I've still got a ton of work to do tonight and more to do tomorrow as I re-imagine, revamp and reorganize the site. I have plans and they are coming together. Keep your fingers crossed and wish the best for me. I may not make it out by morning. If not, I'll grab the lifeline known as twitter and struggle valiantly on.

Boy, this post is short. But I don't want to say too much, in case I can't get the current project completed. If I do make headway I will be back a little later with an update. Until then, adieu. (Wait. French is dead, so, I'll just say G'night.)

1) I'm lazy.

2)That game took way too long. Went right to 'the buzzer' so to speak. Would have liked it to be 39 -17 with 6 minutes left.  (Too much time left you say. No. Why not? Because Brady, as much as they want him to be, is not Joe Namath and his line is not The Snake Pit. -- Look it up, kids.) Then I would have come here joyfully and written pages. As it was, the last ten minutes of that game EXHAUSTED me. I screamed. I laughed. I cried. I almost had a freaking stroke. (You shouldn't do that to a person, guys. Next time, more scoring. -- Wait, it's the Giants. The ones from New York? Oh, okay. Never mind. I'll take what I can get.)

3) I had other things to do. (Non-specific bothersome things to do, that required my presence elsewhere.)

4) I figured today would be here waiting for me, all bright and shiny and with no thought for anything grandiose happening later in the day. I could come and relax and write slowly and comfortably, to my heart's content. Which is what I am doing. (At 6:00 in the morning. -- If you believe that, I have a nice little piece of land down around (/in) the Everglades I'd like to sell to you.)

Anyway. . .

Yeah! The Giants won!( They almost lost.) It's a great vindication of many things, not the least of which being  Manning's career.  (They won't let it be. They'll still talk sh-- stuff about him and call him a fluke and disregard that he LEAD the Giants -- ya know,  as their LEADER -- to where they were this year. Where were they? Oh, right. THE SUPER BOWL.)

Okay. No ranting. This is a happy day. We won. We barely beat Them -- which means They shouldn't feel too bad. I mean, they nearly beat the BEST team in the country. (Okay. That sounded like snark. It was, but it was unintentional.)

I'll go now, because I have to. I do have other things to do. I'll be back later with some interesting things. I have it planned. I'll explain in detail when I get back in a couple of hours. (Maybe.) No. Seriously. I will.

I look forward to the e-mail/comments/replies/threats from the Patriot fans. I honestly have nothing against you guys at all. I mean, you brought down the Broncos and you brought them down HARD. Almost as if the hand of . . . Never mind. That, in itself, puts you in my book of heroes. (Not an actual book.) I just really need you guys to get beat today. I wish it wasn't necessary/important to my continued good/decent mood, but it is.

I will accept a marginal victory. I would take a last second field goal, to win by one/two points. I would prefer a sheer and utter fourth quarter blowout, ending in an unprecedented three/four touchdown scoring rout. Let's have a great game for three quarters; one which leaves the Patriots defense as weak as little newborn kittens for at least the last 20 minutes of game play.

I am a very private person, basically. My reasons for wanting this thing to happen must remain my own. (It may leak out through my ears during the evening, especially if the score is really, really close towards the end of the third quarter. But probably not.)

So, basically, GO GIANTS! GO BIG BLUE! GO (until you can GO no longer)!

It's nine o'clock on a Saturday night and The Kid has just admitted to me her desire to drive me insane. Good luck. It'll be a very short drive. (She's watching Minecraft videos on Youtube and singing nonsense at the top of her lungs. I should be headed to a rubber room by morning at this rate.)

I've done a lot of writing today. Mostly random things that mean something to me, but that I've cleverly camouflaged by leaving out specific details. Some things I feel I've been too specific about. After all there's not enough space left in the world to hide everything. Plus, I'm sort of tired of hiding things.

Sometimes I feel like if I let everything out, made every thought public, things would wind up being better. It is at those times that I catch myself and remind myself that there are other people involved and I'm not sure to what degree they would be adversely affected.

There is a time coming when, if I survive it, things will be easier to say. A time when people will be able to understand and, if necessary, forgive. The surviving will be the thing. Everyone will know whether I do or not. Everyone will know what and how and when and where. I won't be able to hold back. And if I don't survive, I think I'll find a way to let people know why not, though it might be kind of obvious by then.

Until then, though, I'm fine. Don't worry about me. I get through the days. I'll be better when I get to California, later this year. I'll make it that far. I've promised myself. Then there might be new plans to make and I might find better ways to survive when the time comes.

(I've been hitting "publish" a good bit lately. It feels good. Probably keep it up. For a while.)

Time isn't always something we can have full control over. Time does what it will. While Fate is a flirt that wanders around and gets bored and chooses to do something else, while you're in the middle of growing up. Time can really screw you over.

So, I sit here digging holes. Depression, 'neurosis', and pain will fill them in, over my head. Bury me alive.

Then again, maybe after so many long, long years you do learn to get past regret. (How do you regret something that was never in your power to do anything about, anyway? Something obliterated in your childhood, by other people and incredible circumstance.)

Maybe, at the end of more time than I can imagine getting through, you find that all these holes were just you searching for treasure and that the search was all that mattered.

Changed a link. Turns out I never tested the tumblr link that I put up weeks ago. It's fixed now. Click on it. At the top, to the right, there. A couple of new things over there.

Something called Things That Should Not Exist is up over there and might be here sooner or later, haven't decided yet. Just me rambling about things that are in my head (that REALLY shouldn't be). Pieces of The Novel might show up there. (It's basically me trying to find a way to write that Thing --The Novel -- and failing horribly.) Right now, you have to go to tumblr to find the link. The link to the right will send you over to oddstilllife.tumblr.com and I just put up a link to Things . . . there.

Why am I making it difficult? It needs to be for a little while. I might make it easier later. I'm trying to make a path, here. Right now, it's a very narrow one. Really for one person.

(I keep saying I'm letting go and letting  . . .  well, you know. Problem is, I'm worried that I'm supposed to be doing something. So, I'm doing a little something. It's little enough. Maybe because I'm just impatient.)

When I started this blog I decided to sign in as teddyt. It was not really close to my real name and I was super suspicious of everything back then. The thing is, I've been on twitter for awhile now as tracytayl. I had thought of using teddyt on there too, but thought I might want to feel freer over there, so I stuck close to my REAL current name.

Now, a few weeks (or months) ago, just after I started Scenes . . ., my fiction section that is now (at least temporarily) on hiatus, I got a few e-mails asking if this was an autobiographical story, and a few assuming they knew who I was and a very specific situation that I was talking about. Let me go on record as stating fully: Scenes From Her Life is not now, nor has it ever been based on fact. It is in fact based on something that a CHARACTER (fictional) of mine might have done in a previous incarnation, instead of the things she does in the Novel that I am currently failing at completing. Sort of a parallel universe sort of thing.

I did make the mistake of naming the main character in Scenes. . . Teddy. But it's just a nickname with her, also. I figured I was safe.  Her previous names were Robin, Jay (someone who actually knows me warned me against that one right off the bat and I'm so glad they did) and Leigh. Maybe I should have stuck with one of those, but they're names from the actual Novel -- subtitled "The Unfinishable Project" -- and I did not want them to be closely associated with web-only content.

Now, you ALL know. It's just a nickname. None of my fiction has anything to do with reality. Goodbye.

Over the New Year's holiday I was completely floored by something that someone I admire and respect did. It was so outside of their character that I was thrown into a bit of a spiral, that I'm just coming out of now. I have absolutely no way of knowing what caused this behavior -- I can speculate, but I would never do that publicly. I could speak to people who are involved, but I'm not sure how that would look.

I know that this behavior caused people pain. Much of this person's recent behavior has caused some emotional distress for people who have been close to them and are no longer.

This post is not about people, though. It is about a feeling. Something I think many of us feel at one time or another. The disappointment that we feel when these things happen is the real problem. It can keep us from being there for the person who disappoints us. It can keep us from noticing the things behind the behavior. Maybe the person has truly changed. Maybe there is an outside person/circumstance causing the behavior and it is only temporary.

If you let it, disappointment can become a wall between you and someone that you care for deeply. If you become disappointed in someone you should take a long moment (or a week or so) and think about why you really feel disappointed. If it is for some real reason: they did something deliberately to hurt someone or themselves, you should confront them immediately and find out what is going on and why. On the other hand, if you find that you are reacting to a superficial situation, one in which no one is really being hurt (at least not deliberately) try to distance yourself from the incident. Try to look at it from the point of view of someone who has no emotional stake in the situation. You may find that you no longer feel disappointed, at all. If you still feel disappointed, then you can maybe have a good long talk with the people involved and let them try to help you understand.

Right now, I'm just beginning to feel less disappointed. I'm still a little concerned for those involved, but I'm stepping back and looking at it from an emotional distance. Maybe it isn't as bad as I think, as bad as it looks, as bad as it feels.

Scenes From Her Life has been "boring" me lately. I try to come here and write and not give a good hot damn and it has just become impossible. I have several different directions I want to lead these characters in, some involving amazing amounts of conflict. There are some problems in my doing this. (I have been less than forth-coming about the --er, um -- inspiration for these characters) and I have to do a little research in order not to make all of it seem a little too non-fictional. (Ya know, put the right people in the wrong places and vice versa.)

Also, Teddy just celebrated a birthday (in the story). I don't think I mentioned which one it was and I do not think anyone could imagine which one from the way the story will eventually work itself out (if I let it work out at all). She is older than she might seem at first glance. Her situation with her mother was nearly absurd in its depth of dysfunction. This is understandable from my point of view, but I'm not sure that an average reader will "get it".

I had intended for Scenes . . . to be something fun for me to work on when I'm not beating my head against the brick wall that is The Novel. For now, it's just become another wall, and I already have a constant headache.

It may continue. It may not. I may change it. I may not.

This was just a short note to let you know.

(Another post that I started more than a couple of days ago. I originally wrote the first part of this back on the 7th of January. I decided against posting it after I got into one of my who-gives-a-hot-damn moods. Now, I'm coming out of the mood and feeling the need to be Honest with myself and anyone else who stumbles down this particular dark corridor.)

As the minutes fell into hours I let myself relax into old routines and I really wasn't thinking about anything in particular. Suddenly there this thing was. This thing that I was trying to bury. In something that wasn't even a part of the thing. There it was hidden away in a phrase, in a word, in a breath. I knew it when I heard it. Instantly I was filled with something that I hadn't thought to be filled with in a long while. There was a sweetness and a warmth in the thought. There was a distance, also. It wasn't the same. It's like looking at an old photo and feeling the way you did when the photo was taken.

(It has taken me a while to write this post.)

Hours have passed since I began writing this post. I have been taking the time to figure out the reasons why I wanted to be rid of something that has been a significant part of my life for a good deal of my life. It may be that I assume that I'm supposed to let go of it. Of course, we all know what happens when one assumes anything. (Thank you, Silence Of The Lambs. --Look it up.) I feel like I'm ready to change things, CHANGE them, not discard them. Maybe things are meant to go to a different level. If I'm to actually be more Honest this year, I think I have to Honestly say that what I want to do is take these things to the next level.

(I wrote this back on the 4th of January. I am posting it on the 11th of January. It has taken me a really long time to write this post and figure out that I don't mind if people read it. Also, I wish I could let everyone know what this thing is that I'm holding onto, that basically tortures me 24/7. I can't ever do that completely, but I am writing and I find that in every story I tell there is at least a little bit of my own truth. So, if and when people read my stories they will find a piece of my daily reality. Which piece, I may never be able to say, but it's enough (for me) that it's in there somewhere.)