It always feels weird that I feel better after I do a significant chunk of writing. Writing keeps me going in so many ways. I have mixed feelings about the “Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys” time in my life that stretched from mid-1998 through late-2000 when I had a byline and appaeared in print rather regularly. The last time my byline has appeared in actual newsprint was 2005, if memory serves.

There’s a tremendous push to “be normal” in this community and get jobs that don’t really exist locally. A person is seen as defective and wrong if they don’t have a job in manufacturing, agriculture, or health care. I am not seen as “normal” and I often have trouble accepting that. Writing appears to fill some sort of a hole in my life yet I end up trying to write when I can.

These are things I will eventually resolve. Today is not that day, though.