2009 April 13

So, Easter has come and gone.  I'm sick again.  Have been sick in one form or another since October really.   Have some form of flu or head cold or something.  My family went to celebrate Easter with her family yesterday, leaving me here to spend the day in my head.  As usual.  I spend way too much time there and can tell you for certain, no good comes out of solitude.  Even worse is when the people around you, the people you love, are so damn happy to spend time elsewhere and with other people.  Not talking about yesterday, just in general.  I get to a point where it seems if given a choice between spending time with me and spending time with absolutely anyone else, I wouldn't be the choice made.  I'm sure that I should just smile and be happy that they have found better ways to spend their time...better people to spend it with.  Sometimes it's hard to smile though.  As my issues around my weight and anxiety continue to get worse, it sure doesn't get any easier.  My own fault, surely.  Isn't it always?  I am already freaking out about attending my daughter's high school graduation in a couple months.  In my mind, by attending I will embarrass her.  I'd be the fat guy who everyone is staring at.  Somehow I have to get out of my head.

 
2009 April 8

Not sure if this is a good idea or not...not sure that anyone will ever even see it.  When we met with my son's guidance counselor earlier this week to help him sign up for his freshman year of High School, the counselor noted my email address and said "Creative Outbursts....what do you do?"  I started with "I'm a photographer" but was somehow compelled to follow that with "and I write a little."  I felt a little silly afterward.....can I really say that I write?  Is it like the Marines....once a writer always a writer?  Since I guessed the answer to that was no, I decided that the only way to make it true is to do my best to put key to board and spill my thoughts here on my very first blog.  I couldn't come up with a catchy name....hopefully will have something soon.  And I'll let you know right up front that this page is probably not going to always be safe and pleasant for kids (or even many adults) to read.  In college my teachers would always ask why my writing slanted a bit toward the macabre.  "Write whatcha know" I would answer.  For whatever reason, my life has been filled with loss.  I have endured the deaths of more friends that I care to remember.  You'll hear about some of them no doubt.  But, I don't plan for this "blog" to dwell on things long past.  I'm gonna use it to tell you a little about what's going on in my life....and give you a look at the world through my eyes.  

I started CreativeOutbursts.com so that I would have a collection point for all the different aspects of my life.  I do a lot of photography, including events that are sponsored by the local Country Radio station (Froggy 100.9 FM in Barre, VT).  Last fall, I was shooting the Colgate Country Showdown that attracted a few hundred fans.  The MC of the show, JD Green, tried to give me some free PR and asked, over the microphone, what my website was.  I couldn't really hollar to him and tell him http://www.flickr.com/photos/kb1epq/  My Ham Radio callsign doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, huh?  So I decided that it was worth the money to put this together.  Besides, now I only need one business card to hand out.  Send everyone to my homepage and they can branch out from there to whatever they were looking for.  Now I just need a cool logo ;-)  Have a picture in my mind that I would like.....need to find an artist willing to work with me to get it onto paper.

Creative Outbursts isn't exactly new to me, though.  When I was younger (pre computer days) I did a lot of creative writing.  Poetry, short stories.....you name it, I've written it.  I even went so far as to create my own "Poetry-zine" that I named Kreative Outburztz.  All of the work was done on my Brother Word Processor and put it out quarterly.  I had a vision then...and a bit more ambition as well.  I sold subscriptions.....$10 for a year including postage.  Granted, most of my subscribers were simply folks trying to be supportive of someone with an idea and a tiny bit of talent.  But.....I had subscribers all down the East Coast as far as Florida.  Not bad for a 20 year old kid raising an 8 year old deaf step-son and newborn daughter.  I took submissions from other writers and published their work as well.  I ran across an old box of business cards that I made for Kreative Outburztz the other day.  The listed my old address....my old life.  Seeing them brought back a lot of great memories and brought forth a fair amount of emotion as well.  The one thing I know......I'm glad that I named this domain CreativeOutbursts.com