When happiness gives you a stomach ache . . .

So, my birthday is coming up August 19 and I usually observe my birthday in much the same way I do the New Year. I generally am very contemplative about where I am at and where I would like to be at and if there are any ways I need to fine tune or massively restructure or otherwise optimize whatever I am up to at the time.

This year, it feels like my birthday is chasing me, instead of the usual way I sort of anticipate my birthday. I know there are a lot of current press features out on me and Blue Blood at the moment, but it feels like there was a convention for the purpose of remembering to get in touch with Amelia. People from school, people from the convention circuit, people from the world of roleplaying games, people from different places I lived . . . mostly a really good thing, taken on a person-by-person basis, but entirely overwhelming taken all together.

I used to feel a bit pulled apart by different worlds I was interested in and part of, but I felt like the whole Blue Blood project combined most of those worlds really well and introduced me to other people who felt the same way I did for having multiple interests. But, with the way the internet allows constant communication and immediate gratification, it is difficult, verging on impossible, to keep up in so many different areas. The online world has also made me much more guarded about my privacy.

This makes me angst about the road not taken. Most days, I’m pretty pleased about the choices I have made, but some days I feel like I could step into a life which, to other people, would look terribly different, but would seem quite similar to me.

Secret Magazine just put some of their old issues online and I came across this feature they did on me and ForrestBlack in 1998. Pretty cool stuff, so why does it all give me a stomach ache this month?