Blessings and Curses

Blessing

So I go to the mail the other day and lo and behold, a check! It's not a huge check, but it's more than I had, and given my current situation it helped a lot!

What happened was my uncle decided to pay me a couple hundred for his website I designed. At the time I made it I didn't really care about getting anything for it. He was family and I was building my portfolio. No biggy. But in light of the current financial mishaps I was hoping for something like this.

Now my uncle is hurting a little in his own right, but he wouldn't admit it. Unfortunately for him my family are a bunch of blabber mouths, so everybody knows everything about everyone. My uncle has always had a lot of side cash coming in. In addition to working a steady job for over 20 years he would buy and sell cars, buy and rent property, and anything else he could do to get more money in. He wanted to give his immediate family what he never had growing up.

A couple of years ago, fed up with continually getting screwed at the job he had given a big chunk of his life to, and had made quite a name for himself at, he quit to start his own business. It was risky, but he had the clout to do it and the start up capital. Fast forward a year and he buys a gas station because it was supposedly a good deal. His business was going slow, so he figured this would bring in extra cash.

Presently he owns five houses, including his own, two of which he rents (one to us), and one he is getting ready to sell. He also owns the gas station and his business, both of which are doing poorly right now. It's a tough time for him and the fact that he blessed me with this means a lot. I tried not to accept it, but he wouldn't hear of it. So God bless you, Bill.

Curse

My 13 year old brother has sort of a Christmas party tonight. Basically he's going to spend the night with some friends. Problem is he has no way to get there and it's like 3 miles away. He rode his bike over there the other day, but got a ride home and left the bike. Our car is broke down (could either be the battery, the starter or both, but we don't have the cash to fix it until after Christmas). He had it out with his Grandmother last night, who accused his friends of being drug dealers, which is so totally not the case. We've met the kids and they are good kids. So because he got mad at her for that she got offended and refused to take him anywhere for who knows how long. She holds grudges like that and is totally judgemental.

So my brother asks our aunt. She says she's going to Lexington (20 minutes away) two hours before he has to leave and won't be coming back until four hours after he's supposed to be there. He tells her that's fine, he guesses he'll have to walk. She simply says, "Well, dress warm".


Blessing

A girl by the name of Emily over on the Dabel Brothers forums hired me to design a logo for her, which was very cool given the fact she's a little strapped for cash. I told her I didn't want much for it, and she was totally cool about it. I've gone through a couple of revisions, and we're getting closer to the end product.


Curse

Problem is even if I finish it today I wouldn't get the cash before Christmas since I don't have the ability to get money over the net at present. So I may not even charge her. Sigh.


Blessing

Finally heard back about some lettering jobs I was waiting on, all backend pay as far as I know unfortunately. But they build my resume, and some of them I know for fact will be published, so that's a major plus.


Curse

Unfortunately, three different ones came in at the same time, so I now have nearly thirty pages sitting in front of me needing to be lettered ASAP! Not to mention the two projects of my own I will have to letter before years end, giving me another 15 pages to complete!


Blessing

My artists on Wanabez and Eliminator, Scott D. M. Simmons and Jon Davis respectively, are awesome. Not just because of their work, but because they are both working hard on the two projects and racing against time to get done to meet the Dark Horse New Recruits deadline.

Jon emailed me today basically apologizing to me. To me! I should be apologizing to him. I threw the DH thing on him at the last minute, sent him two more pages of script to convert to art, and he is apologizing to me! Jon has worked hard on this project in the midst of moving and some personal problems, and he deserves a lot of credit. I'm just glad I found him and I hope he has a wonderful holiday.

Scott has also gone above and beyond. He's the one that tipped me off about the DH thing, and he totally started cranking out pages. The thing is Scott has been struggling to, having to work part time jobs just to stay afloat, and dealing with his own problems. I also wish him a very happy holiday.


Curse

This isn't a big one really, but we may not get the projects done in time. It's a bummer, but I'm totally cool with it. Family time is much more important at this time of year especially. If nothing else we can submit like crazy in the new year.


Blessing

I got a lot of feedback from artists on the Digital Webbing boards about some questions I had about artists' rates and what not for future reference. I still think most artists ask way too much, and think for some reason they deserve to be given gifts to rival those reserved for world leaders and movie stars, but I digress. The feedback they gave was worthwhile and it gave me a good barometer to know what I'm up against when the time comes. Did I say how much I appreciated Jon and Scott?!


Curse

The bad thing is these artists tend to derail threads and go into rants, which effectively get my threads closed through no fault of my own. It's ridiculous the level of animosity and immaturity these people resort to just to make a point. And most of the time their points are juvenile and imbecilic anyway.Sigh.


Blessing

I've gotten to spend some time with my brother this week, which is something we haven't gotten to do in a long time. We used to be inseparable, but now that he's a teenager he usually has other things he'd rather do. We had a breakthrough after an argument, and it really helped us understand where each other are at.


Curse

My brother is the only one I've spent time with in a while. I've had some health problems that have kept me tied up and what few friends I have left near me are usually otherwise engaged. My lot in life seems to have been to lose more friends to betrayal, backstabbing and neglect than anyone on the face of the planet. lol. Seriously, the people I have called "best friend" have all turned their backs on me, and mostly through no fault of my own. I say that knowing that there will be doubters. But the truth is I am a great friend. Not to brag, but I'm one of those lay down your life kind of guys, seriously. I've had so many problems with people leaving me, starting with my Dad, that I have serious trust issues. When I find someone I feel I can trust to a degree and can confide in and know they'll be there for me it's a big thing. They then get my complete friendship. I've always been a good listener, even to people I'm not particularly close to. And people have always been drawn to me to cry on my shoulder or run things by me, get my advice, etc. I go out of my way for my friends though, and I put others above myself at every turn, no matter how unrealistic that may sound. I have offered to give my car to my friends before. I have gone hungry for them and for my family. Heck, I'm still a couple of thousand dollars in debt because of helping family that just left me high and dry afterwards.

So when it comes to friends I really feel cursed. The only thing I could possibly be accused of is smothering to a degree, but not overbearingly. It is hard to get to know me as I am very guarded, but once they do I'm not at their house every night, or calling them all the time. I may try to interact with them once or twice a week, if that. And it's always something they enjoy doing. But for some reason after a while they just lose my number, stop taking my calls, disappear off the face of the planet, talk about me behind my back, give me dirty looks and ignore me for no apparent reason. I am dead serious, you can ask a couple of people close to me and they will vouch for this. It's really uncanny. You know, except for three occasions I can think of my friends have never gotten me one gift for any holiday, some of them in 20 years! Nor have they even acknowledged said holidays or birthdays. Heck, my whole church has only remembered my birthday three times in 20 years, and we're a very small church. But every year I go to their houses and buy them gifts and bake them cakes or cookies, not to get anything in return, but just because I love them. It just hurts is all, and this time of year just compounds that hurt a little more.


Blessing

...But I saved money on my car insurance with that lizard dude...wait, no they are actually higher than my current insurance...I guess it's a blessing I found that out then.

Seriously, I want to end this on a good note. Not trying to be negative here today, just spouting off on some feelings. There's actually a lot more to be said in the last curse that goes a lot deeper, but I figure I'll save that for future novels and movies and make a killer through royalties, then at least I'll be able to pay off debts, hire more artists, and get things together so when I do meet some genuine people, and hopefully a genuine wife to be, I'll be able to do for them and myself so we can all be happy together.

Money's not everything, but it sure does help! But for me the most important thing is the relationships we have. Mine are lacking at the moment, but I know I'm a decent guy, and someday somebody's gonna realize that. Until then I still have my brother, and I still have my internet pals that I can at least talk to about common interests. And I have so much to look forward to in life if things can just get straightened out.

I have a lot of goals set for myself, and part of my negativity in recent months is because I am fastly approaching a marker I had set for myself several years ago and I am nowhere near where I wanted to be. Not to mention all the problems I've faced and all the relationship (friendships) failures. So all that and some things I began to question and see in a different light had all added together and crashed down on me at once. It was more than I could handle, and I reacted by lashing out and being negative, which, if you know me at all, is not even in my character. But fortunately, the worst part of all that is over, things are beginning to straighten out, I am once again encouraged in my goals and dreams and am seeing different ways of achieving them, and my faith, to a point, has been restored.

There are still some things I have issues with, but I know they will work out. So before I get too cheesy and any more sentimental, let me close by saying that though this has been a rough year for me, it has brought me to a better place in the long run. I haven't quite reached that place yet, but I'm getting there, and I am convinced that soon I will be able to put this year behind me and move on to bigger and better things.

Man, so now what am I going to talk about in my retrospect next week? I'm sure I'll think of something. ;)