A dark and stormy eve of a holiday that's an afterthought

I bought candy just in case, but I have a suspicion no one will be coming to the door. It's raining, and I think people haven't really rebounded since the pandemic. I find I don't remember the last two years, but know I got candy both times. There were a few people here and there, but not many.

Tonight seems dark. Today feels like a very weird day. The last day before a month comes that could be much scarier than anything this fictional holiday can bring. I am hopeful, but tonight seems dark.

I have no love for Halloween, but this year I look forward to the other holidays to come. This is always the hardest time of year in the past few years but this time I want to embrace the moment.

At this moment, the lights are off next door despite next door having the most elaborate Halloween decorations of anybody on this side of town. This brings me joy, and I'm glad to have my neighbors.

It's strange how the anticipation of wondering if people are going to come by is making me feel very nervous. Not really disappointed, but just wondering if this tradition is coming to an end. Or if my involvement with it is coming to an end. I worked all weekend and for me the holiday is a time when there's not as much as work and I feel unsettled by that.

Anyway, part of me died a long time ago and it's okay for the rest of me to grow back into something new.... or something without as many memories. I wish I could just turn off the feeling of feeling like an alien. Dressing up doesn't do it for me.

A lot of me died. I survived over all, and transformed, but the person I was five years ago isn't who I am anymore. I don't really like anything except doing research and working and learning and when that dries up.... it's scary.

I'm going to copy this over to my blog and delete it here. I do that a lot, or copy it to an archive. Writing lays me bare, but i know now that people often take advantage of my inability to being anything less than who I am.

Anyway, anyone want some candy? I don't. Candy makes me feel ill if I have more than one bag or so.

No one so far. Definitely more of a blog post.

I don't like Halloween

Life confuses me for the most part. Most people are playing roles every day, and I generally know my place as a person who does work for other people. I am comfortable with this. I feel comfortable with who I am. 

But the idea of dressing up in costume has always seemed so confusing to me. 

I didn't finish my work yesterday, but made myself take a break when I hit a wall. Went to sleep halfway through a television show after making a nice meal after matching my socks.

I woke up at 3 a.m. ready to work and get back to it but I made myself take 12 hours off. Missing a deadline is okay for a few hours, but if I miss my mark, everything else falls behind.

It's 64F in my house and I'm wearing my black wool cap and a sweatershirt while listening to a new version of a Beatles song that's really an old version never released and it seems that the world is so much richer than.... the thought fades and I realize I'm procrastinating and it's time to stop that because the coffee is hot and the new music is playing now.

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An honest assessment of Charlottesville Podcasting Network

It's a total mess. There's a lot I need to update. There's so much stuff on there, and I don't really know what do with any of it all.

But yet, I love it and I just posted the first thing there in a while. It's just a podcast spindown from my regular newsletter, but somehow doing that little exercise felt worthwhile, even if I know no one will hear it.

I am not sure why I do any of this stuff, but I definitely like to stay in my own house and not really venture out. There's a lot to go through and summarize and this what I will do.

Today's a good day to sit and think about it all. And do little things like the above. This post won't show up on the main site unless I tag it as CPN original, which it isn't. 

Still, kind of neat and once again the title of this post doesn't match. 

A series of questions and observations about the current venture and how it works

It's been two years and three months since I began the venture. I don't talk about it here, but I did talk about the early days I did this the first time. This blog goes back a way.

At the moment, I'm taking segments from Charlottesville Community Engagement and putting them on Information Charlottesville. Information Charlottesville got its start as a Wordpress I bought in the summer of 2018 when I was out of journalism but did not want to be. 

But it happened. I don't want to write about that publicly at this point and really don't ever want to do so. I'm where I am now, which is more connected to the beginnings of this blog. I still feel I'm in a series of new beginnings. 

Anyway, at the moment I'm trying to determine if I should put a segment about the Virginia Film Festival from the October 12, 2022 edition of the program onto Information Charlottesville. I wish I had a better podcast I could put onto the Charlottesville Podcasting Network. I started that in 2005, before I was at Charlottesville Tomorrow, and everything seems to have come back to where I was.

For many years, the only material I did for the Charlottesville Podcasting Network was producing a series of interviews someone else did with people at the festival. It was at a time in my life where I felt I couldn't really be myself in my stories, so I clammed up and just focused on learning how things work.

Now I'm somehow in this place where I'm producing a lot of material, and people are paying me for it, and I know that if I can keep up the pace and build in enough rest time, I can continue to do this work and I will continue to get better. 

On any given day, I can struggle to get through times when I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I've filled a big emptiness with the work I do, and I love doing it. I believe there is meaning for me in what I do, spending so much of my time trying to write as much as I can so others can know what's happening. I point people back to primary sources so that they can look at the same things I look at and maybe...

Who knows? I just know I'm curious about things and I've been fortunate enough to do what I want to do.

My answer with the Virginia Film Festival thing is to record a new intro and make a post to the Charlottesville Podcasting Network. After all, I now own the site again and Town Crier Productions covers the hosting fee. I don't have any plans to use it, but it's there as an asset. I also have a SoundCloud account I really need to phase out because there are so many things to pay for and I have to figure out a way to get more people to the things I am producing. 

Today I paid my 2021 taxes and I made enough money to cover the amount. I'm in good shape for 2022, having learn a lesson. I am building a business around what I love to do, and this makes me want as many people as possible to get the chance to do that. 

I don't write about it publicly. I don't write about it enough to my supporters, but they seem to keep paying, happy I'm cranking out about 10,000 words a week or so keeping tabs of a lot of things that may seem boring, but they all add up to something. 

Will this continue? I hope so. I am glad that my earlier selves believed in me enough to get to this point, even though I'm often bewildered about it all. When I get there, I am able to focus and revert to the systems I have built myself to keep the pieces moving.