Category: General Life

I have posted a lot of entries on this blog since I began in August 2004. Some entries have been deep insights into the deepest points of my emotions, while others have been just examples of things I have found funny, or interesting. Recently my blog has become more of a show-and-tell of my life. I post pictures and title the entries, not much else to it. I have left a lot of holes in the information and turned my blog into more of a portfolio, that isn’t what it is supposed to be.
At some point I became uncomfortable with myself and unable to let my thoughts and feelings become written word. I have been taking art classes in varying forms for the last 2 years, but yet, I haven’t been that expressive. I am currently taking Creative Writing 2 and Drawing 2, two of the most expressive classes I think I could attempt. I am going to try to share some of my work this semester, as well as provide what I feel about it.
It snowed here last night, and I stopped to watch it. I opened the big curtain at the back door and looked out, turning on the flood light to watch the snow glisten as it fell. Someone closed my curtain and I became a bit angry, I don’t like when people stop me from watching things that I enjoy. I could photograph, draw or write vivid descriptions about the snow, but nothing would provide the same emotion as seeing it for yourself and feeling what a snowy day feels like.

Why do we look back at yearbooks, old pictures and other items from our personal histories and feel depressed or excited?
Those of us who become depressed likely do so because we remember the times when things were better in our lives, or we had a better understanding of ourselves, perhaps more hope for the future. In my case, any time I see anything about high schools or see anyone my own age being successful I have that feeling, I am sad. I feel like I have done nothing productive with my life and my number of positive qualities are becoming smaller and smaller as I become more bothered by my state of life. I need things to change, I need to feel inspired again. I need to get out of bed each day with a purpose and a plan.
For you that may have become excited at reviewing your histories, it is likely somewhere between you are feeling reminiscent emotions that have stayed with you that you can still feel because you yourself haven’t changed or perhaps you used to be a total fuck up and now your life is together. Either way, be happy.
So, what is the point of this documented grand synaptic misfire of the day? I don’t really feel that great about my current state of life. I want to seek a real job where I can have responsibilities and actually do something productive with my time. At the same time, I want to hang out with people my own age (and a little older, since I still have some intellectual maturity intact) again. I want to experience life again, not just spend 4 days per week in a classroom and 3 days a week sitting alone in my room.

It’s been a while since I’ve written about anything emotional, but there is something on my mind that I just must write.
When I was young, I used to spend many summers with my aunt, not just summers, but also Christmas break, Easter break and any break I could find to be around her. My aunt did something for me that no one else in my family did, made me feel special. My aunt and I used to do all sorts of things together. From working on the garden to watching airplanes take off, we did almost anything that we could find to do together. Unlike my relationship with my parents, I could go months with my aunt and not have a single issue with her. At my aunt’s house I sometimes had chores to do, but I didn’t mind. The worst part of chores in general is the feeling of being alone when doing them, she never made me feel that way, even if she wasn’t around while I was doing them. Something about feeling loved made it possible for me to not feel that way.
Things continued like that from a few weeks after I was born until I was about 11. When I was 11 my 2nd-tier cousin was born. She got all of my aunt’s attention as the new favorite child. I felt generally ignored, and spent less time with her. Things stayed that way for several years, until things calmed down. By the time things had calmed down, I was in the process of figuring out my sexual orientation, and having multiple emotional issues involving it. I hid from my all of my family, and became the very shy kid that no one was sure how to approach. After some time, this quiet became anger and a temper that was very easy to trigger. Look at me wrong, get yelled at, say something that upsets me, and watch me yell and then run into a depression. It was a very unfriendly time in my life. I shut down emotionally. At that time, the distance between my aunt and myself was set.
Many years later, I am comfortable with my sexuality, and don’t feel as bad when interacting with people. Over the past 2 summers I have spent time with my aunt. That time hasn’t been directly with her, but instead, a bit buffered by Chris. The few times I have been with just myself and my aunt, I have felt awkward and afraid of questions that may be asked or things that may be said. Last weekend my aunt went with my to a guild meeting, she seemed uncomfortable and wanted to rush things a bit. Lately I have gotten the feeling that my aunt only does things with me because she feels like she has to, and I’m a bit sick of it. I feel like she pretends to be involved so that she won’t feel guilty for asking for my help with things. I don’t want to help her anymore and I don’t want her to help me anymore. I want to separate completely from her and save myself from the sadness that the absence of the previously existing relationship creates.
I miss her, but I have to face the fact that things will never be the same with her again.

In the absence of other exciting news in my life, I am happy to announce that last Wednesday, September 12, 2007, I completed the requirements of the American Heart Association to become First Aid certified. So, there is my big news for the month, I am licensed to use band-aides.

I received my latest Galls catalog today in the mail inside of a clear USPS bag. Here is the label from the bag. I was already pissed at USPS this week because they managed to not follow simple instructions (scan a SCAN form to expedite tracking), and in the past few months, general mail delivery has been very slow. Just another reason we should kill off USPS and let a real private corporation that can be held accountable take over.

I haven’t really blogged much lately, I guess I’ve been too deep in so many other things.
First off, with the help of my friend Chris I have been able to get my garden going the way I want this year and I’m hoping that it actually produces something. Last year was sort of a flop because I gave up on it too early. This year I am committed to it.
Next, ware from the Spring semester at the studio has now arrived back at home, however, due to other events, the photoing and recording of these pieces has not yet occurred. This process has not yet been scheduled. My guild’s spring barn sale was quite nice, I enjoyed being involved, and I heard a lot of useful feedback that will help me with future barn sales (or any other type of sale for that matter). I sold several pieces, which I am happy about. I have a nice little stash to buy clay with now :-). I haven’t gotten back to throwing since things wrapped up at the studio. I want to get back to that sometime very soon, perhaps later this weekend.
During the past week I have been helping my aunt arrange things around her storage buildings as well as in her yard. I have also concluded that I am a bad influence on my aunt. Together we managed to spend over $200 on plants in one trip. On the topic of my aunt, tomorrow (Saturday) we are going to a wild flower hike at Crowders Mountain. I haven’t really had any large amounts of time alone with her in almost 2 years. I think she has missed spending time with me.
Tomorrow concludes the first week of my summer classes. So far things are going well. I took my first quiz tonight and got a perfect score on it, which makes me very happy. Creative Writing is a little more of a challenge than I thought it would be, since I haven’t written anything that wasn’t technical in such a very long time.
I have no clue what the rest of the summer holds for me yet.

Hello and welcome to my blog. You might remember me from some previous time? My name is Curtis and I like to learn things, I also enjoy playing with clay and watching things grow in my garden. I get easily excited by my choo-choos and there isn’t much that feels better than sitting in a swing and swinging during the late spring. I like drinking a cold Pepsi during the late afternoon as I work on homework, or just read for fun. My family is very important to me and I look forward to spending time with my aunt whenever I can. When I grow up I want to be a botanist, or maybe a potter, then again, maybe I might just do something with computers. I’m looking forward to eating watermelon from my garden this summer and I’m hoping that my tomato plants produce a lot and get very big and bushy.