Sometime around 4:30 yesterday, I decided I was taking a four day weekend.

I was recognizing the pains of my first kidney infection in years, and . . .

I was recognizing that I've been focused on one thing - and only one thing - since early January.

Work.

I also realized that I was feeling a little cynical about it.

Now that Encounter Calhoun County is finished (except for distribution), it was like the other things in my life came back into focus.

I looked around, and simply noticed things.

My check book is a mess.

The reason I can't find any of the clothes I want to wear is because they're all piled on the floor of the laundry room.

My desk at work is perfectly organized, but my desk at home is a frazzle.

There was no food in the house. (I spent $216 at Foodland yesterday - and bought four gallons of cranberry juice.)

There's an unfinished book in the bathroom, and another on the night stand. And another one on the end table. And then, of course, there's one by my reading chair.

I haven't done my taxes.

I've been promising my mother a visit for three weeks.

But that's not all of it. Not with my brain.

You see, when I look around an wonder, "what happened to my immediate life?"

The thought spreads, expanding on it's own, eventually coming back around as, "What happened to my life?"

Yesterday, one of the store owners along my delivery route asked, "How are you today?"

"I'm old." I replied.

I'm old.

Of course, reading the other blogs on journalscape didn't help any. Published writers who write fiction.

Fiction.

You know, with characters and stories that come from that hidden place deep within. Unique creations that come from you alone.

Sigh.

I don't know if I can even attempt fiction any more I've been reporting on news and events so long.

And it looks like I'm going to be attending county commission meetings and town council meetings for the rest of my life.

Sigh.

I've been thinking of myself as a big fish in a little pond.

But when I look at the outside world, I realize I'm nothing but a tadpole in a puddle.

So. Today I'm alternating between cranberry juice and dandelion tea, wanting to sprout my legs and hop on outta here.

Ironic isn't it? I just spent eleven weeks creating a publication that tells how great the place is, and today I see nothing but a mud puddle.

Post-publication depression I guess.

Don't get me wrong. I know I am where I belong. I married the man I love, I work in a job where I fit, and I normally feel very content.

I get paid to write, and most of the time, I can do it without thinking.

Every week.

Fifty-one weeks a year.

Year after year after year.

Attend the event, record the event.
Attend the event, record the event.
Attend the event, record the event.

Try to make it interesting.

That last line is the kicker you know. In order to make it interesting, in order to make it good, I have to be interested.

Right now I think it is all about as interesting as a mud puddle.

I want to go to Alaska, run a little newspaper, rent kayaks and write a novel. My dream of Alaskan life is the little fiction piece I work on in my head each night when I lie down to sleep.

That and the gossip in town includes about all the fiction in my life.

Sigh.

Did I mention my kidney hurts?

. . .


I'm not playing hookie.

Honest.