Gloomy

Ugh. Things around here and in general (outside of here) have been really foul. I hope the universe rights itself soon. Without going into too much detail I'll just say that there has been pressure for Matt at work (out of no where) and a lot of weird stress. The kids have been off and it's something I don't have a lot of patience for. My hair is at least fixed, so that isn't a contributing factor anymore (and if it were I probably would have been certifiably insane by now) but I'm having annoying skin breakouts.

blah, blah, blah. These things are minor, but they add up. I HATE being in a worrysome state of mind. I hate not just having my normal flow around here, at work, and in general. I am trying to just maintain this sense of normalcy in the face of unpleasantries, but it's hard sometimes. The kids actually are helpful to me in this situation because they seem so carefree (for the most part) and accepting.

I always remind myself that if worse comes to worse, I would be absolutely fine with packing up, moving back to Olivia and working for the newspaper or something, and having a house payment for about half the amount that we're dealing with now. Safe schools, safe neighborhoods, and so much less busy stuff. I've wondered many times if it would be better to live in Olivia with a Minneapolis sort of perspective or to live in Minneapolis with an Olivia perspective. I don't think I have to verbalize which of these are the easier option, but some days I really think the alternate is the better one (for us).

I am enjoying the few little creative outlets I've been allowing myself lately, reading, writing, reading about writing, doing my pitfall cross stitch, blogging, keeping track of my blogs (!) and conceptualizing a new little pitfall project (felt landscape). If I didn't have to worry about family health insurance I would totally get a job and JoAnn and do little art projects, scrapbook, and do a total craft-y blog in addition to my others. In the future, and as they get finished, I plan on posting my completed projects on here and also putting downloads of the cross stitch patterns on too, in case anyone else out there thinks they might want to cross stitch themselves a nice little piece of atari art history.

The writing thing is really haphazard and not at all organized. I started the short story "Friends in her Pockets" last week and had a total overhaul in terms of the way the story goes and is told. All I've had time to do is an outline and a page and a half of crap. Getting time to mess with this is difficult but it at least gives me the feeling like I've taken so long thinking about it, sorting through it, and rewriting it over and over in my head that I don't think that any of these ideas I have are random whims anymore. Inside Republica Airlines is the (I guess) beginning of a novel I started as a screenplay when I was in school in 2003. This spring I revisited it and decided I wanted to flesh it out into a bigger, grander story and started writing it that way. I hit a wall this summer and had to reorganized some things, eliminate others, but I am starting to get excited about it again. Of course this is a very self-centered mapping of events much like the ones I experienced at Northwest Airlines, but a story worth telling, I think.

This is all the time I'll get. . . naps and chaos!