The never-emptying inbox

You ever see those cartoons? The ones where the guy's at his desk and his outbox is empty and the inbox is overflowing? That's kind of how I feel right now.

Christmas is, well, three days away. It isn't that I don't know when Christmas is. It's not like it changes days on you. It's the same frickin' day every year. It doesn't sneak up on me.

Right now, I've got a million projects going on. Our show has really started to take off and that brings a whole new set of things to do for it. I was co-hosting another show on Fridays, and I got the chance to spin off to another show on a different network. I'm writing for the SportFellas and I'm going to be doing their radio show. I'm also taking on a few outside design projects because in the event that I decide to peace out, I have to refresh those skills. And they're fun.

Oh, wait. I committed to a triathlon in July in Chicago. The Danskin. We were going do to April in Orlando but opted to go to Chicago instead. I'm down with that. I've never been there.

Let's throw the Erie half-marathon on top of that. I think it's the weekend after.

You want more?

Harrisburg-Hershey half-marathon ... second weekend of November. I realize that's a hell of a long way down the road, but it's not like something you capriciously prepare for. You don't wake up that Saturday morning and say, "eh, I got nothing better to do, so I think I'll hit 13 miles today."

So between work, traveling, writing, radio, training ... sleep's a luxury. I tried going to bed really early last night but my mind was racing.

I neglected to send out Christmas cards and it's more because my life has been in such a state of transition during the last few months I didn't even think to ask for the Excel spreadsheet of addresses so I could send them. There's no tree. I didn't decorate. I just don't feel much like Christmas this year, and understandably.

In a few days, I'll be at home, on my parents' couch, watching their TV and relaxing. I'll take a minute or three to breathe and catch up, and then hit it again. Time's not slowing down for me, it seems. It's getting faster and faster.

... and I'm gonna be freakin' 29. Gah.

And it's time for me to call into my second network for the Christmas radio show. Then, I swear some down time with the TV.

Old notebook, new laughter

I found a notebook in a drawer today that's about 18 months old. In the notebook was a screenplay Jo and I started writing about a psycho who was going to kill me and carve "never again" into my chest and fill the wounds with glitter.

It was loosely based on reality -- I had somehow managed to consume a nearly 40-year-old woman who thought that I was stealing her "boyfriend." This total whack job even went so far as to create fake MySpace pages to communicate with him, thinking I'd somehow be too stupid to catch on. She bitched about me to him relentlessly about how I was "picking on her."

This probably wouldn't have been as much fun if he just would have told the truth about her from the beginning rather than "oh, she's a psycho stalker. You should ignore her or she could hurt you or me or both of us." (Hey ... HIS words. NOT mine.)

... right. Truth? No? Half-truth? No? OK.

Fortunately, I'm so far removed from that world even the memories are spotty.

However, for the afternoon entertainment that notebook brought, this post is dedicated to the glitter graphic, Jo in Miami, "Crazy" by Pasty Cline, Jesus and our hope that one day, even I will be in the Writers Guild of America so I can be on strike.

A clean, fresh start

I'm jumping back into this because I need an outlet. My show is great for an outlet, but I'm a writer. It's what I do. I write.

I've gone through some pretty serious life changes lately, and I don't think it's a good idea to spill them out here. If you're one of my closer friends, you know what's going on. It's a really strange, and interesting, time in my life. I'm learning a lot about me and all of the stuff that goes with it. I'm learning how to get over hangups of the past and work toward what I want to be in the future, regardless of how that affects the situation in which I'm living.

But the last three weeks of transition haven't been a picnic. I'm lucky that people have stepped in and really come through for me.

I deleted all of the old posts on this blog because, well, I just thought when I picked this back up to start it again I wanted it to be clean. A blank canvas. Something to start from scratch and develop.

But the developing must come a little later ... it's deadline, I've got a hundred things to read and Foo Fighters on iTunes, so I should be unstoppable. :)