Go with what you feel. What I get for following my feelings doesn’t ever change. I get into a situation that makes me happy that will inevitably wreck me internally.

I didn’t want to start a relationship with anyone. I was getting a lot of things in order, especially regarding custody of my daughter. I expected the date with Teri to be short and end with her telling me it was nice, but I wasn’t her type. Instead I played Left 4 Dead with her on my birthday. I didn’t have a party, I got all kinds of phone calls reminding me that people cared about me and I had great fun with a new friend. Things started to get more complicated from there. We both felt a connection. We communicated well and shared a lot of ideas and differed on a few, we both had similar interests and some that were different. I never felt anything other than happy when I was in her company.

Then it all came crashing down in a single wrong move. I broke a promise, one of those ones that at first seems really small and then once you realize it’s broken you aren’t sure how all of these pieces came from something that size. I promised I wouldn’t ruin her sleep on purpose and I did. I was very needy. The stress of my upcoming time to pickup Samantha and the store having a great deal of problems weighed heavily on me and I couldn’t seem to sleep.

Now she’s gone. I’d like to try to take at least one important piece of her advice with me though and remind myself that this wasn’t my luck or some being’s hatred for me. This was my mistake. It hurts, but I’ll survive it. I’ve been through worse and I’ll go through worse. She made a big impact on my life though, and she’ll always have a special place in my heart.

I will always love and adore you, Teri. Goodbye.

I know I had promised something a little more positive last time, but today I got reminded of something that really bothers me and it seems like this is going to end up being the week for it. I have this horrible tendency to have people who don’t have any stake in my life trying to drive a stake into my life. I know I tend towards paranoia and maybe this is just my imagination being active, but every time I take a step back and look at things, all I can do is see the people who aren’t.

The Lich’s Lair is in trouble. I could blame the recession, and I could blame the weather, but it would all be wrong. I go out of my way to try to be fair on my pricing and I try to treat the customers as though they are my friends. Though I may come off a little rough around the edges at times, the people that hang out at the store are people I have a great deal of respect for, and not just because they spend money. In fact, it really bothers me that they think that. This store is not generating revenue for me in any way. The store is presently 6 months behind on its sales taxes. The one time I had money and started to take care of business, I ended up with a week that almost bankrupted me. Granted I had a backup, but it was definitely a swift kick in the crotch. Now the store struggles to pull back out of the slump. I have to deal with people who aren’t even capable of saying what they are pissed about trying to wreck my event turnouts, and another random group of people who have become so flaky, I am fairly certain they might have been made in France.

In addition, all over I keep running into people planting seeds of doubt or fear into the heads of my family and friends. The fact is that in the last 8 years I have shown better than most people can that I am nothing if I am not blunt and honest. In addition I have proven that I do not make decisions solely based on impulsive thought. I will occasionally act with spontaneity, but I know where to draw the line when things get big.

This message comes with a warning. I will not allow anyone to continue to try to bash my reputation or the reputation of the business. I will not allow my reputation to be called into criticism or question. If you seem to have a problem with me, you had better make it very clear, or I will spare no effort it making it very clear.

That being said, if you do have a problem with me, then I would suggest that you let me know now. Just hit the contact button at the top right of the page and say whatever it is you want to say. I respect negative feedback when it’s direct, and I have no respect for you when it’s not.

I’d like to start this off with a thank you to everyone. I actually have readers, and it’s a very good feeling. It’s strange, but I’ve never felt myself the type who would enjoy people reading almost meaningless opinions of mine, and yet somehow it gives me a strange feeling of pride and an enhanced feeling of refined communication. Thanks for doing something so small that it does something very big for me.

I’d also like to pass on a bit of an apology and I prefer to be public with it. There are a large number of people out there who I have inconvenienced in my life with my random spurts of neediness. For those of you who are unaware of what I mean by this, you have probably seen some of the side effects. For a period of a couple of days I become moody and I tend towards trying to separate myself from things that bother me and only be around things that make me feel loved. When I am repelled by the things I love, even in the slightest, I tend to get very mad and frustrated. During this time I can be very harsh and even cruel. To those of you that I have ever gotten this way with, I am sorry, This used to be something I was consistently troubled with, but over the last several years it has simply become a time I can see coming and be ready for and I know it is something I am very close to overcoming.

I’m pretty bad sometimes at communicating well. I tend to trip over concepts here and there and sometimes just completely botch up an entire explanation. However, I do tend to pride myself on at least being able to make the attempt. I enjoy trying to communicate as much as I can. Sharing ideas and opinions is one of the things that makes us a little better than the things we eat.

Have you ever noticed though that sometimes people don’t even try to communicate? I have had people go weeks without talking to me and their excuse was that I never attempted to talk to them. Since when did communication become one sided? Was there some sort of meeting called that said that certain people couldn’t talk to other people unless the proper side initiated the contact. I tend to find myself busy, but I try where I can to contact people and let’s face it, getting phone calls makes me feel important and special, and as quite a few people can tell you, the better I feel the more likely I am to call people and try to share that with everyone.

That’s what this blog is about. It’s my way of being able to communicate with as many people as I can. It’s my way to share new opinions and ideas or even just a few meaningless thoughts. Thanks for giving me a reason to keep at this.

Also, I have a more entertaining topic to post on tomorrow. I am thinking about starting a new religion!

In the last few years, I’ve begun to notice that sometimes the greatest of your merits can also be your biggest flaws. As many people know, I tend to be a very intense and passionate person when it comes to a great deal of things. I tend to devote a great deal of time and effort to the subject of my enjoyment. However, sometimes I can let it go too far and end up allowing it to cause problems with the other parts of my life or I drain the energy from it like it were food and I had been tied to a chair for days. Being the type to never have batteries on hand this tends to suck for a great deal of my non-rechargeable electronics. It’s even worse if you happen to be a human being.

Teri is the object of said attention. Just being around her seems to brighten up my day and a conversation with her is enough to spark a level of desire I never knew I could achieve. However, like a 5 year old with a new toy I’ve pushed the same sound effect one too many times and the batteries have reached the point where Ernie sounds a lot more satanic than comedic.

The store is more similar to the late effects of the things I enjoy. The store is a passion of mine which has become an important part of my life. However, like most of the things in my life, I need time away from them no matter how much I may enjoy them. I love the store and the last thing I want to do is close it up and walk away, but I have spent so much time managing it and working within its walls I just want some time to breathe.

The combined effect of these two things is where I was for the last few days. My monthly burnout times are getting worse. I keep finding myself unable to sleep when I want to sleep. I keep forgetting things which I should never forget and losing track of things which I constantly need. I haven’t spent time with my family in so long I feel like many of them can only wonder if I still care.

Next Saturday is my trip to pickup my daughter from Missouri. I am leaving with Teri early in the morning and we’ll be staying in a hotel out there overnight. I am debating leaving Friday night, but the drive wouldn’t put us into Missouri until 11 or 12, but being able to spend Saturday with nothing important to do would be the best vacation I could have in well over 9 months. I need to reset my mind and just realize that everything really is in a better place than it has been in a very long time.

I’m worried because for the first time in my life I feel like my passion is starting to flicker. I’m worried because I’ve never felt so indifferent so much. I’m worried because I’ve never felt this much like I just want to run away and never come back.

I’ve spent a lot of time being frustrated about a lot of things. One of my greatest frustrations is the way that people seem to maintain dishonesty even in the situation where honesty is needed. Many of them even want dishonesty when they themselves need it twice as much as they ever have.

The trouble is, I find myself trying to lie to myself a little too much. I am fantastic at making my money work for me in ways that most others would never be able to achieve. That’s how I managed to get through the first year living in Lansing. My base pay was not really enough to keep me afloat, but I knew how to leverage my income to make sure that things fit where they needed to. I told everyone I was fine, but really, I was stressed out to my limits.

I was fine; I had everything balanced, except my life. I wanted to be able to spend time with my daughter and I just couldn’t seem to find a way to make it happen. People also seemed to enjoy bringing up the fact that I wasn’t trying as hard as they wanted it to look like I was trying.

Two years later I was lying to myself about my life. I kept trying to call what I had a family, but a family doesn’t make you feel like there is constantly something wrong and missing. They don’t make you feel like you’re the only one with concern for anything. Was it really them that felt that way, or just me?

Throughout my life I have had a hatred of money. I don’t like having it, and I don’t like not having it. I keep trying to use money as the excuse for all problems.

These are the days I hate. They sneak up on me and make me exhausted. I wake up irked by something and it sticks with me the whole day. I struggle with being depressed and it makes me want to argue. Money isn’t the problem though; it’s that I’ve been trying to make money the problem. I let myself get lost in worrying about the things that haven’t happened yet and trying to be prepared for them. However, as of late I have been taking prepared to an unhealthy level and letting it create a fear in me.

I need to be rational again. I have a whole lot going very right for me, and I can manage things well enough to be a success, I just have to quit being worried about whether or not tomorrow is going to come. I need to look at my life and realize the things I have. The things I have in my life are valuable enough that they aren’t going to vanish just because things get tough, and if they do, I guess I didn’t really want to have them in the first place.

Unless some strange act of god I could not be prepared for happened tomorrow, I know I will never lose my children, my family, my lady, and my ability to recover no matter what the situation. I resolved to stop focusing on letting be overcome stressing about the things I was never going to lose and damnit, I am not going to give that up. The most important person I need to be more honest with is myself and if I continue to lie to myself, than I can never truly be honest with the world.