"Welcome to the Party, Pal!"

Well, well, well. Guess a LOT has happened in my life since last time we were here...

Yep, I'm busy living la vida...uh...unemploya. It's now been six weeks my job went away. Been an interesting six weeks. Good parts and bad parts. The good part is that I didn't let it completely freak me out. I was comforted by the idea that so, SO many people are currently going through the same thing. This includes people on the news, people on just about any message board I go to, and many people I know and/or am related to. And even before the big recession hit, I'd known lots of people who'd gone through this. And you know what? The world didn't end for them. And pretty much every single one of them ended up better off than they were before. So this helped.

So while I handled it all with calm, it's still been a lot to deal with. Any major life change is, and this is one of the biggest ones. I've had a lot of things to work through, a lot of things to arrange, a lot of additional stresses. But at least that all gave me something to do. That's something...that feeling of taking action. So it's been all right. The other good news is that I've finally managed, for the first time in, I'm sad to say, YEARS, to start getting some real sleep. I'd been running on 4-5 hours sleep a night for long as I can remember. That's just not healthy. The extra rest has helped a lot. I didn't realize how much I needed this break.

I also consider that lack of funds to be an upside. It's AMAZING how much money you can waste every month and never know where it went! This has caused me to SERIOUSLY budget, and cut out the things I really didn't need, and start to develop the habit of saying NO to impulse buying. Plus, with no daily commute, I'm TOTALLY saving money on gas, and loads of wear and tear on the van (silver linings, everywhere!). I'm living poor, and am totally cool with that. I think it's good for me.

The only downside that really gets to me here is not getting as much done as I thought I would. It's amazing how fast a day can vanish when you have no structure in it. And when you have so many things that you want/need to do that you seem to spend half your day just looking at all the things to do instead of actually doing them. The main thing I wanted to focus on was getting some writing done - I mean REAL writing, as in "intend to sell it" writing. I figure there's never been a more perfect time in my life to do so. Well, I've done SOME. But not enough. I don't have a daily schedule set up for myself, which is what I need. I've had too much of the "what do I feel like doing right now?" attitude going, and that kind of puts you all over the place. So, working on it. I have gotten a lot of reading done, which was one of my goals. And I have been getting SOME writing done every day - much of which has ended up being blog entries - and that's important...as the writing teachers say, doesn't matter what you write, you just to be writing SOMEthing every day. So, at least that's a start. Hopefully this next week or so I'll get things on track the way I want them to be. And, along the way, figure out where my life's going from here.

But in the meantime, at least I've had a couple of fun things happen. Like my Alumni Weekend at my old school! That just happened this weekend (which is why I'm up late on Sunday night trying to wrap this up). Lots of people back in town, lots of school chums I haven't seen since...well, since school, in some cases. It was great getting back to the old campus and soaking in all the memories, the ones that physically being at a place where you spent so much of your life can bring out. Man, every bench, every doorway, every set of steps had some kind of memory for me. And it was great being there with people who shared a lot of those memories with me. We had a great time looking back. So saw a lot of folks and did a lot of stuff...and it's still not over. Still getting together with someone for dinner on Tuesday. Old friends are awesome.

Ah, but speaking of this issue of the 'Times...better finish this up so I can get the last of it up!

This Time Around

Only one thing this time, but at least it's a good-sized thing. Finally, "Seahawk: Number Zero": Part Three! The story continues! And I hope the summary at the top helps jog the memories for you, since it's been a long time since we last looked in on pre-Forte Seahawk. Do hope you enjoy it. Check it out...and all other Forte tales...in the Forte 2000 Adventures section!

Art note: Heh. STILL waiting for my pieces from Dennis Martin Willman. Has it been two years yet? He checked in with me a couple of months ago, swearing that my stuff would be done by the end of that month. He keeps promising he's doing free extra art in addition to my commissions, so I'm supposed to be getting a total of 13 pieces of art. When that month passed and I got nothing (no surprise), I was trying to come up with this issue's cover, so, just for fun, I dropped him an email asking if there was any chance I might get the art by the end of THIS month...because I needed a cover, I explained to him. He advised me that SURE, he could totally have the art to me by then! Let's see...it's not still March, is it? :) I continue to wait. If I do finally ended up with 13 new Forte shots, I'll be a happy guy. Not going to be buying a lot of new art any time in the near future. But holding my breath, I am not. Artists. :P

Next Time...On "The 'F' Word"...

I totally don't know!! We'll find out together. But one way or the other...I'll see you then!

Michael O’Connell
I got the Forte in me...I got the Forte in me...I got the FORte in meeee....