My life is a dichotomy.

Now, don’t worry, this isn’t gonna be one of those me-feeling-sorry-for-myself posts. It is, however, introspective, as my posts tend to be. Sorry, no sexiness here.

When I was a kid, I used to live two lives: the public “good kid” life, straight-A student, teacher’s pet, would chew you out for swearing; and the private “dirty kid” life, messing around with pretty much any of my friends who were game. It used to bother me terribly, and through growing up, confronting things, and making life decisions, I finally managed to unify myself into “just me,” and it was great!

Then I started getting dissatisfied with “just me”: I wanted to be more laid-back, more adventurous, more spontaneous, and definitely much less worried about things. So I created Jack, and he became the persona I used when role-playing and interacting with people online. He’s the reason my pseudonym to this day is still “Jack Doe.”

But as time went on, Jack and I merged towards each other. The psychologists that research furries said that on average, people who deliberately create alter-egos like fursonas can only keep them separate about 7 years or less before they merge with the person’s “real” personality. (Note that this is different from people with Multiple Personality Disorder, where those personalities are not purposely invented like a fursona is but rather arise from some form of brain imbalance.) Well, things were no different for me: I don’t know if I made it the full 7 years or not, but I became more like Jack, and (more so) Jack became more like me. I lightened up a bit, worried a little bit less, and Jack became much more responsible and much less carefree. I was, once again, “just me,” although I still used a different name for furry/online versus non-furry/in-person interactions.

And now we’re in the present. I have noticed that several of my coworkers (believe it or not, I’m an engineer by trade) are far more inventive than I am and are far less likely to shut an idea down before it starts. Talking to them, I’m shocked at the words coming out of my mouth, saying that such-and-such won’t work. The words are shocking because when I write, everything is possible, and I delight in having no true boundaries, save for the edges of the current page, which are easily remedied by adding another one. I wrote a story about a guy whose dick started growing and growing and growing until it was the size of the universe. It kept growing still, and then it broke the universe, and he found himself talking to an alternate version of himself who had also broken the bounds of his universe, and the two of them began frotting there somewhere in the multiverse together. I mean, talk about no boundaries! Check reality at the door, please!

So how is it that the same person who wrote about a universe-breaking penis is then skeptical about a design just because there are a few issues with the very first concept? This troubles me, and I am resolving right now to quit it! I want my engineering self to be as open-minded and creative as my writing self. That is where I will find that great idea that will make me millions so that I never have to go to work again and can spend all my time writing, loving on the herd, and tinkering on neat things in my lab.

But enough about that. Today was a good day; it occurred to me that getting a shower a week at the truck stop was costing me $48 a month, and if I were to join a gym, I could get all the showers I want (within reason) for less than that. So I did today: I joined a gym, and while I was there, I had my first workout in…geez…years. It was great! I was sore today, which means the next few days should be very interesting (in the masochistic “Ow, it hurts so good!” way), but it’s good that I’m finally able to get back in the swing of that. I’ve needed to for a long time now.

Also, I’ve been dark this week. The reason is: commissions! OMGsh, I’ve had a lot going on. I started this week out with one background commission I’ve been slowly chipping at. It’s 50K and going painfully slowly. I’m just suffering from lack of inspiration on it, but I am still chugging on it. 11K down, 39K to go, and I’m inching closer and closer to the juicy part. That was Sunday. Monday I chipped away on the 50K story. Tuesday I had two commissions come in and did them both in a single night, finally going to bed Wednesday morning around 3:00 AM. Wednesday evening, I revised one of them with feedback from the client. Thursday morning, I revised the other one before work. Thursday night, I revised one I’d submitted on Saturday and got feedback Thursday morning. Friday, I chipped away at the 50K story. Then today (well, yesterday now), I got another commission and just finished it about an hour ago. Tomorrow, I’ll either do revisions (if I get feedback) or continue chipping at the 50K. It’s been a great week for commissions, and I kinda hope this kind of thing will continue. It’s really rewarding to have quick turnaround like this. I might hold off on long stories after this 50K is finished. It just kinda sits there in the back of my mind, eating at me. Maybe I need to outline it a bit more to at least give myself a paved road to travel. We’ll see. Anyway, just wanted to share, ’cause that’s pretty awesome!