So, my granny sent me an email saying she likes the hedgehog and thinks I should do children's books to make money to support my writing... a thought, certainly, and it seems these days that I'm getting tossed a little work here and there re: logos, advertising, use of Adobe software in general. Not much, but a little, and it's pretty easy stuff, I think, and I enjoy doing little doodles for it:


And then I enjoy finding the doodles a year or more later and trying to figure out what they were for. I should just save them and make a project out of them. Because the rest of my work has come to a grinding halt--all creative work as far as I can tell--and I'm really glad that I'm starting the prompt writing project this week, because I've been feeling very uninspired. Plenty of projects to do, so little will to do them. And I haven't participated in the artwalk in ever so long. But hey, I connived my mom into getting her clinic to sponsor the Roller Derby girls as an advertising dealio, which means I get to design the banner. So, that's something, I guess.

This Friday I went to a dragshow that had some of my friends doing a performance... enjoyed their gig as well as several of the others, although the overall thing went on for hours and hours and hours, and I was in the backrow sitting next to a friend and a friend of a friend who had been set up on an informal flirt(date), and they got bored at about the time that I got bored, but instead of trying to concentrate and enjoy the show, they decided to concentrate on and enjoy each other, so I had to deal with them flirting with each other and talking for about a half hour before they went "to grab a bite to eat."

I didn't mean to be, and I was startled by the strength of my reaction because I'm always wanting people to enjoy each other's company and such, but I was incredibly irritated and almost pissed off. I think maybe I just felt sensitive to being ditched by my buddy, and realizing that the other friends I was with, and visiting, are people I don't know very well... and everybody else feels like SP's friends who she's introduced me to, so they're her friends, and I just always feel like I'm on the fringe of everything, not quite connecting up.

Maybe that's why I liked going to college so much... we all arrive there, solitary and unknown, and all of our connections are forged fresh, on equal footing. Here's its always everybody knows everybody has always known everybody and probably hooked up with everybody, and it sometimes catches up to me. Didn't help that the performance was on the University campus and despite it all, I always get pretty queasy and soft-shelled up at that school.

Whine whine whine.

I am in my office and this morning were the tryouts for the Popeye the Sailor Man children's musical downstairs, and right now is something involving children, plus the church group that now rents the auditorium on Sundays practicing their crappy guitar and tamborine music and it's really loud and I've been here for four hours and done nothing nothing nothing. Well, I've cleaned. And I've toodled around on the Writing Prompt site, and I've thought about what I'm going to write.

There are some exciting things to get me to stop whine whine whining:

First, my mom bought a 15' Boston Whaler with a 60-horse outboard on it, which ought to take us anywhere in this little bay (and the lakes, if we so desire). I'm planning on getting a crabpot and fishing license, and spending some serious time zipping hither and thither on the bay. But I'm also happy for my mom, who I think needed something outside the work-home routine to get her excited, jiving, and loving herself more.

Second, I've decided to try and find an art/writing commune, retreat, camp, or space this summer, for at least a month, if not two. I need some energy around me, and it's not in Bellingham in the form that I need. I'm feeling like my energy to do things alone, for free, for no obvious reason, with no obvious results is thinning out now. And when I thought about what might change that for me, I decided that A) I need to write my novel, or at least a substantial part of it, and for reals this time, no matter what it turns out to be at the end. And B), I want people suffering around me in similar kinds of ways. And C), I want to gather at night with them, or in the morning, or for lunch, and swim in the bay and eat sandwiches and pop dandelion heads at each other, whistle through grass, admire each other's puppies, mock each other's suffering, sing badly, work in the garden, wash dishes, nod pensively, share pencils, gather raspberries... and all together. It's not really that I need to talk about writing, so much as I want to be with people who are in the midst of living it too. And so, if any of you knows of something more or less in these parts, something where I can maybe teach kids so don't have to pay, or not have to pay too much because it's a little hippie, let me know.

And Also, I'm still working out. I'm starting to feel like a regular, recognize faces, not be so irritated by the tough-older dude who goes around "checking on" (vs. out) the women in the gym, and I have a system that maximizes the windows I get to enjoy... one wall facing the downtown area and the bay, the other side facing the north side of town and the hills... mostly skyline to enjoy through the first window, and tops of buildings, graffiti or a mural, and mostly people wandering down into town on the others. I try to think who they are, those small plebes, to try to be interested again. I've noticed that techno is really the only option for the elliptical, and anything goes on the bike (my favorite biking find was "low rider"). So, you know, I'm still plodding on... chubby and puffing my way through.

Okay, I have to go grade and be a good teacher now. I suddenly realized the time and panicked.