Sorry

I am going to start off by apologizing on three accounts:

1.  I apologize for being away for quite a while.  I have been in a rough emotional place and because of the difficult emotions I had a complete loss of energy or resolve to write.

2.  I apologize for what is likely to be a still sour mood when I get to the body of my text below.  I am forcing myself to push through my emotions and lethargy in an effort to try to change my mood.  This is the only way I know to try to get back to the place I would rather be... feeling calm, comfortable,  positive, hopeful, and hell... maybe even jovial.  But in forcing myself back into the saddle, working to pull myself up by my bootstraps, I will also have to work through my feelings.  This blog helps me go get those feelings out in a way that is tangible to me, and I have found it helps me to somewhat "leg go" of some of these feelings.

3.  I apologize to commenters for a *big* error on my part....  I realized a couple of days ago that I had MANY comments to some of my writings here that had not shown up in the comments.  I stumbled upon them looking around my Blogger work-site and I realize (and now recall) that a year or two ago, I made some sort of setting change that changed comments to allow free commenting for the first week after a blog entry was posted, but after that point, the comments became moderated.  I did this way back when because I was having some difficulty with some spam/ad commenters posting and posting and posting on my older entries (you know the kind of comments.... "Buy viagra cheap!" and "Great prices on (insert nonsense here)!!!!"   When I first set this moderation up, it would notify me by e-mail when I had a comment that needed moderating.  But, apparently with some changes at Blogger, this stopped because I had not received any notices for quite a while.  And, so, here is the real issue.... I *missed* seeing some of YOUR comments... ones that I REALLY DO APPRECIATE and WANT TO READ!  I am sorry.  I have worked to get them to publish now.  And, now that the spam comments seem to have gone away... I am going to work to figure out how to get rid of the moderation setting again (it takes me a while to figure this stuff out). 

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I have been feeling really low emotionally for the last few weeks.  I have felt sadness in the loss of time and I feel the emotions of loss of time with family and with friends.  I am feeling the loss of Summer, even though it is technically the Summer season still, for a lot of us, there is a palpable transition that occurs near and around Labor Day... and I am feeling that change rather acutely this year.  I am also feeling emotional about some documents that got wet in my house due to a damn, leaking waterline.  Nothing was fully destroyed, but some photos and other momento documents did sustain some damage and it was emotionally hard for me.  I have always felt a strong need to protect these photos and documents, and I feel like a failure for not doing so.  I also feel a sense of sadness about my not doing *enough* to try to keep friendships and relationships strong.  I have this nagging feeling almost every day lately about not working hard enough or long enough to make sure that the people who I love and who are my friends (including you readers) *know* of my appreciation and care for them.  I feel intensely thoughts of my being lazy, weak, unfocused, and not diligent enough in what I should do.  And, I have been thinking about my pipes a lot as well.  Sometimes I will sit and stare at them for quite a while, thinking.  Also, my TMJ Disorder has been acting up like hell and I need to work at trying to alleviate that. I miss the bite splint the dog chewed up, very much. 

I believe starting writing again is a first step I can take to get out of this hell hole of being locked inside my mind with all the harsh, sad thoughts that have been swirling around inside. 

PipeTobacco