Blog more, huh? Well, I'm rather adverse to typing more than I must on this dinky insensitive-keyboarded laptop right now. And why am I still using this thing? Because, our desktop has a bad motherboard. My many gigs of music, my non-burned MST3K's, my un-backed-up poems, my CD creation and burning capabilities, my GAMES!: all inaccessable! We've supposedly got someone on the job, but it matters not when I've had to edit/retype poems and type cover letters for over 45 poetry submissions on this stupid tiny keyboard (and yes, I'm cutting and pasting).

Yeah, over 45 submissions to a wide variety of publications (34 of them by snail mail). That's with only 15 poems at an average of 5 poems per submission. And I'm not just throwing stuff out there; I'm trying to customize my submissons to the publication's tastes (my wife can tell you that the Poet's Market [not that its very accurate - always follow up everything online!] has been at my side for weeks). I think the odds are actually in my favor that SOMEONE, with a higher print run than 50, will publish me!

Maybe I'm trying to compensate for something. Or maybe I'm just looking for something to do. Maybe I overanalyze.

Heather and I are coming under serious financial stress. It kind-of snuck-up on us. And, I'm well aware that I am the reason why. She had to talk me out of selling our Cornerstone tickets. It would be the first one I miss in six years. But today, unexpectedly, she got $500 because she wrote the cover story for the most recent John Brown Bulletin. That helped. And, I'm finally getting off my ass and selling our duplicate CD's on ebay. Thats my C-Stone survival money.

Why do you people care about this? Ah, or are you hoping I'll ramble-on about pain and philosophy, my words dripping with pathos and sporatic cussing? Well, if thats the case, tough shit, I hate my life; all is vanity! . . .wait . . . no. My medication is working well enough to keep me more balanced than I have been the past several months. Though it is helping to suppress the mania and channel the A.D.D. into projects, it is not doing much for the depression, but that was always my most dominant trait anyway.



Fine, have it your way.

I'm staring at a huge velvety wall-hanging of dogs playing pool. I've had this thing a VERY long time. I've gone through innumerable changes since I bought this thing at the Cheshire County Fair while in high school, yet I'm still me. "The desire to stay the same is what limits you" - Ghost in the Shell. But, if that is true, then where does identity fit in? Is identity so fluid? Or is identity something that always stays the same (as long as your brain goes undamaged), and that which must change as we grow, is something else entirely? So, how do I know who I am? How do I develop or discover my identity?

After C-Stone I will be looking for a part-time job like a madman. All I'm likely to find is crap, no doubt. But, there is no choice. I have a wife and a house and a dog and a so-called life to keep.

Am I hanging on to things I shouldn't be? One day, will I, like John Cusack's character in Bullets Over Broadway, have to realize and confess that I am NOT an artist (or a poet, or a writer, or whatever)? And if so, will it make me feel more free than ever before, as it did him, or will it devestate me?

I am full of dreams. I don't believe anymore that they could come true, and yet they won't go away. Tenacious little bastards. So I pronounce them pipe dreams; detrimental to my growth and living! Getting angry when I ruminate on them. And they sneak back.

I cannot live in dreams! Especially, when they are so foolish; so unrealistic given my abilities, and the serious lack-thereof. I am NOT "touched by fire," despite what the book of that name says about people with bipolar.

"The distance grows wide between the glory and the dream" - Vigilantes of Love

Did Christ struggle with identity? He didn't begin his ministry until 30. But why should he? Maybe he just knew that he wasn't ready.

Enough. I love you, but if you want more, o anonymous pusher, go through the archives. There's good stuff in there, I think.

I'm gonna go watch the rain.