Happy New Year !

Well, the last day of 2003 just started, and I just first of all wanted to tell anyone reading this collection of recent rantings Happy New Year !
And about that.. there sure are a lot of people I know that keep checking back on what crap I've written lately. It's definately getting awkward - especially after that lil' ear infection-inspired outburst of honesty, things are kind of weird with a few people. Definately not least of all my family who are all open and honest about everything now, which I'd kind of rather see not being the case. I know the whole 'My mom read my blog' thing was a hoax, but I'm kind of living it, and therefore still not telling a few things. I believe it's for the best: people wear masks around others and choose for themselves what to reveal to whom and what not to reveal. A blog makes it a fully public matter, and the only way to blog honestly is if you bear the illusion that nobody reads what you write. I guess that will always be the great thing about a 'real' diary as opposed to blogs: you can hide your diary so nobody reads it. You can even get a safe for it if you're truly paranoid. Of course, given this, how can anyone truly and honestly write everything about themselves in a (public) blog ? You've got the whole world potentially scrutinizing what you are all about, and if you're like me and don't even want to get NEAR to fame (I've got enough arguments of what it can do to your life without having - thankfully - experienced any of it) blogging can be a pretty scary thing to do.
Just a thought that crossed my mind as I watched a movie tonight while eating a pizza. The movie was High Fidelity, and it made me realise where I was, in the seemingly neverending sinus one of my deepest feelings keeps going through. Truth is, I've loved someone for a very long time now. She doesn't know it, and if it is up to me, she never will. A few rare people know who I'm talking about (and are probably sick of hearing about her after all these years). In a way, how I feel about her has been the cause of a lot of things in the past half a decade. But no matter what changes in my life, it seems I can't get rid of this constant yo-yo'ing feeling between loving her and hating her. Probably I never will. I've come to terms a long time ago that I'll never be with her and it's in fact most DEFINATELY for the best that I'm not going to. But feelings don't listen to reason, do they ? Head and Heart are a lot further apart than anatomy suggests - a saying I came up with soon after I first met her. In any case, the movie made me realise that once again I love her. Guess I'll just have to sit through that some more.
But as I said, you likely have no clue who I'm talking about, and if you do, you're likely sick of hearing about her, so let me just update you all on the ever exciting events of my life, after which I'll post this message, break out some booze and down it gracefully, and sleep like a rock.
Monday was unexpectedly still a bit stressful, even more so since there are a few issues that I took responsibility for to fix, that I am at a loss with now. I thought I had found the answer on how to fix them, but I was definately mistaken, and I just had to forward it to colleagues that hopefully resolved it on Tuesday. Then on my way home I drew half of a new Grim DotCom page, which I finished later that evening. My brother and his girlfriend graced me and Viktor with a visit (due to a certain cellphone from Philadelphia I promised to lend to an appreciated colleague who's going on vacation to the States, and I forgot to take with me when I visited them) and my kid brother proceeded to beat me at pool on my own pooltable. Stayed up wayyy too late finishing drawing that page and then scanning it, and right after that in my infinite wisdom decided that sleep was - FINALLY - perhaps a good choice of action.
I slept in till 4 in the afternoon and really wasn't ready to crawl out of that bed yet, but I remembered I had to get a few things while the stores were still open. Amongst which were a few picture frames to finally hang up some of the original drawings of various comic artists I happened to have lying around the house (the drawings, not the artists), and new calendars, since mine and Viktor's were gonna run out on Thursday. Just my luck: I tracked down about ten potential businesses that might have promotional calendars, and found that only one of them had any, and they were even down to their last few. So we have one calendar for next year - in the light of our, obviously, booming social lives *cough* I think it might be good to try and scrounge up another one tomorrow (or, I suppose by now, today) sometime during the half day.
I went downstairs to draw some more but found out that I've gotten to the part of my storyline-list where there's a greater and greater lack of readymade storyboards. Great.. this means I'll actually have time to DRAW and no storyboards ready. The good news is that I definately have over a 2 month backstash again now, so I just have about 14, 15 more pages to do (besides one every week in 'regular' production) and we're back in business with my half year stash. We're talking major luxery here: a half year backstash means I can spend more time on other projects or activities, or take vacations, etc., which is nice. It also allows me to put more thought in the developing storyline that I'll now soon get into with The Grim DotCom, where everything's taken up a notch. You'll see - again, I'm not getting into details, because it's just more fun to tease and get you all to keep an eye out for the new episodes.
So I only drew one figure and then decided I really should get more storyboards ready soon. Again the house was too quiet for this, but it was 11 30 by then and there was no sense in biking out to the Cul de Sac or another noisy atmosphere if I have to get up for work at the usual time again later this night. So I just continued to watch the movie (which, by the way, was ok) and, well, after that I decided to put some thoughts on digital paper. Which you are reading now.
So now that we've gotten to that point of my evening, I'll bid you all goodnight and fix myself a Dronken Vis or two to help me get to sleep. I doubt that I'll write anything anymore later today, so I'll see you all in 2004. *Bows* Later people !