Hello to anyone who reads this

Life is changing still, since the middle of summer two thousand eleven a great number of things have taken place that have shifted almost every aspect of my life and how I see the world, the people around me, the meaning of family.  Between then and now I have been through two full relationships, one lasting less than two months, and those being terrible, abusive, and exhausting months in emotional, physical, and mental ways.  I could go on for pages, but I won't.  The second, lasted for ten months and was beautiful for maybe the first two thirds, hah, but ladies, if you are ever in a relationship and decide to simply stop being an active participant, don't be a selfish person and let your significant other continue working to make things work when he or she doesn't even know you've quit.  

Across that span also my family sold our home because we couldn't afford to stay there, I paid my first mortgage payment on a house(that one actually) and then the world's worst realtor came in.  I think that from watching her I drew the conclusion that in realtor-client relations there shouldn't be a contract that promises exclusive selling opportunity to the realtor because then what is their motivation to fight and secure a good deal if they don't feel like that?  Perhaps if the house's sale were a competition between multiple parties there would be more success.  The woman's answer to everything was to paint more of the house white and drop the price every time someone came through to look, and that would be why the house sold for far lower than desired, and the process itself took much much longer.  

My family split up upon the house being sold, my mother and sister were living in a rented house for a while and now have an apartment, my father rents a warehouse with attached caretaker's apartment for very very low rent for this area (Northern Virginia).  As for me I moved out on my own and have been living in the house where I am renting a room since January 17th.  The year has passed strangely in many ways, I keep busy but it is odd being an independent adult in many ways.  

Over the summer I dropped down a level and instead of being an area supervisor for fifteen pools like I was in 2011 and their hundred student guards and their apartments, I took a contract for salary as manager of one new contracted client out near Fort Belvoir in Springfield.  In many ways this was nice because the position afforded me more solid set hours (on a schedule I made) than the 'office snaps fingers and you must go because you have no choice' mode of supervising the previous summer.  I met some good Jamaican fellows who were here on their own student work visas, but they ended up moving to other pools and I worked instead with two smart, kind, Chinese students named Frank and Odin.  Obviously those weren't their actual names .  

Come the end of the summer I was finally able to launch into the serious pursuit of my own art and design business, Nightdancer Design.  I took the name from a type of Australian tribesman, yes and that came from the most recent adaptation of Ned Kelly's story so now you know the inside scoop.  Since then I have been able to complete numbers of paying tattoo design jobs, a few paintings, and I am finally cleaning up the final end on those two custom guitars for the Washington Capitals (after many many many small setbacks including one immediately after what should have been the final protective coating).  

For your own reference, polyurethane and lacquer are NOT compatible, so don't use those two together, only one.    Better you know this and never need it than need it and not know, right?  

I have been thinking of taking to the road recently and going on a trip but I am not sure where, the cold of winter doesn't suit me well although I have lived here my entire life.  A friend invited me to move to Colorado with him and another mutual acquaintance and I was seriously considering this, although now I have qualms because of marijuana becoming legal there.  I fear that maybe a lot of sort of scrubby shitty people might move there and then instead of having that ridiculously nice everyone everywhere quality the people might just be the same as everywhere else :/ that would be no good.  I do know the cost of living there is still farrr lower than here.  

None of my family called to get together over the thanksgiving holiday, my sister didn't even respond when I asked her if she had plans.  That feeling of being sort of all on your own on the holidays is very unwelcome, I had imagined before with the different friends I have who have estranged families for different reasons but the actual happening of that is, it's really shitty, you can't imagine.  One of my adopted brothers invited me over though and his mom made some food so that was comforting on a deeper level.

I've been very much not myself through the last year plus and I need some time away to find who I am, to get in touch with myself again.  I dropped facebook until further notice because I can't stand all the extra distractions and fake interactions it keeps hurling into my already busy mind.  If you would like to keep up with me or chat, I started a tumblr recently and an instagram account for art and business (although the instagram has less business and more art/fun).

My instagram name is: Reanimated4now
Tumblr link is here: [link]

So please drop me a line because I would love to hear from you even if we do not know one another very well.

I suppose I should get to work because I have much to do today, including finishing this painting of a grizzly bear with a lightsaber about to jump from the roof of a skyscraper to take on godzilla.

I hope this letter finds you well, know that you are greatly loved wherever you may be,

Nick