This writing marathon is going to be a difficult challenge. Already I am short sleep because I am taking time to finish other projects that are as important. Last night I stayed up until almost three trying to complete a project that I�d promised one of my Internet customers.

That is one personal goal that has brought both satisfaction and confidence but also has been equally frustrating. My friend Carolyn�s concern for me this year, in regards to my attempting to find Internet related work during a recession, is not misplaced. I do appreciate that she feels I am being foolish, but my reasoning is if I am doing that kind of work now I will find more of it to do in the future.

I am still learning how to handle the delicate balance between communicating with the customer and setting my boundaries. My parents taught me to be generous with my work skills. I believe the more you invest in a job the greater the rewards in the long time, but that can be difficult to assess in the short term. Of my four current customers, two have paid me up front, one I�ve needed to trade work with and the final is questioning if we even have a verbal agreement. It is easy for me to forget that I�ve only been in business since April of this year and that these customer relationships take time to develop.

The cold water has been out in my apartment for two days. Not the end of the world, mind you, but you don�t realize how much you use until you don�t have it. I think I need to talk to Dad about getting some water storage containers to store under my bed for these emergencies. Perhaps the only reason I haven�t asked him yet is that I know he will give me the flimsy gallon milk containers that he takes camping (because they are free) and I purchased four ten gallon containers last year for Burning Man, only they were left at the Doctor�s garage and for all I know he threw them out. C�est la vie!

Work was a little tough yesterday at CPM (City People�s Mercantile). Two days ago, in a conversation with a couple of the other new cashiers it was pointed out that the reason I am scheduled so often to work on the floor merchandising instead of at the registers is because I actually do the work. I think the comment was offered speciously but it wouldn�t have been stated unless there was some truth to the matter. Unfortunately, my time is not very well utilized in this manner because I am often given diverse and unrelated jobs to do and it is difficult to focus when I am being bounced around into other areas of the store.

No matter where I am, the customers always target me for service because they remember my blue hair and associate it with their memory of my helping them successfully in the past. That is one reason I keep my hair blue for quick identification. I like people recognizing me even when they�ve never met me.

Apparently there was a CPM worker before me named Jesse, who was a musician and made several friends at the hardware store and on fifteenth. Several co-workers commented to me when I started working there that they first mistook me for him because we have the same stature, hair color and style and dress similarly. Since then I�ve been accosted on the street, honked at and otherwise mistaken for Jesse, only these people don�t realize I�m not him until sometime after they�ve encountered me. I have to admit I haven�t always been on my toes to work the situation to my advantage, but then I�ve often been late for work so my mind has been otherwise occupied.

I think some of my friends have not always recognized me because of that former association. They look at me and think, oh it�s that guy with blue hair that used to work here before and they don�t take the time to realize that they really do know me. No matter, I am not the only person in the world who colors his hair blue and as my friend Patricia Spencer likes to remind me it is no �new thing� either. She has a friend she grew up with in Baltimore who colored his hair various colors back in the sixties. He went on to become known as John Waters�s cinematographer as she likes to point out.

There was one low point in my day yesterday when my immediate supervisor corrected me for something I was doing wrong. She did it while I was working on the floor, which is highly unprofessional and which I understand is not general CPM policy. I don�t mind her casual attitude but you don�t correct an employee on the floor, that�s just not good management. Subsequently I spent the end of the day feeling weary.

Perhaps the highlight of my day was that my friend Jeff Hughes came into the store twice, once to drop off an application and then later to pick up some hardware. I�m not sure what he bought. He went this year to Burning Man with our mutual friend Chris Crounse. He also sent me some pictures that his roommate, Gabriel Porter took years ago at a party down in Olympia. They featured myself in a dress, Jeff and our now deceased friend Tod Streater. Which reminds me, my memorial site for Tod and Paul Doran has not been working since September, with no explanation from NBCi who had purchased the service. It is one more update to this site that I want to do but don�t have the time to complete soon. Oh, well, I�ll add that to the list.

I was able to join the NaMoWriMo club set up on Yahoo! This is a bulletin board set up for everyone who is joining the writing marathon. There is a lot of idle talk posted but every once in a while it seems there are some interesting comments made, so I will have to sift through the two thousand odd messages posted there in the next couple of days. There has been some discussion about outlining and plot development that makes me wonder if I shouldn�t come up with at least a cursory chart of what I am going to be writing about, but then I want to just write about anything.

I think I am a little afraid of the prospect of writing in that �novel� voice for 1,666 words a day. It will be a big stretch for me and I know I will uncover some stumbling blocks at first, but I have all my confidence that assure me that I will surmount all odds. Yeah, right!

Almost in response my werewolf has sent me the next installment of his �novel� or at least a follow up to the few paragraphs he sent me back in August. Which reminds me, if I get bogged down with writing this new novel I can always fall back on my novel I�ve been writing for the past eight year. I have plenty of material to work from. Anyway, I am happy to see the werewolf write. He has an obvious great talent there that I think he�s not explored much.

I did color my hair again on Tuesday morning. That was way past due. My roots had grown out at least an inch and there were parts on the ends that were fading almost to white. I feel much better that it is done. Now if I don�t color it again for a month because of the marathon (not bloody likely) it will still look okay.

Man! I still have the major yawns and I suspect that I will have them all day. And I need to pay rent and I need to update my finances and I need decide what I am going to do with all the unhappy creditors that have been stuffing my mailbox. Erf!

I hope the cold water get fixed in my apartment. I�ve had to fill the closet by hand from the hot water in the shower. What a chore!

I am grasping for filler at this point, unfortunately I am still sleepy and that doesn�t help my concentration. I don�t know how I am going to regain my rest. Tonight I am going to need to finish the changes I promised Pistil. After that I won�t be able to work on their site again until next Monday when Amy gives me the books to scan for the �picks� page.

Ack! I am running out of time to write. I have to be out the door early enough to stop by the bank and get a money order for rent. I could write a check but I�ve found the money is more likely to be there if I take it out myself than if I rely on the time between when I give it to my landlord and the time he deposits it which varies according to how the days of the week fall in a month. I think I really need to work on a cash only basis from now on. I�ve never been able to balance a checkbook or stick within a budget of my own. When I am dealing with other people�s money I do much better, but when I think of it as my own I mistreat it or at least spend until I don�t have any, usually adding fees and surcharges so I am in the hole.

Oh! I promised myself that I wasn�t going to talk about money on this site. It so depresses me. I never had any growing up so whenever I have some I can�t wait to spend it. It almost feels like I am a dry riverbed that springs to life during a flash flood, only I can�t live my life existing off �flash floods� of money. That is far too unpredictable. I really want stability and security in my life and I can only ensure that if I train myself to be responsible with my own money.

BTW, if you are reading this send me email and tell me what you think of my writing challenge. Am I crazy or what? Feedback is the only way I know that what I am writing here is being read or has any pertinence for you. What do you want me to write about? I can always use suggestions. It was great last week when a new email correspondent stated that he�d read the entire site, which I have to admit is an investment of time and focus. He stated he felt odd reading my �private� thoughts (the quotation marks are mine), which was heartening because although I feel very naked and exposed when I post these rambling essays these thoughts are hardly private; you�ll never know what I am really thinking.

Word count: 1,841. Writing time: approximately 1 hour forty-five minutes.