to have to dig up and dust off my old CSS skills and try my hand at my making my own template.  Something that used to come so easily to me now daunts me.  But I’ll muddle through.  Just not tonight.

In other news, this is day two of not playing Warcraft.  What makes it harder is that, technically, my account is still active until something like Janauary 8th.  And without it, I sit here and wonder what I should do.  But that’s kind of the whole point of this experiment–trying to take care of some things and find other things I like.  Trying to create more tangible things rather than new characters.

But it’s not easy.  I’m a little interested in everything and I have no real interest in anything.   I remember I used to be into knitting and crocheting; my yarn now sits next to the rocking chair, with only the kitten paying any attention to it whatsoever.  Jim and I made a pact to get back to writing again, but it’s hard for me to write without an assignment driving me.  Jim told me the other night that he thinks I should try drawing.  I’m flattered that he thinks that with practice, I’m good enough to actually do something with it.  But seriously, I haven’t really drawn much of anything in 14 years.  And, like writing, I stare at a blank sheet of paper and am helpless.

Sometimes, I envy Jim.  I know he likes that I’m the more low-key part of the relationship, the yin to his yang and what have you.  I’m the grounding factor, I know this.  But I love how dynamic he is, how full of ideas and excited he is about things.  I feel like most days, I’m just coasting through, trying to cause as few ripples as possible.  It seems a little sad, to live life this way.

Nothing a Prozac won’t cure, I’m sure.   Except, of course, I’m not on it.

Topic change!  Last night, I actually remembered to log into AIM and got to talk to my buddy Adam again.  It was really great.  I used to consider him one of my best friends, and his support was especially appreciated during my divorce.  He’s a GM now for a gaming company that creates MMOs.  (Sorry, Adam, I forgot the name of it!)  But, my, how have things changed.  Several years ago, when Adam and I first started talking, I was married, he was single, and we both were unhappy.  Now?  I’m with Jim (of course) and he’s with a girl named Jillian.  Now our conversations consist of us gushing over our significant others and patting ourselves on the back for dating the most awesome people ever.

I guess I should probably wrap this post up.  I want to read a little more of Kelley Armstrong’s Personal Demon.  I’m having a harder time getting into it than I did her other books.  Hope just isn’t growing on me as a character.  I find her dull and flat.  But it does have some chapters written in Lucas Cortez’s perspective, and Lucas is one of my favorite characters in the Women of the Otherworld series.  (Yes, a MALE character is one of my favorites.  Does that shock you?)  So that’s a plus.