I went away from the blog for a while.

I didn't do it on purpose.

After the last post I wrote, I guess I didn't have much to say. Or I knew I would have a hard time saying it.

We are fast coming up on the one-year anniversary. I am dreading the day. (Coincidentally, also my brother's birthday... sorry, Ian, your 40th will be somewhat tainted for me. Perhaps also your 41st, 42nd, 43rd....)

So much has changed. We have moved from San Francisco to Mountain View. Calvin is talking up a storm. I am back for a second summer working at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival.

So much has not. I am still trying to find a full-time, permanent job, and feeling like a failure for my inability to do so. I am still missing Chicago. I am still missing Todd, so much.

When does the hurt go away? Not ever, I know that. I've been through this enough times now that I know that. I feel too young to have lost so many friends, so many of them in such a tragic way. I know I'm not so young anymore, and yet it's still too young for this. Friends lost to accidents, violent crimes, disease. Suicide. Todd's not the first person I've lost that way, but he's definitely the closest.

But the hurt numbs, in time. Or it should. Some days it's still sharp as a knife, though most days it's just there below the surface, throbbing gently.

I need to help myself get over the hurt. I need to help myself get over Chicago. I need to help myself realize that my lack of employment is a function of the economy, not of any personal failing on my part.

I need to focus on the good, and I hope that forcing myself to start writing again will help me to do that. Feel free to join me... or not. When I first started this blog several years ago, it was under similar, miserable-making circumstances. I seem to remember it helped. Perhaps it will help again.