The last couple of weeks…

have been tough on me my friends. I’ve had to deal with work, personal, family and financial issues.

I’ve had to make tough decisions.

I think I did what was the best.

The hard part about knowing when playing chicken is understanding when to blink.

The last couple of weeks I’ve played chicken with my health, wealth and sanity.  It hadn’t been good.

I’ve got issues at work that I wish I could deal with, but unfortunately just have to muddle through like I have been doing for the last couple of years.

I finally took the plunge and accepted the role of Municipal Liaiason for Nanowrimo in Lubbock.  It’s not much other than answering questions and organizing write-ins during the month, but it is a way that I can take my creative energy and focus it on something incredible.

I’ve been frustrated at my inability to talk to my kids.  I call and call, not getting a hold of them.  I just hope the understand how much they mean to me.  I am counting down the 15 days until I see them. 

Shelby decided to go as a peasant girl for Halloween and Ryan went as Dale Earnhart Jr.  I took Shelby Trick-or-Treating a couple of times when she was young, but never got to take Ryan, I’ve never had Thanksgiving dinner with Ryan until this year. 

That’s why I have been pulling away to try and get everything ready for the kids.  The living room is done and I am going to have to bust my ass to get the kids room completely clean for when they get here.  The kids room had become a dumping ground for anything that I didn’t know what to do with.

But now I am getting ready to dump a bunch of crap to my friend Kerri’s parent’s for their garage sale. The goal will be to have spending money for the kids and anything left over will cover arrangements if I decide to go to LV for the WPBT Championships.

I’ve kinda hidden also from my mom, dad and grandma.  I haven’t called, because I haven’t had anything to say.  It wasn’t anything against them, just didn’t want them to worry.

But by not calling, I worried them. So last night I got the “It would BEhoooof you to call your grandma” call. Which means G-Ma is asking about me and I’ve been a shmuck and not called her.  SHMUCK!

Last night I had a Halloween Carnival to go help at, came home to take a hour nap which didn’t happen, get on BDR to have fun with Buddy, leave to go meet the VP at another company function, which when I get there, he had already bailed 30 MIN EARLIER and didn’t bother to call to tell me.  So I hung around with the crew, showed a friend of a co-worker the first book, which since I did some major rewrites, seems to flow better and she LOVED!

But then I had to leave to go back and start the Spook.  Now my plans was to either chip up fast and play hard which would mean i would be late for my last appointment of the evening, or go out early which would decimate my non-existant bankroll which I have send out to two people who needed it more than I did. (Don’t ask, I won’t tell).

After getting two-outed by the eventual winner RakeFeeder, I had my imaginary blow up (Planned btw) on Buddy Dank Radio, and left to go to the IHOP where the Nanowrimo kickoff party that I was supposed to lead was.  I got there and was met by my ex-girlfriend Amanda.  She had gotten us the same tables that we used last year when we wrote.  I talked to the manager and she was more than happy that eight of us would be occupying here restaraunt on this spooky Halloween.  Now last year we got the room we wanted, with the tables we wanted.  But it was crowded, almost packed with a waiting list.

But something was different this Halloween.

Nobody was out. I mean NOBODY!  Now my street is usually the place where we have kids lined up and down the sidewalks with cute costumes EVERYWHERE!  Last year it was cold and I had trick-or-treaters.  But this year…

Not ONE trick-or-treater.  That was scary for me.  It was like the energy of the town had been drained and sucked out.  All the life was gone.  Maybe because it was a school night, but I came home from the carnival so I could hand out Trick-or-Treats and take a nap on the couch inbetween doorbell rings.

But nothing, which is tragic, cause I got all this candy and I’m not eating any of it.

Tonight, I had Jessicca over my house to watch Heroes on my DVR.  There is nothing better than having a cute woman, who has goals and is responsible over to your house. Until you realize that there will NEVER be anything between you other than “Heroes” watching buddies. 

I still miss Amanda.  I don’t want to interfere between her and “Chip” or whatever his name is, but somedays I just want to tell her, HEY, REMEMBER ME?  But maybe the six months we dated were what I needed to survive the stay in the hospital among all the other tragedies in my life.  As bad as she got when we broke up, I still miss holding her.

But tonight it’s Friday and I have cleaning to do in the kids room, sheets to wash and get ready.  I’m excited.  It’s getting closer.

I’m working through the problems, and just putting it out there into thin air makes me feel better.

Though Jessicca did taunt me about having a working fireplace that I don’t use.

Hmm.