I am upset tonight. I am upset because I think someplace along the line I lost a friend. Someone I thought of as a friend for the better part of 5 or more years just seems to have diappeared from my life. I call, no call back. I email, no email back. I do not know anymore. I just sort of have to respect that, and move on with my life I guess.

I do not really know. I think I have been a good friend all this time, a valued friend. But, when it plays out like this it never is clear. There is never anything to put a tack in, and point at. You are just left with this sort of ehch thing, a tickle in your soul if you will.

I get that we are have grown apart, and all the rest. But, I do not think what I did or said was all that wrong. Like my friend Melissa said, I asked a direct question, and moved into the question with earnestness. It was not an easy question, but it was MY QUESTION. The feelings I conveyed were my feelings.

It used to feel like we were all a team. Then this other guy came along, and then I was not needed, and then the calls stopped. Then the emails stopped. Then finally I heard that I did not have to do the stuff that I was doing all these years, that someone else would do it.

Then I got a sort of shitty dismissive email. As if my questions were insulting or something.

Since then, silence.

This is not new. I have asked friends questions, and they have stopped being my friends, but this seems different. Not that it matters, but I am thousands of dollars into this friendship. Hours of work. Years. And to be blown off like this, it bothers me. It really does. No one believed in this friendship, or my friend more than me.

I am angry, and that is that. I am very angry, and I think I have a right to be. When we talked about it, it was always WE, and clearly that is not the case.

Clearly this is the I, and not the WE. Or maybe it is the WE, and I am just not a part of the WE. Maybe others are in the WE. And I was just not good enough, or cool enough, or I lived to far away, or whatever.

It always used to be WE. And, I am not in the WE anymore.

I am thinking about shutting this blog down. I have three other blogs for me, personally, and another one for professional stuff. This is always the process blog, and I do not know that it is helping me as a person, or as a writer.

I think I will think better of it, and keep going. It is relatively anonymous, and free for me. So, it might keep me interested. But, I am not sure.

What a great day, what a great couple of days. I am alone, and able to work at the pace I want. The gym has been amazing for me, and I have kicked major ass. And learned a lot.

I finally feel truly confident at work.

In all fairness, I feel good. I actually probably feel very good. I wrote about 2000 words today for the National Novel Writing Month. It is the thrird time I have taken it on. So that is good. Citizen Wausau feels pretty good. Work feels very good. So, I am not sure about this aching loneliness, and the occasional bouts of anger.

Today I went up the hill for the first time in a while, and loved it. i do not know what possessed me to not go with everyone else. Oh wait, I do. The shame of being the slowest.

Today I felt stronger than I had all summer, and it made me very happy. The workouts have been good, and clearly have helped me.

Tomorrow I gotta weigh in, and we shall see.

I have not talked to Scott in about a month. We did not leave it all that well, but I think he is onto the next big chapter. No fault there, it is just the way it is. I will always be his biggest friend. i think I did a pretty good amount of service to that cat, and feel happy.

I am nearing 40 years old. I wonder about that.

So this is my blog, and I can swim from immature to whatever else I want in my blog. I can do what i want. The only people who read this blog are wendy and melissa, and they love me no matter what. So, this is my blog. THis is my process blog, free writing. Writing things down so that I can make sense of them. This is my process blog. This typing is far more about me than you are a reader. This is my process blog.

So, I know I am a high maintenence friend. I require lots of talking, lots of reassurance, lots of sort of give and take. The honest part of that is that I do not think I am ever full. I am never satisfied. So, nothing is going to make it easy or right for me.

Clearly burning. Clearly losing it.

One thing that sucks, calling you, and you not calling me back. Are we not friends, and are we not good for communicating. If I am upset, someone told me I should tell the person or parties I am upset with, and clear it up. Clearly, that is not common in the world.

The no call back.

The non response to email.

The hanging high five. ITs all the same. It is all rejection, and I feel it pretty strongly.

So, I made a decision today. Tonight actually. I am so tired of doing work, being behind the scenes, and not getting any credit. Having no one know what I am doing, and being totally expendable. This comes out of an email exchange with a friend, and a festival I worked on.

I think I can safely say that i was and have been instrumental in both of them. Might even say one of them does not happen at all without me. Does my name appear anywhere, in anything, at all? Nope. Does anyone thank me? Nope.

Am I wrong to be upset, or am I at least looking for some honest ego stroking? I think I am. I am tired of watching the party happen, and then watching people have a party while I worry, and then clean up after the party. Then, the people talk and talk, and no one knows I do anything.

I hate it. I truly hate that I feel this way, but I do. And I hate it.

I am wiped out. Emotionally I took a chance today, and honestly I am pretty sure it is not going to work out. I have had a great, focused work day. I worked hard. I lived up to the promise of myself, but the background to it is emotionally draining.

There are newspaper problems that just seem to never end. A constant source of poking I suppose. A never ending drama, that is encouraged and possibly created by people other than myself.

My shoulder is in real pain. By this time in the day it is just shot. I wish I could explain it to you better than that, but it is just shot. I cannot make sense of it, I cannot stop the pain, I just have to let the damn thing rest.

CW is going great. I am so in love with the new design, and my passion for it, it is great. We have a new contributor, and that makes me happy. Cheryl is leaving for a couple of months while her family goes through a transition, but I think we shall keep going just fine.

My ass hurts, my soul hurts, and I cannot take being a part of somethings in my life. I make these massive emotional mistakes, and I love how it hurts, and I hate how it hurts.

I am angry. I listened to a friend tell me about a project that is going, and the thing is, I have been saying those same things for years. Those same things. Some other guy shows up, says those things, and kapow.

I guess I am in fact jealous. I do not know what to make of that jealousy, but so it goes.

I have been working out with Wendy from Sunspot, or rather doing wake up calls. And it is going well. I am sort of banged up, but I am happy.

My confusion is all, my confusion is real. My confusion is all my confusion is real.

I am not confused. I am in fact the opposite of confused, whatever that might be. I am sure. Convicted, cocksure. Confident. Assured. I am assured that I am not interesting, not worthy, not valid to anyone but me. Nothing matters to the world, nothing that I can say I care for resonates outside of a few people, and that is just the way it is always going to be. 38 years on the planet, and I keep having to learn it over and over again. The path is mine, and my path is alone.

Things swing into my path, people walk into my room, and just as soon as I open my mouth, they turn and walk out. I should not be surprised, but I am sometimes. People that I think are true friends, they stop calling, they stop answering emails, and text messages. I am left wondering what I did wrong, but really I never wonder.

Because I know. I know that nothing I come up with is going to be right, so why should I look any deeper than the surface of it. They are not there. So it goes. I just have to be happy with it. And I have to be allowed to be that guy.

They come and go. And I am the same when they get there, and when they leave. They leave, and the door is swinging and they are gone, and I feel bad because I felt like I put some work into our friendship, but maybe I did not, maybe I just lied to myself about that one too. I lied, because I thought my work or my friendship mattered, when it did not.

I am glad to know. I am tired of working on the lie that is myself. I am tired of the mirror and the person in it. I am tired of trying to fit the person in the mirror into something I should be for someone else who does not care, does not listen, and does not seem to worry about my feelings at all.

I am tired. My confusion is all, my confusion is real.

My neck hurts from the morning workouts and the days of editing audio, night. See you in 6 hours.

I do not know what it is about my anger. It has never ever left me. I can bring it back on almost a whim. I have no idea what the psychology is that drives me to this place, but it is so easy to come to. I do not know what I can do to avoid it, but I just keep trying to avoid it. I cna sit alone, and find it in any place, at almost any time. And nothing can stop it. It is this amazing wave of self hate, I think. I never direct it outward, I always turn that which is out in on myself.

This weekend I went up north, and like always I invited a bunch of people, and like always no one came. No one even really responded. It is that sort of thing that really sort of shows me the alien nature of what I am working with. I get upset about the constant almost begging for what I think of as friendship, and nothing comes from it. I can conduct massive experiments about how no one calls me, or whatever.

It just reinforces that the idea of what I am going for it some how not what I am going for. Not what is connecting me to others. If I want to connect to something good, something outside of myself, I have not done it in a long time. I have been alone since Angela really.

I know some people, and they are all wonderful. But, I do not think I am connected to them in any way. My heart wants them to value me, and I hate that weakness. I hate that need. That need is what drives sunday night heart pains, and that drives me mad. Makes me do dumb shit.

I have never lashed out, never really gone on some sort of raging binge of contempt for the world, and maybe just maybe I should. Maybe I need to.

This Friday up north I got far too drunk to live. I drank an entire bottle of wine in 15 minutes. Billie and I got plowed. It was amazing. I could not even walk. I lost feeling, and consciousness. It was amazing. I wanted to clear my head, and I did.

I know that I was upset before my NYC trip, and I knew that I needed to just hold on. And I did. Aside from this sense that I am no ones friend, and my unhappiness with that, I feel a lot better than when I left.