It's pretty nice to come back to this journal. I needed to take some time off from it - it got to the point where it felt that not much was being said despite the wealth of words on the screen. I went back to writing on paper for nearly a month.

There is something to be said about writing on paper that you don't get with a keybard. (keybard! What a wonderful typo!) It's almost like you write in two languages in a paper journal - the words in ink and the texture left by the pressure of the pen in the act of writing. It's like a secret, pleasurable form of braille - written for the delight of the hand, not the eye or mind. The pages take on quite a different...aura, for lack of a better word - it's as if they are transformed from the ordinary into the fragile, crackly and sublime pages of a not-so-ancient, magical tome.

I worked through some nasty stuff in that journal. It took me many, many days (from Aug. 26 until about 2 days ago) to get to the bottom of some of it. I realized that a great deal of the depression that I have been struggling through was - and is - a result of things that happened four years ago. Underneath it all, I have been blaming myself for things that were totally out of my control. Feelings of shame, anger and embarrassment mingle with the blame.

I have to admit though, things have felt absolutely wonderful for the most part since I have discovered this. I am not to blame. Nothing was my fault. I still feel like killing the people involved but it is more for the benefit of mankind - not my own inner pain.

I've had two dreams now with Thomas Gibson in them. You know, that guy who plays Greg in Dharma and Greg. Why the hell am I dreaming of him? As much as I've tried, I cannot figure out what he represents in my dreams. In the first one, I am watching him as he goes outside during a snowstorm in his briefs - which he quickly discards, I might add. (O.k., o.k., this isn't a bad dream at all, I'll admit that...) He proceeds to rub himself down with snow. In the second dream, he is under the control of these two women who are way darker than I am. I fight to free him from these two and succeed, but barely. When he is free, he tells me that he wants to be in the light of the Goddess...to which I reply, "That's between you and the Goddess." I know that he has to represent some part of myself...but I can't figure out what. Oh well, I guess it'll come in time.

I guess that's it for now - I'm going to work in the Halloween stuff. This year, I'm making aliens (the greys, dontchaknow) for strategic spots in the yard...they'll be peeking out from behind trees and such. For some odd reason, I have an idea to make one that is having a high time on an old-fashioned tree swing...I don't know where that one comes from.