I am an honest man when I ain't lying.

I love how you can tell how bad a problem is by how your female Irish relatives feed you.

(I'm sure other nationalities can be like this as well, but I wasn't raised by other nationalities, so I wouldn't know.)

When you go crying to your mummy or granny or auntie with some terrible tale of woe, they will automatically try and fix your problem with something consumable. I do it as well now, and have come to realize that I was well trained in this art without ever realizing it.

You should always pay attention when you go crying to Irish ladies, because what they give you will tell you if your problem is really as bad as you think it is.

You would think that growing up in an environment in which all problems can be solved with food or drink, I would have fewer issues with food. Or maybe I should have more.

-____-

Don't ever do drugs, kids. At least not opiates.

JUST DON'T START.

At the risk of sounding like a D.A.R.E. officer, you only need to try it once before it can ruin your life. Since kicking the vitamins* back in March, I still find myself wanting them at some point every single day. I still find myself mentally justifying the use of vitamins*, and oft do I lament the fact that no matter how *great* it is to be drug-free, sometimes I would still rather be a zombie-slave to vitamins* than continue living every day without them.

Actually "sometimes" is an understatement. Like seriously, most of the time I would rather risk trashing my internal organs and eventually dying of an overdose than continuing to not do vitamins*. Does that make me a bad recovering drug addict? Or a stronger recovering drug addict, because despite all those feelings, I'm still not doing drugs? I don't know anymore.

Remember how my ex vitamin*-friend nemesis really screwed me over a while back? I got my revenge after all. >:) 

I happen to know a guy who knows a guy who knows the police chief in the town where she ended up getting arrested a few months ago (though she herself was not actually caught with drugs) and through this chain of connections, I fed the cops there a few choice pieces of information. Enough information that they transferred her case to the County as a criminal matter, and THAT B*TCH IS GOING TO JAIL. That's what happens when you screw me out of $350.00.

Told you I'm not kidding when I get mad.

Still blocked in the way of book-writing. I know why as well, but that only makes it harder.

In most cases, obsession makes amazing fuel for creativity. Obsessions with things and places and themes and whatnot lead to stories about said obsessions. Pretty much everything I've ever written is the result of some fixation or another.

But then sometimes you get obsessed with something or someone that cannot be easily turned into a novel through the usual creative processes.

My last obsession with a musician accidentally spawned what would become the Underwood series. But that was.... different. I was more fixated on Brian Molko's face than with the entire package of Placebo the band and their music and everything.

And then I just turned that face into a character that became a thing entirely separate from Brian Molko and thus I was cured of the obsession and ended up writing 3 books (+ about 1/4 of the 4th one, before I hit a wall).

the exquisite artwork of Elk

But I don't know how to do that this time.

No joke--I have not listened to any music other than 16 Horsepower and Wovenhand in over a month. And I have their music playing CONSTANTLY if I'm in the car, at work, or at home (like right now). I don't recall ever doing this with any other band or composer, ever. It's worse than the drug addiction. Like I CAN'T FUNCTION without them.

During the week I was in Colorado, I spent about half an hour every morning and between 90 minutes to two hours at night sneaking in time with my ipod. I tried not doing that the third night and I actually couldn't sleep, even doped up to high heaven on diphenhydramine.

Wtf is wrong with me.

I guess I'll just have to go with it. Because there's no fighting my obsessions. And I suppose I technically can't overdose on music, right?

OMNOMNOMNOMNOMONOMNOMNOM

I clap my dirty hands, given over to self and left to own devices; a quaking in the person.

I have achieved something truly epic.

The birds usually start up outside between 4.30 and 5.00 AM. Sure that's kind of early, but I suppose there are worse ways to wake up than by a gradual awakening to bird songs.

You know how when noises gradually wake you up, they can find their way into your dreams, and then into your semi-conscious thoughts before you're properly awake?

This morning:

This, my friends, is the Northern Mockingbird:

We get the same family of them in the tall tree in my front yard every spring and summer. Since they returned in early spring, I have spent hours using my phone to play them Star Wars sound effects. Specifically, the sounds of R2D2 flipping out.

The mockingbirds started incorporating R2D2 noises into their repertoire a while back, but they still weren't quite perfect. Funny enough, one of them added it to his imitation of the wood thrush song, which I taught to last year's babies. Then this morning, one of the grown up mockingbirds perched hisself on the gutter directly outside my open window, and R2D2'ed his little heart out.

Made my whole year. I'm trying to get a good video of him doing it, but of course every time I whip out the camera, he starts singing something else.

I have writer's block.

Like seriously. I got nothing. All projects are currently at a standstill. I feel lost. Adrift in a dark ocean that contains nothing but Tumblr, Walking Dead reruns, and David Eugene Edwards.

I broke a nail. It kind of hurts. I think it might be infected or something. It's gross.