I'm not in the best of moods. There is no question that part of it is my back still not being 100% and the week and a half of pain that goes with that - it's getting better, but it gets tiresome. More of it however is feeling like I've taken on step forward and two steps backward. In the summer and fall of 2001 I really felt like I was getting where I wanted to be with my life. I was getting out of the hole financially, I had a great social circle, I had an abundance of energy, and I was producing artwork at an output level that I hadn't since art-school. It felt great because most of the things that really matter to me were good - a sense of place, a sense of community, creative outlet and an audience for those creative endeavors. The come-here/go-away games being played in my relationship at the time, and the fact that my job, while paying the bills, was evil-corporation cubicle hell were my biggest problems.

Losing my job September 12th over an LJ post about a 9/11 inspired change in the building evacuation procedures was a kick in the teeth, and the beginning of my slide backward. I bounced back from that one with an agressive search that took me to Toronto and ultimately resulted in landing my current job with is without a doubt the best job I have ever had. But in that doubt-ridden few months before I found my feet again I made a mistake that has nearly cost me everything else.

I ended up subverting my sense of place, my sense community, my creative outlet and the audience I had begun build to someone else's agenda, someone who gave no indication of caring about my motivations, but just how the end results suited her. I didn't see that right away and it was hard to get out of it when I did. I'm still paying for that mistake both literally and figuratively.

The few friends that visited me last year felt so wholly unwelcome by her that no-one visited twice. Those damaged friendships haven't recovered yet. Part of that lingering damage is because I can't afford the level of social activity I enjoyed before all this until I've crawled a little further out of the ~$20,000 hole that was dug for me and I can't see those people as often as I'd like. And the worse part of it is because of the obnoxious politics involved thanks to the misandronous rancor of someone only tangentally involved. It's insufferable that other people have to consider the fallout from a vindictive fifth-business blatherskite before vistiting or issuing invitations.

This bites. It bothers me to no end that for the second year in a row I have failed to do any drawings like the ones I did the year before last for Daevina, Mel, and Trish. Last year it was because I was busy getting in shit over my LJ, which was the only creative outlet I had left, relegated to taking pictures of my dashboard while someone was shopping for $6/lb organic asparagus, and descending into general misery.

This year I'm exhausted and uninspired. Every month I fork out well over $1000 trying to pay back the money I borrowed to cover what she spent. And I'll be doing so until October. My much-desired second trip to New York is in jeopardy because I'm being stiffed by two clients that have been giving me "the cheque is in the mail" excuses for three months, not to mention the unexpected root-canal and being stuck with several hundred dollars worth of bottled water bills.

Stupid rambling post. This is all over the place, but I feel better for venting. All I'm trying to say is even though some things are very good, and there is light at the end of the tunnel, that light feels to far off, that there is a tunnel to clear at all is frustratiing, and some of the issues at hand are contemptably banal. I miss having the ready means to go out with and do nice things for my friends. I miss everyone. *sigh*