Hi.

Things are kind of nice right now.

1) LBT is still alive.

2) Still getting work. A little slow, but not so bad.

3) My mom came through the house with her ghostbusting methods. Whether real or imaginary, it feels O.K. around here. I'm down with psychosomatic fixes.

4) I painted my room. The color is called "distant mountain." It is a profound improvement over "sickly yellow-green with spider-splat marks".

5) One of my fish died, but the shrimp ate him...sad for fish - yay for shrimp.

The story about the time I got depressed and vanished for a year.

Working alone is taking my head and squashing it into bits.

And I love being alone.

There are mitigating factors though. Or not. Maybe it's really just being alone that's doing it.

Think of this when you leave your dog by itself. It can't be blamed for tearing the couch to shreds.

I obviously do not have a dog. Perhaps if I did I would blame it. And maybe be a little less lonely. Or sorry that I forgot about the dog poop part of the "having a dog" business. Probably all three.

I am alone in someone else's house. Except I'm welcome here and it's technically my home because of this. It's the house of someone we loved who passed on. Every corner is sacred. Every inch a monument. A past memory. A treasure. An ode.

Everywhere I look is filled with that person. They loved it here more than anywhere. Sometimes it feels like it's so full that there's no room for me. That I'm floating. It's not my floor. Children were raised here. A family-full of memories. Babies were born, toddlers toddled, teenagers were guided, adults were married. More babies were born. There are so many stories. Few of them are mine, but I like hearing them. Sometimes it makes me a little sad that I don't have the opportunity to build these memories with my immediate family. We're not having our own journey. We're immersed in the big history of what happened before. We're after the legend.

Because someone died. And I sold my history or put it in storage and moved here to live among someone else's.

I feel selfish and horrible saying that this bothers me. But at the same time, I know that if the person who passed was going through the same thing...they would have something to say about it. Because they stood up. And they valued their history and their journey more than anything.

And this person's ashes are still in my closet and it's making me loony because that would bother them too. Because I really really loved this person. And I miss them also. But I'm a tertiary character in this drama.

I have my own drama, but unfortunately it's about working alone at home and getting pissed off because my life went somewhere I didn't expect. And getting depressed.

Nobody wants to hear that story. I sure as hell don't. What a bummer.

So that's interesting. This entry was going to be about how I'm not so depressed anymore. And I'm not. Maybe it will last a week or so, maybe I'm really moving on. Who knows? I certainly don't drink as much as I did and that's a good sign I guess.

While we're letting it all hang out there ya know.

But there are good things too:

- The not being a drunk thing. That's good.

- Also, this is a happy household. Everyone gets along. We co-habitate well. I don't think that's how you spell habitate, but whatever.

- This is a beautiful house in a wonderful neighborhood. If left to our own devices, we would not be in such a place. It's expensive to live in this area.

- Our children enjoy the benefits of the school district. They will certainly go farther because of this exposure.

- I don't think anyone knows I'm sad all the time. Correction: WAS sad all the time. Right? So I don't think I'm forking up anybody's memories.

- I like cats and we have lots of them.

- I actually get to do what I always wanted to do. Be there for my children. I can go on their field trips and take them to the doctor's and be home when they get out of school. I don't have to worry about unsupervised kids taking the wrong path or thinking mommy doesn't care because she's always gone. When I had my own house and my own history, this was what made me sad all the time...that I couldn't be with them.

So we've learned that no matter what the circumstance, something will always make you sad if you let it. The memories we are building now are memories. No matter where they are taking place. As we honor the legend of what went before, we build the legend of what is happening now. A richer legend because it includes a little drama, a little history, some death, some turmoil, some gratitude, some growth.

What a good fucking story. I'm glad I'm in it.

I read an Internet article.

About branding. Specifically branding small design businesses. Like one-person design businesses. Like mine.

It was pretty good. The person who wrote it said that they asked lots of people - friends and family to describe them in three adjectives and then based their brand image off the common perception.

Which is brilliant because it's impossible to objectively design for oneself.

So I did that on Facebook and not one person so far has used the word "lame".

It's kind of delightful.

You can be the first though. Go for it.

Everyone's an unoriginal.

I have recently been attracted to a group of like-minded people. Like-minded in areas of interest, vocation, religious (or lack of) theory, appreciation of art/music, humor, etc. It was thrilling to find.

What I loved most about this group was the celebration of individuality and creativity. I value these very highly.

It reminded me of when I first "discovered" my local music scene as a teenager. New paths of creation, new sounds, new thoughts, new looks. I thought I had finally found my people.

And then, disappointingly, I discovered that within this pocket of personal freedom existed as many codes of behavior and appearance as there were in the social mainstream. They were just different. The pressure to conform was just as strong and the penalties exactly the same. Exactly. My free-thinking icons were following trends as intensely as the most mindless mall rat. Different people were telling them what to do. That was all.

Going out? Look this way. Don't want to? You're invisible. It annoyed me. Everyone was pierced and tattooed. Everyone had Bettie Page bangs and wore rock t-shirts from the same bands. You saw someone who looked like you and went up to them and talked about socially acceptable subject matter. It was just different subject matter. Exactly the same thing happened in the cult-church my family attended.

So instead of piercings and tattoos, I had none. Everyone dresses like a goth-rocker? I'm going prep. And then hanging out in the rock club. Social failure equaled personal success in a way. Very unsatisfying. And also pleasing.

And now my new group of individuals have the same thing going on. Look at us! We like different things! But they're the same different things. Let's talk about them in the pre-approved manner.

So I think - this is society. It's all rivers and streams and trickles and oceans of following. And if you don't follow, you put yourself in jeopardy. Maybe it's a herd mentality that kept us safe at one point. That makes sense.

Even things that make sense suck sometimes.

That's the way it goes.

All better now. We had a lovely chat about earrings and disco music this afternoon. This is mainly why I don't talk about it - because before I know it, it's over. But when it's down it's down.

My mom is suicidal again.

It fucks me up fairly intensely.

And yet, it is becoming routine.

And, unlike my brother, I don't live with her so there is some distance. But not enough. Like a Nuclear bomb. Even the outlying areas are affected. Sometimes lethally.

So, hey kids, don't do drugs.

Really. It may seem fun while you're young, but you'll pay in so many ways. Five or ten years of fun can translate into thirty or forty years of hell - for you and everyone around you. Not really a good tradeoff as far as I'm concerned.

Thanks for listening.

An update on the INFP thing.

Around the time of that posting I joined some sort of Internet group for INFPs. I can't remember what sort it was.

What I can remember is that INFP people are REALLY annoying. And fussy. And they get their feelings hurt all the time. And they like telling people what to do.

And I wanted to firebomb them all because they sucked so much.

A beautiful story deserves a beautiful ending.


Edit: And now I'm probably going to get some fussy comment from someone who got offended and stewed for weeks before screwing up the courage to rant at me.

Ha ha.