Crazy days

Been having a lot of insane thoughts lately. The holidays bring too much mental garbage.

One involves money and how I can make more of it. I'm getting on in years, you know. A want a house -- again. And I want money to retire with. Actual savings.

I have two problems with this desire, however. The main one is my belief that money is rotten. It's just a really rotten thing. Yeah, it motivates people, but rarely does it seem to motivate for good. We'd all be better off without it ... except I can't fathom how any of us would get off our asses.

The other problem is that I've made decent bread before, but it came at a mental price.

Writing stories that people paid me for took a lot of energy away from what I thought of as real writing, which is the stuff I loved as a kid, writing that comes out of your heart and guts. Being money-minded, however, punched all kinds of holes in the part of me that wanted to create. It made me sad and depressed.

So I don't know. Money and I make terrible dance partners. I get a lot of it and start taking it for granted. I don't have any and I feel pissed and trapped. I don't even like thinking about it.

And yet here I am, thinking about it.

I'm thinking of making money apart from my current "business" of writing. Things I wouldn't seriously think of doing before. But things that, maybe, I might be good enough at to actually enjoy and possibly "give back" in ways I couldn't before.

Ideas are coming to me that don't seem forced. I'm in an extremely motivated mood.

An empty canoe sits by a stream...