"Steady Crushing Hand"

The Music Club at school met this afternoon. I only had two kids there--a brother and a sister--but they were making good effort, so I didn't mind that so few showed up. I knew one other kid wouldn't be there, and the other two (another who wants to learn guitar and our drummer) sorta just forgot, I guess. Overall, I have a good feeling about the whole situation, really. I think that if the kids actually keep trying and practicing everyday, they'll be decent pretty quick.

As anyone who has visited the Dim Bulb site lately probably knows, I've been struggling with creativity lately. I just...don't feel all that inspired. I hate the notion of taking a break/hiatus, because I know how I am: if I take a break, I end up just not going back to it. It's what happened with running, and God knows when the last time I was able to go on a long jog was.

The best I can do, then, is just push through, try to get back to where I'm happy with what I'm doing. I have a couple of ideas for what to do next with the comic, but I just wish I was feeling the groove better.

Talked with my niece (well, cousin's daughter, but "niece" isn't as unwieldy) this afternoon. Had a good conversation, considering the fact that she's been sick and she's only three. She actually willing took the phone and chatted this afternoon, which is a very positive move in the direction we've been wanting.

Conversations with my mother have not gone as well. Not that she's been chewing me out about things; she and dad apparently had a conversation about money yesterday evening. Y'know, one of those prelude to divorce conversations that have to occur so they can divy everything up and figure out how much she gets and how much he gets. My father, weird as it sounds, apparently thinks that since he's done all the work, he owes mom no money. Y'know, totally ignoring her raising three children, shuttling them all over the place, doing the laundry and the dishes, cooking meals, shopping for clothes and food and everything in between, planning and organizing everything from vacations to the monthly bills...my father wasn't even aware that we had a pharmacy bill every month. He's completely oblivious, essentially, to what mom's spent the past nearly 30 years doing for him. He just doesn't get it. It's pretty upsetting, to say the least. Mom was not looking forward to the conversation when I talked with her early yesterday afternoon. Of course, a big part of it simply depends on which version of my father showed up. If it was my father the way he's been acting the past few months, then she probably had no chance. But if it was my real father, she might've been able to talk some sense into the man. Either way, I feel bad that she even had to go through this whole thing.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Wilco, "Kicking Television (Live)"