I was looking back over my “Alone Time” logs in preparation for my accumulated time total and was VERY dismayed to see what is was. Everyone needs some time that is completely for them and for some of us that are less than social beings, it’s critical. And I can certainly tell you that when it’s denied things can take a very grim turn.

To help anyone to understand just how important this is to someone like me, think about what is extremely important to you (for my sister it’s having a husband) and imagine that you could no longer have that thing…wouldn’t it make you incredibly angry that the one thing that mattered to you, the one thing that helped you get through your days was being denied? And then imagine that another person in your life is in charge of whether or not you get that thing and for how long you get it…wouldn’t you begin to resent the person that is withholding it?

The only conclusion you could come to is that YOU as person don’t matter. YOU as a person are nothing. If someone isn’t willing to really help you out when you need it, it’s because you aren’t worthwhile. You are “No One”.

I know this is a week or so early but I thought I would take a look back on the past year. To be honest, most of 2008 is NOT something I want to remember. It was the year that I finally accepted some hard truths about my family and myself.

But there were a few goods parts too. Yeah, I’m as amazed as anyone about that. In the beginning of the year I started a new pastime that I really think I could enjoy especially if family wasn’t interfering (yep, there’s that bad stuff again!). I’ll explain. I started creating stained glass stuff. I could really get into this as it’s an incredible feeling to watch something come to life and know that it’s because *I* made it happen. Now for the bad part…Mom insisted that I pursue this hobby out in the garage. I would have setup my workstation in the house like a real person would but having to listen to Mom go on and on about it was too much to deal with, so I setup in the garage. It’s not that that is a totally bad place to do something like this but it means that here in the boiling pit of hell that I live in I can’t work on anything in the summer months (which out here is about 6 months long)…it’s just too fucking hot. And there is also the thing about Mom starting her usual panic rant about money anytime I say I want to buy more glass. So yeah, that shit does take some of the passion out of things. But in the short time that I was able to work on stained glass I created something that I am really proud of (see image on right). This is something I hope to continue with.

The second good thing came out of having to take a break from the the first good thing – the stained glass stuff. Since I couldn’t work on the stained glass during the summer months, in August I started creating themes for WordPress to be distributed publicly thru my new site The Cloisters. Much to my pleasure and surprise, my themes are fairly successful. And it really is a great feeling when someone likes something that I had an incredible amount of fun creating. It’s awesome! So check out the site and maybe download one of my themes – I offer pretty decent support too!

The third good thing was getting to go back east for a week in June. I swear the minute the plane landed back there I felt I was home. That’s a feeling I haven’t had since I came out here to this desert wasteland. I do have some pictures that I took and will eventually get up on this site. And since I already wrote about the trip in the post Back Home Again, I won’t repeat things here.

I think maybe I’ll stop here and try, for once, to keep things light and end this hellish year on a positive note. So Happy Holidays to everyone and here’s hoping 2009 will bring some good changes.

So I woke up this morning, looking forward to a peaceful and lazy Sunday. I get myself a cup of coffee and then go out to get the paper and there on the front page was the “punch in the gut”. Big headline talking about how houses have gone down in value and my being the masochist that I am I just had to read the story. Apparently in my area of town the percentage of homes that now have negative equity is about 33%. That means that if I tried to sell my house right now I most likely would end up having to pay because I couldn’t sell it for enough to cover what I owe. Now I know what you’re thinking, that I bought above my means like so many others (those who I believe are a contributing factor in this mess) but when I bought my house it cost a bit over 100 grand. Way on the low end of houses here…and within my budget.

In the same article there were what I think were supposed to be “oh pity me” sob stories but I have zero sympathy for these people, in fact I feel rage since they are examples of the problem. The first story was about a 26 year old woman who bought a 750 sq ft house for $132,000.00 with only $2,000.00 down with a sub prime loan. She’s paying 13% interest! Someone like her should NOT have bought a house nor should any bank have given her a loan. She now will most likely lose her house.

The second situation was an older woman who bought a house with no money down for a monthly mortgage of $1,400.00 a month. The stupid fucking cow only made $2,000.00 a month from 2 jobs, one she has since lost. Another foreclosure in the making.

I think we should take all the banks that gave people like these women loans and string them up. It’s criminal.

Yeah. If that doesn’t suck big time I don’t know what does.