Back . . . But Whining

Hey, folks!

I'm back. Sorry for the ghost presence thing here for a while but the last month has been frikkin' nuts! Between working 60+ hrs./week, trying to finish the house, and maintain some type of contact with my wife and son, I've been a complete mess. I have done nothing that I can consider creative or productive. The house is still not done (though I'm getting close) Writing has been absolutely null and I haven't read a single book in almost three months!

Gotta tell ya: it's really bumming me out!

I have not been a happy camper lately. I've been so stressed over all this crap that I've been a complete waste of space. My days have consisted of work, eat dinner, mope on the couch for an hour or two, then collapse into bed (with some whining thrown in here and there, just for chuckles.) Physically, I feel like absolute shit. I'm always tired, everything hurts, my concentration is almost non-existent and I have this horrible feeling of weakness all the time. Is it just the stress? No idea, but I'm heading to the doctor next week (which I NEVER do!) just to be sure. I just feel like something is very wrong in my body right now. Hopefully, the Doc will tell me I'm just a cranky, paranoid, fat bastard going through a mid-life crisis of some sort and I'm fine. My family has some fairly unpleasant medical history though so I'm a tad worried about him finding something serious.

In any event, I'm feeling (somewhat) better today. Last night was very ugly; I did nothing but lay on the couch, refusing to move and barely speaking. Not cool. Today I'm realizing that a lot of my problems at the moment come from a deep rooted fear of failure. (Fear? Well: terror might be more accurate!) I've been flipping out over having to do stuff on the house that I just don't know how to do, and work's been a whole lot of new territory as well. I hate not being sure of what I'm doing. I'm don't know why, but the very idea of having to say "I couldn't do it" or "It's not working" is enough to send me into a cold sweat. I am strange like that: I will go one hell of a long way to avoid having to admit I failed at something. Failure is the most horrifying thing I can think of.

So, of course, things like failing to be published, failing to lose weight, failing to get my house fixed, etc. Send me into the screaming tizzies. (Don't ask.) Is that normal behavior? Hell, I doubt it. I've never done anything like a normal person so why start now? My mind tells me that I'm not failing; that I'm still making progress on all these things but my heart doesn't listen. The heart's a firm believer in: "If at first you don't succeed . . . your a dumbass!" Bizarre, no?

Ah well, enough whining for one. day. I should be back to some type of normal schedule now and able to do some actual writing, etc. I'll be posting around here regularly again (and I'll try to keep the boo-hoo down to a minimu, I promise!)

Later!