Well, this is where I apologize to the people for not being there. Or here. Or wherever I'm supposed to be. Real life has been a bit of a bear. It's nothing that is happening right now. This past weekend was good, relaxing.

The last weekend was really hard. I loved the late hours I spent talking with my high school friend. I hated seeing my mom slip at times, in parts into her own world. It was a hard weekend.

I think I was pretending, ignoring and just forcing myself to be 'normal' last week. As I often joke in IM, "around here, 'normal' is only a dryer setting." It kind of wore out, I think. I just ran out of 'pretend' or so it feels.

I know I have a pair of stories out there that I'm supposed to be working on. All I can say is that I used to have this pounding beat, this crystal vision of where they both were going, what points they had to hit, when and how.

That all sort of fell apart. I finished the last Sian chapter on fumes. That cliffhanger worked only because the dominoes were already lined up and started toppling already. "WTF comes next?" became the hill I thought I could, but couldn't.

My life isn't just writing. I'm getting by on other areas as well. There's just lots of stress. My high school chum told me point-blank he didn't know how I took all this stress. I don't know how either. I guess some days I take it pretty well. Other days I don't.

I guess these days I don't. Sorry for taking a day or three off.