This blog has sunk way back into the Id. It kind of goes in cycles but it hasn't been aired out in a while. Reading my friends' blogs has reminded me that events are usually more interesting than feelings.

I have decided to take a break from writing. That doesn't mean I will no longer write. It just means I'm unburdening myself of the self-imposed expectation to achieve brilliance in the form. I haven't written a poem in months. The dating blog kind of sucked the enthusiasm out of me, not that I ever really had that much to begin with when it came to sitting in front of a blank page feeling exasperated.

As a consequence, I'm trying to make music. I'm even taking singing lessons. Right now I'm feeling like I'm just poking my head out from beneath a rock. But screw the rock. I've routinely embarrassed myself in the past over things not one one-thousandth as worthy.

For Christmas, I'm taking my mother to a shooting range. Anyone who has met my mother will understand how bizarre this proposition is. My whole family are pacifists - I have never shot a gun. And that's the point. She quit the nursing job she held for twenty-some years, finally overwhelmed by the lack of self-preservation most of her patients demonstrated.

After I got into San Diego, we went to Balboa Park. As we were walking, I suggested off-handedly, "You should dye your hair purple." For all the times I've mocked this sentiment, it seemed like a good idea. To do it appropriately is a tall order, though.

When I resurrected Dillon, I reaffirmed an idea I've knocked around for a while: the big secret of life is that you set the rules for yourself and you can do anything at any time as long as you are congruous and confident about it. People move aside to accommodate your momentum. The strongest reality wins.

So I told my mom she should do something that threatens her comfort levels. I told her the best thing you can do for yourself is to temporarily become something you resent, or to participate in something that you hitherto felt you could never be a part of. We reached an agreement: she would go shooting if I agreed to take a personality test out of one of her "find your ideal career" books; something I have openly resisted for years.

It makes more of a difference than you might think. A lot sticks. Try it.