I feel like I have awaken from a coma to find my life completely changed. Like all those changes (the moving to the apartment, the closing of the house, settling of pre-divorce conditions) happened to me when my conscious was only semi-aware. Now I am becoming fully aware again and don't know quite what to make of it. That it is still November surprises me. Being close to the December holidays doesn't quite register. As I finish the last of the unpacking of necessary boxes, I find myself going through stuff that I remember that I am supposed to enjoy - art supplies, new books, my laptop and all my accessories, my many notebooks and pens. I remember that I liked to write and wonder, like a person out of a coma, if I can still write. Silly, yes, but I feel like such a stranger to myself. Even with everything around me familiar, it is not familiar. Selling the house was very tough when it came down to signatures and the final check of the profit (which I got not a single penny of, don't ask, it's the most horrible thing to have to give all that money to a man who has no soul). I even found myself driving to the house late one night, after the closing, and realized my mistake as I came up on it. I don't live there anymore.

Right now, I am writing this in my bed. It's almost 11pm and the dogs are sleeping. I don't have internet so I will have to save this and post it tomorrow. I want to come to Barnes and Noble for the Nano group. I miss my Nano friends but feel like I have been gone so long, that the world has forgotten me and if I show up, I'll have to wear a name tag. I know that is not true but that just shows the immense disconnect I have been feeling. I should probably wear a name tag just for myself, to remind me of my own name.

My mother is still having health issues. She goes in for a surgical procedure on Tuesday. Something minor but will help her out immensely. She has been so weak and pale for the past two months. She's barely left the house. She did not even go to my grandmother's for Thanksgiving. My brother and I ended up going to my grandmother's to gather some food and taking it back to Mom's so that we three could eat together. After Tuesday, she should get so much better and I will be so thankful for that.

I miss you, my Nano friends. I congratulate all of you that made it this month! I hope you had a blast with it. At least I did not end up in the ER this month so that is a bonus for me. I will be happy to get back to what makes me happy. I will have to also get internet, damn it, because not having it (only using my Blackberry for internet) for two weeks has made me twitchy. I've heard people say that internet access is a utility like electric, gas, and water; not one of those frivolous things like cable TV. At this point, I heartily agree.

EDIT: Sunday at 3pm, I am at Martins in Elkhart posting this. I am still hoping to make it to B&N later but have been having an "off" day today. I have fallen several times, which hasn't really happened so badly in a while. *sigh* Stress sucks.

I am currently moving between house and the new apartment. My life in boxes. Good news - I still have my netbook. Bad news - I packed the adapter and have no idea where it is. Bad news - my internet is disconnected and none at the apartment. Good news - I am off work all next week with no internet so that means lots of time to write my poor flagging nano novel.

I don't even know what day it is. My mother is having health issues. I finally called her doctor myself because she always makes things sound much better than they are. Today I took her to the hospital for blood work. I should have had the results by now but I will have to wait till tomorrow. She's so stubborn about these things. I hope I didn't wait too long to force the issue. I worry about her.

And now Dollhouse has been cancelled. Joss, not again...

November is here! And true to form, the Nanowrimo site is so slogged that updating word counts may prove more time consuming than writing the novel itself. Ah yes, the best time of year. I had a fun time today, seeing people at IHOP at midnight and then again later that evening. Wow, lots of new people this year and my memory is worse than ever. Anyway, Nano updates will commence on my Nano journal at snippets. My sixth year! Whoot!

First, sadface because I won't be able to go to the Meet and Greet tomorrow. I am going to see Lisa Williams in Indy. I have a sneaking suspicion that whatever thoughts I have for my Nano novel, it will be reduced to dust after going to this. Medium/clairvoyant, and families (like mine) going to seek communication from their passed loved ones. A grief they have been consumed with for three years. I have never seen anything like this before and go out of sheer curiousity. Not that I am not a skeptic, I have quite the open mind about it all. I just want to know the experience. I don't think I will get back into town to get to B&N. If I do though, I will show up.

Uh. The house sold. Closing in 30 days or the whole thing's off. It was only on the market for two weeks. Uh. I have to find a place to live in the next 30 days and be moved out. While writing a novel? Eeek! Like I needed a bigger challenge than the whole 50,000 words in a month. Ha! I think I shall be doing most of my writing at work. If I am still sane come December with all that's going on, I will do something especially awesome for myself (this doesn't depend on my winning Nano, win or lose - if I am still sane, I win at my life).

... I must have this shirt. *wants*

http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=QW-CHEATSHEET&Category_Code=QW

EDITZ: I has now got this shirt. Yay me!

EDITZ 2: Oh, perhaps a novel idea? A poor hapless character thrown into time, or an apocalypse, with only his wits and this shirt to survive.

what falls
but the rain on my face
the pit in my heart

what hurts
but the cold of the wind
the voice on the phone

what heals
but the hug of a friend
the warmth of her love

what stands
but the tree beside me
my feet on the earth

My soon-to-be ex-husband has moved out of the house and now has an apartment where he is free to be in love with the woman he has been seeing. I am so relieved to have him gone. It hurt so bad to see him every day. Now I can start to heal my heart.

Yesterday I did a full cleaning of the house, removing all the conspicuous traces of him. Now that he doesn't live here, it's nice to know that after I am done cleaning it's going to STAY CLEAN for more than 15 minutes. This morning, when all was said and done, I burned sage and did an energy cleansing of all the rooms, saying a special blessing to each part that held bad memories for me. I actually feel much better. I hope to cultivate a more positive essence in this house as I spend the last months here, waiting for it to sell.

Tomorrow I work with the land around this house and prepare for winter. I don't think I will see another springtime here and that makes me sad. It was amazing to see all the flora grow, like a symphony of color and scent. I will miss the lilac trees and the daffodils. I always looked forward to April 10th because I knew that was when spring really began in my backyard. Wherever I go though, I will try to build my spring symphony again.

Home is not home. I wish I knew my path right now. I feel lost. I see what I want in my future but it is so far off from now that I forget the present. Then reality comes and hurts me again. I have been cast aside rather quickly by my soon-to-be ex. Is it too much to want to be mourned a little? I grieve at the ruin of my marriage. He's been getting wrapped up in a new relationship, texting back and forth so much that it jumped out on my cellphone bill (since his phone is still on my plan). He had far exceeded his monthy allotment. Ouch. And I have to continue to live with him because he won't move out and the house is in my name, damn it.

I just want to be out of here. Out of my house, out of my marriage, out of my job, out of this town. I have to believe there is more life out there for me. I have to have hope or the pain will do me in. I try even now to find a little life to live, I go out and explore new places. I try but I always have to go back to the house where he is. I didn't think it would hurt this much but it does. Oh God, it does.

I have been reading so much lately that my eyes and head hurt at the end of each day. It's much better being subjected to the thoughts in my head. I finished the Sookie Stackhouse series, all 9 books (damn it, now I have to wait for the next one to come out next year). I am rereading Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel Trilogy. I love this series so very, very much. They feature my most favorite fictional couple of all time. These books wrap me in velvet and I lose myself in them.

I have tried to start writing again. It's very difficult and turns into an angry diatribe of curses, loses all creative points, and turns into a "steam" of consious thing. I need to find a better way to focus. I want to start writing fiction again, not just angsty journal entries.

o.O Um, yeah....

Instead though, I have been working with watercolors. I'm no good but it's relaxing. And yay, pretty colors. But seriously, there is just little over a month left until Nano? Oh my. I may be in trouble this year. Quick, someone give me a bizzare idea... Ack!

I am still alive, by means of having a pulse. Sometimes the pulse is slow. Sometimes it's fast and sometimes it skips around rather unpleasantly. Can I please hurry up and get past this low phase in my life? It sucks.

Last night my husband paced the house and had a craving for chocolate. He loves chocolate but doesn't want it around because of his weight and cholesteral levels. So I have my own little stash. I offered him my very last Dove chocolate. He took it and enjoyed it. Later on, he goes out and gets some snacks and a Mountain Dew for me, at my request.

I had plans for that Mountain Dew. I was going to drink it while tackling painting the outside trim around the front door. It's going to be a hot day and I wanted to get it done very early. But there was no Mountain Dew in the fridge. He had drank it during the night. When I asked about it, he said get over it.

THIS. Right here is a microcosim of my marriage. How it has been for years. This may seem like a tiny deal but amplify it to the point where he won't go out with me on my own birthday because he would rather do what HE wanted to do. My birthday and what I wanted to do wasn't good enough to interest him. He is a very very selfish man and I am the unselfish one. What I do, I try to do it with an open heart. It's who I am and that makes this all the more bitter for me.

A week has gone by since I made the grand exit from work. Last weekend was completely horrible. My husband did not take the news very well. So on Monday, we (very quietly and calmly) decided to end our marriage. Basically with the understanding that there is no fault in this, just unreconcilable differences. He's extremely selfish and will not change that, and I want more from life than the chain I had been tied to trying to make him happy. There's much hurt and anger in me. My heart broken but not to the point of losing all hope. I knew months ago that I no longer loved him as a wife should.

This past week has been a blur. I can barely remember what I do, minute to minute anymore. I was called back into work by a "very important person" so I went back. At least I will for a while in a very limited capacity. Now that I have had it with my job and my marriage is done, I seem to be looking at a blank slate future. I have lived in a very small radius all my life and I know that this will be the perfect opportunity to fly away and land somewhere different (as long as it is good for dachshunds too, because I get the dogs and for that I am eternally grateful because they are the true loves of my life).

It sucks. Oh God, it really sucks and with both work and marriage crumbling, I find myself lost. Like socks in the washing machine. My spirit is beaten and sore, and my mind refuses to keep any sort of short term memories lately. I guess whatever my body-mind can do to keep me going through this.

Right now, I sit at B&N with an apple juice beside me. For some reason, apple juice sounded really good right now. People-watching from a secluded corner at the windows. The sky is gray but even if it was sunny out, I don't think I would notice much.

I think I know where I want to go from here, my hometown. I'm thinking Portland, OR. As far as I can get without landing in the ocean.

Either I just made the best decision of my life or the worst. Today I quit my job. Anyone who knows me knows that I will work until I bleed and keep going but today I realized I have done so much damage to my health, my mind, and my spirit that if I had kept going, I would have destroyed myself. But who in their right mind would quit a job in Elkhart at a time like this? With no ability to get unemployment? I now have to face what I have done. I have worked there for 13 years, only the last 3 were terrible due to the company being bought out and the parent company bring it all down in ruins.I have never quit a job before. I stared into the abyss today and it showed me my future. I did not wake up this morning knowing I would do this. What have I done?

iGoogle now has comic themes. And there is a Fables one! I love the art from that series so much.It's my happy moment of the day.*smiles happily*

It's almost as if time is shedding itself of the American icons of the last century. People of significant influence. Just this morning, Walter Cronkite. Not so long ago, Michael Jackson and others. Some years are worse than others for celebrity deaths but I can't help wondering about this year. as the mid-point of the year passes along of 2009 and we get ready for the turn of a new decade in 2010. Shedding the remains of the 20th century for good now as time etches more of its mark into the 21st. I think about Walter Cronkite and events are what mark a century. And now we have news reporters to tell us these events as they happen. For the recaps of Walter Cronkites life and the news that he covered, I wonder at the news of next century. What seems big now, really in the scheme of a century, may be small. But I love the most, that Walter Cronkite loved the space program, almost like a child. And boy, if we can get that sort of childlike enthusiasm back for something as cool as the space program, it's our way of "looking up" instead of down. I think we as a people need more of that. More looking up with childlike enthusiasm. Not just with the space program but with other things too, whatever they may be.

What do you feel?
Nothing. I feel nothing.
Well, that's bizarre...
Really? That’s not normal?
Ah, no, you should feel something. Any surges or vibrations?
Nothing, I feel numbness.
Damn, that is not good.
Wait, what? What do you mean not good?
I mean that something has gone wrong.
How? It went perfectly, right? It can't have gone wrong. Wait, maybe I feel something now.
That's me. Just a needle prick.
Oh. Was that good?
No.
But…
Excuse me. I will be right back.
Uh, okay.
…
Doctor?
…
Doc?
…
Hey! You can’t just leave me here like this!

It was useless. She would not sleep tonight. Not after their terrible fight. Carefully she slipped from the sheets. Her nightgown whispered as she walked to the back door. Through the glass she saw the clear, black night.

Quietly she stepped outside. In her mind, his angry words kept stinging. With a deep breath, she let her body slowly rise. Up past the lilac bushes. Higher than trees. Warm breezes blew her hair and it took with it all the anger inside. She watched the stars and felt the pang. Even high from the ground, they appeared so far away.

I have been at a loss for words for a while. Not writing or doing anything much creative. I hate that, it makes me feel so empty. Like some critical part is missing from me. So... I thought I would give myself a simple challenge this month. 31 Days of Drabbles. What's nice about drabbles is that it's only 100 words. I have always liked playing with flash fiction. What can be said with such short of words. Reminds me of Joss Whedon's one sentence story: Her prom dress came off easily; her head less so.

I am on my last day of vacation here in St. Criox. I am very relaxed.

I'm so excited and I just can't hide it. I'm about to lose control and I think I like it. Oh yeah. Roll out the 80's hits because I have only one more day until a real vacation!!! St. Croix baby here I come.

More added later....
I am so glad for this vacation. It's been a few years since I had a true vacation. Not since I started having health problems. I am a little afraid of having problems when I am down there. I worry about the tensions between me and my husband lately. Will this help? But this is just me and my worries. I will be fine. Everything will be okay. Even flying. I hope, oh I hope that I am okay flying. I just can't think about it. I want the sun and ocean breezes so badly. I want the carefreeness of being alive in a new place on this Earth. I want to be free of all that I leave behind here for just a little while. Some more happy thoughts to keep in my memories to make me smile.