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I can feel the weekend getting closer. It is with great irony that I dread them now when I once lived for my weekends with Erin. Nighttime and weekends are definitely the most difficult hours of my life these days. It is much harder to be alone than I would have thought... especially since I survived quite single and quite alone for years throughout my life pre-EL. Having "lost" changes perspective on so many things in every little niche of your life. My mother, who had been in town helping with Henry while I was away on business, left yesterday to head back to the coast. I did alright last night all things considered, but there is a noticable shallow grade decent as time passes. The motivation to do something this weekend to keep my mind busy almost feels like betrayal. It isn't that I don't want to think about her every second of my consciousness... it is just complicated. I attended another business meeting yesterday afternoon where everyone at the table seemed to migrate small talk into discussions about their wives. It was brutal. I just need to come to terms with the fact that I will never stop dealing with those situations. It's not much consolation, but acceptance is better than nothing. Sam emailed me to let me know that they started bulldozing the Cypresswood Trails on Monday. Apparently the city wants to extend a thoroughfare to connect traffic where there was once 75 or 100 acres of beautifully groomed mountain bike trails through the native forest. It is my understanding that many enthusiasts formed a committee to fight this action and the battle has been going on for some time now... greed and selfishness whittle another notch in the hilt. "Sooner or later, we all have our day in court." My step-father discovered that the property adjacent to their little swath of ranch land was vacant and owned by folks living out of state. They managed to find some contact info, which they passed on to me, and I called the fellow yesterday to inquire about purchase. He hasn't called me back yet, but if the price is right (read: cheeeep), I'm interested. That would make our combined lot about 32 acres down there and a nice little weekend get away until that winning Lotto ticket presents itself into my possession. My internal thermostat seems to be out of whack these days. I never had troubles before... perhaps it's the emotional stress. I can't seem to get comfortable. I'm too hot. I'm too cold. It's never just right. I have a mulling list of things I need to do and things I want to do around here that seems to be highly susceptible to procrastination. I simply don't feel ready to face anything but spontaneity. If I don't just happen upon the instantaneous mood to participate in life, I am otherwise classically depressed and bound to bed or couch. Thumbs risking carpel tunnel from the cyclic fatigue of pressing the remote while aimlessly channel surfing are most likely covered by my health insurance, but it's anything but healthy. Even the things that really interested me before are as interesting as a torn piece of artisan parchment containing an essay on variations of underwater liquid soap carving written in Punjabi and soaked in fresh muskrat pee. They sound intriguing, but in the end, I want nothing to do with them... I've been thinking a lot about getting a wife for Henry... especially after seeing Nancy's little girl Yorkie. Erin always wanted to get him a girl companion and name her Lily. The logistics of caring for a baby Yorkshire Terrier escape my capability to facilitate at the moment, but it is in the back of my mind. Henry and Lily could keep each other company when Éclair gets too old to be there for him. I have not been sleeping well (still). This morning was especially bad. I feel completely unrested and my neck and back hurt tremendously. I opted to work from my home office hoping it would help. I can see that whether I feel it or not, some small progress has been made in that I can function without sobbing all day when working from home alone. I just need to stay preoccupied. I need to shoot more. I know this. Photography falls into the big bucket of stuff that sounds great but I simply have no interest in doing. Almost everything falls into that bucket. Heh. I have some big project ideas that I shared with Erin. She was very supportive of everything I did and it encouraged me to be even more than I thought I could. One of my long term goals is to photo journalize the Rocky Mountain range, especially the fourteeners, in ultra-high res panoramic photography (gigapixel range). I would like to eventually display that project in a gallery of sorts with prints measured in many feet to provide an immersive viewing experience. I have a lot of stuff like that floating around on my old to-do list. The only thing on the list at the moment is survival.