As mentioned, I was blown away last week by how much the group from Chapel Rock did.  I now have before and after photos to give some evidence of just how much got done, and how much better things look now.

It's been an eventful week.  Last week I had been attempting to apply for the "Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program".  The first time they had been closed, the second time I didn't have enough info, so it was taking a bit of time to try and do.  I finally got everything turned in on Thursday, and they scheduled an appointment for Monday morning.  Monday I went, was approved, and told that it would be put in the mail to me that day, which meant that I expected to receive it the next day.  Tuesday I received a letter stating that I had been approved, and that the card was being mailed.  I thought that this was a pretty useless piece of mail, as it only told me what I already knew, without being any help.  The card finally showed up Wednesday.

The owner of the house has been away on vacation this week.  He helps out with the youth group at his church, Capel Rock.  I don't know for sure how this came about, but a bunch of people there decided that they wanted to help him out.  So Wednesday a group of kids and a few adults came over and worked on the yard.  I decided to help them out, as I thought that I'd be distracted anyway, and felt like a slacker if I wasn't helping.  Wednesday was the hottest day of the year, with the heat index rising to around 110--and we were working in the afternoon.  I don't think I've ever drank so much water in my life.  I was stopping every 10 minutes or so and drinking a big cup of water.  I'm guessing that I must have drank a gallon or two of water over the 4-5 hours that I worked--and it was all coming out through my pores.

On Thursday morning our water went out.  Late in the afternoon a couple more guys from the church came over to replace the furnace, which was somehow being given to us!  (While the present problem was that the AC wasn't working, the actual problem was the electronics for the blower, which is part of the furnace; that's why the furnace needed to be replaced fix the AC.)  They were here a good eight hours, until nearly one in the morning, working on it.  The AC was finally working for the first time since mid-June.  They looked at the water problem a bit, but didn't know for sure what was wrong.

Friday another group came from the church and worked more in the yard.  There were a lot of overgrown trees and brush and thickets which needed to be cleared out but had not been done.  I had started working on some of this myself in the spring, but obviously it was a slow process for me to work on alone.  There were more guys out working on the water, and they finally determined that the pump itself wasn't working.

Ten days ago a friend of mine, Kandice, died from cancer.  I didn't know her real well, but was acquainted with her through church and would talk to her whenever I saw her.  I she found out she had cancer about a year and a half ago, however I did not realize she was doing this bad until the day before she died.  Apparently just the week before this she had been out and about, speaking at a youth conference and visiting Indy.  She had moved back to Warsaw at some point not long after she learned about the cancer, and I hadn't talked to her since then, which I now feel a little bad about.

It turns out some other friends of mine remembered Kandice as well, and Ron, Chris Goller and I decided we would go to the funeral which was in Warsaw last Saturday.  The plan was that I would pick up Ron and then we would meet Chris at his parents.  I picked up Ron and as we were on the interstate headed to Chris's, we heard a popping noise as though we had run over something.  I hadn't seen anything in front of me, and didn't see anything in the rear view mirror.  So my mind went toward the tire which I'd found a nail in.  (When rotating my tires a couple of months ago, I noticed a nail in one of the good tires; while it was still holding air, I was kind of expecting that it was just a matter of time before it went out.)  Sure enough, the car began sinking toward the right front where that tire was located.  I told Ron that we had a flat, and though I had a spare, I had no jack (as it had been damaged when I tried to rotate my tires).

Ron and I've been through enough where this didn't even faze us.  Ron just laughed.  I wasn't upset; I simply started planning.  We would have Chris come and pick us up, go to the funeral, and then work on getting the tire changed.  (I didn't want to change the tire then because of lack of time and the fact that I didn't want to get my light colored clothes dirty before the funeral.)  I had planned an extra 90 minutes into our trip, because I know from experience when your dealing with a group of people, things always take longer.  Unfortunately, Chris was running late, but, according to the directions I had gotten online, we should have just enough time to get there.  I told him I had directions, but Chris has one of these GPS direction things (the ones which tell you exactly where to go) in his car and wanted to use it.  It was set to fastest route, but had us going all the way over to Ft. Wayne and then back to Warsaw.  In order to keep from an unnecessary arguement, I went ahead and said that we'd try following his GPS.  What I didn't realize and he didn't tell me until a good way into the trip, was that the GPS was estimating the time of our arrival at about 40-45 late.  I didn't think it should take us nearly that long if we had gone via my directions.  However we were now past that point and I thought going back to that plan would probably be an even longer and worse idea now; we were basically already committed.  (We figured out later that, while the time estimate is pretty accurate on interstates, his GPS unit grossly overestimates the time it takes to drive on highways, and therefore it what it thinks is the fastest route is actually longer.)

We did arrive about 45 late, but the service was still going on, and in fact did so for another hour.  The church was packed with many people having to stand, and I estimated that there were 300-400 people in attendance.  It was impressive to think that so many people had been impacted by Kandice's life.

We returned to Indianapolis and tried to change the tire with the jack in Chris's car.  Unfortunately and a bit surprisingly, his jack wasn't strong enough.  Finally Chris's brother came with a better jack and we were able to change the tire.

I feel like I'm beating a dead horse, but this keeps coming up.  My life probably appears simple to people.  I feel like I keep getting people expecting me to just have a job to support myself.  I know that sounds good in theory, but there are a couple of problems.  First of all, there is the common assumption that work is always available.  Granted, I might just not be good at getting a job, but I've been through more than one occasion where I couldn't even get a job at a grocery store or something like that.  I know it feels like I ought to be able to get some kind of job, but that hasn't seemed to match with my experience.  So I'd argue that there is the possibility that I am willing but don't have the opportunity to work in the current economy.  I know that doesn't sound right ("everyone has the opportunity to work!"), but consider the fact that it took me eight months to get a very basic job once I graduated from college.

Second, even if I could get a job, another issue is that of consistency or stability.  One of the main reasons I went back to school was because I couldn't seem to get steady, consistent employment.  While I did work and had jobs, there were often long periods of unemployment in between those jobs.  In other words, even when I was trying to support myself through employment, I wasn't having overall or long-term success.  So I'd argue that I'm not just refusing to work.  In fact, I have a half-dozen job leads that may lead to some work.  So I'm not just asking for help while not doing anything myself.

I don't know if this is true, but I kind of get the sense that people have the "you can work and it's your responsibility to support yourself" view because they don't want to help out.  Granted, a lot of people don't have the means to help out, but it's interesting how we judge things.  I think maybe this all frustrates me greatly because I seriously want to be able to support myself, and have been quite frustrated at the difficulty I've had in doing so.  I'm not just being lazy and expecting people to help me out; I'm being productive and attempting to build for the future and solve these problems.  But solutions don't just magically happen; I need help in order to get there.

Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.  As I've stated, I am working on starting my own business.  From what I understand, new and small businesses are where the vast majority of economic and job growth come from.  However businesses take a while to get started, and it is often a year or two or more before they become profitable.  Amazon.com was lost money for its first seven years straight.  Should they have just shut it down and told everyone to go and support themselves, or are you glad the Amazon exists?  I found a list of other mostly well known companies which took up to twenty years to become profitable.  This is why I'm asking for help more in terms of financing or investment.  In fact I think I am partly in this current position because of not having gotten enough help in the past.

Btw, I have leads on five jobs, all part time or contract/freelance: working in a local recording studio, doing TV productions once a week in Columbus, OH, working with wireless mics for football games, doing sound at a church, and being a "master control operator" at a TV station.

Student loan payments 1:	$341.55
Student loan payments 2:	$122.51
Credit  card 1 payment:	$188.00
Credit  card 2 payment:	$147.00
Sub-total (over due bills):	$799.06
Rent:	$750.00
Car brake repairs:	$289.98
Other car maintenance:	$190.30
Total:	$2029.34

Even if I got a job tomorrow working full-time at about $10/hour, it would still take about three and a half months to catch up.  And I haven't been able to find a job paying that much in years.

As I mentioned, in my process of clarifying my direction, I've redefined what I am attempting to do as start a business.  It's interesting because I'm basically coming back to where I started.  I knew last fall that this was the plan.  The main differences were that I hesitated to call it a business and the product/service was less well defined.  I hesitated to call it a business because it didn't seem like I was trying to start a business in many of the traditional senses of the word.  It was partly that I just hadn't had much luck with employment, so I was trying to take work into my own hands and work for myself.  But as I've focused and clarified, I recognized what I want to do does look more like a business in some important ways.

At first I wasn't sure what I was going to do.  I knew I had a number of skills and interests, but didn't have a clear idea how I would make money with them.  I also knew that I wanted to work on music, but realized it would take time to develop.  I decided to go out on my own.  I knew that I would need support until my business got off the ground.  Not surprisingly, I haven't gotten much financial support.  (So really I am exactly where I anticipated I would be.)  Since I was starting a business, in a way what I was looking for was investment.  But I didn't know how to go about getting this, especially since what I was doing wasn't a traditional business.  Basically, I'm not starting a business for its own sake, as entrepreneurs would; I'm starting a business because it's about the only way I see of doing what I feel I need to do.

I've redefined and clarified what I want to do.  I am basically trying to start a music business, or in other words, a business which creates and sells music, both live and recorded.  I've been involved enough in music for quite a while, and I believe that I could create a successful business.  I would need some financing to get going, but I have a potential idea as to where to look for this: micro-financing.  Really, I feel good about the whole thing expect for one crucial thing: the product.  I feel I could make it successful if I had the product (music).  However I do not have this developed yet.  Furthermore, I haven't created a lot of music in the past, so I feel like I am still learning how to do it.  I think I can do it, but I'm not quite sure how, and I don't really have any idea how long it will take to develop.

With all this in mind I've been trying to figure out where this leaves me and how to move forward.  I need money yesterday, but don't know exactly how to best go about doing this (though there has been a web programming job on the horizon for a long time).  I want to seek financing for my business, but don't really feel like I can until I have the product more developed.  So basically I don't know how to finance the development stage of my business.  I know the ever present idea everyone has is to work another job until I can get it developed.  There are a few problems though.  First of all, I don't have another job.  The last job I had I was working full time, barely making enough to live on, and didn't have time to work on developing anything on the side.  That is why I quit, which brings me to the second point.  What I need for development is time; if I work on other jobs, that is time taken away from development, pushing its completion further into the future.  Which brings me to another problem: I feel a real sense of urgency; I'm getting beyond a late start.  In fact, I think by most measures I'm already too late.  I feel like I'll be pulling off quite a trick if I do get going soon, and don't know if it will even be possible later on.  So all this means that I want to try and get things going as quickly as I can.

It's been a bit frustrating though.  Art isn't like many other tasks where there are clear steps and you just start working on them.  At least if it is that way, I haven't figured it out yet.  And that's the thing, it's all pretty new to me, and so I am still trying to figure things out.  I'm not necessarily doing things most efficiently right now because I don't know how.  I am experimenting in order to try and find out what works and what doesn't.  I feel some confidence in myself; I believe I can do it, I'm just not sure how or when.  I'm trying but right now things feel a bit forced.  I think I need to find my method of working, my inspiration and/or "zone".  I feel like I am probably close, but that I haven't quite "broken through" yet.  I am hoping and thinking at some point things will start to "click" and I'll take off... but again I'm just not quite there yet.

I think it's a matter of perseverance.  This is one of those things which I recognized I couldn't do in a week or month.  I couldn't just work really hard for a little while and have it all together.  It's one of those projects which I need to just keep working on piece by piece, step by step, and trust that in the future it will add up to success.

The past 10 months has been a real process of... I don't think there's really a precise word to describe it, but it has encompassed things like processing, planning, imagining, focusing, re-adjusting, forgetting, getting lost, confusion, more processing, remembering again... I guess you might call it self discovery in a way.  I have finally gotten a better grasp of where I am, why I am where I am, and where I want to go.  I feel my life has been like this: I knew where I wanted to go, but there was no clear path leading to that destination.  I set out through the woods, but because of the lack of a path and because of the obstacles encountered, I got lost and started wandering in different directions.  I am finally remembering the destination which I want to reach: I want to make music.  The path still isn't real clear, however now that I have a more clearly defined goal and experience of how not to get sidetracked, I have a better chance of going the right direction.

I am also realizing that in a way I do want to start a business: a business which creates music.  Since I am basically broke and have been worried about how to get some money, I had almost forgotten that I quit my job in order to start a business/work for myself.  People were always thinking in terms of my being unemployed to the point where I was beginning to think that way too.  But then I remembered, I'm not really unemployed and my main focus is not on gaining employment; I am trying to start my own business.  What I need is not charity because I am unemployed; what I need is financing or investment.  The thing is, most of the time in our society people work a job while they are launching a business.  But I do not have a job to work at while doing this, so in that sense I am unemployed.

After thinking about this I was feeling really down, stressed and hopeless.  That is because I didn't believe that people would invest in me.  All I could see is that I would likely stay stuck in this impossible situation, where I was unable to move forward because of people not helping enough, but rather just staying on "life-support".  That's not a way anyone wants to live.  I feel like I can't go back into the type of work positions I've had in the past, because I've learned they are soul-sucking for me.  In a way it's like being dead even while living--a zombie.

After feeling so hopeless, stuck, and like I needed a miracle, I began thinking about things from the angle of starting a business.  I remembered hearing about how you are supposed to have a "business plan".  So I began to look into that.  I knew I needed financing, but was pretty certain that a bank or other similar institution wouldn't even come close to considering financing my intent to be a musician.  While looking at some information on starting a business, I happened to remember hearing about micro-loans.  They are loans which are generally under $25,000 (or $35,000).  What I feel I would need to start would be much less than that.  (Banks apparently don't really deal in loans of lesser amounts.)  Micro-financing was started in response to people like me, people who basically need a little capital in order to be able to work.  It is generally more open and flexible than traditional loans, so they may well even consider my idea of starting a musical career.  It may still be a bit of a stretch, but I'm going to look into it.  It's the only hope I can see right now.

Since Thursday I haven't been doing as well.  For whatever reason, I have to get out and interact with people, especially friends, on a frequent basis.  If I don't have enough social interaction, I start to go crazy.  I haven't gotten that bad yet, but since Thursday I've noticed that I'm having a harder time focusing, concentrating, and being productive.  Right now my car is out of service and I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to get it fixed, due to financial difficulties.  It is frustrating because I wish I could use the extra time to be more productive, but I don't believe I am able to so much.

I mentioned a while ago that I was working on writing my autobiography.  It sort of happened accidentally.  Because I was/am frustrated with my life, I was thinking back and trying to make some sense of it.  I began writing, expecting to write a few pages worth.  I got that far but wasn't through.  I kept going mainly just because I wanted to finish what I'd started.

I started writing for myself, to get a picture of my life and attempt to see if I could gain some understanding.  I kept going and decided to make it something I felt I could share with people for a similar reason (though coming from a different angle).  I wanted to have something to explain myself, to offer a defense as to why my life is like it is, why I'm not making money and why I need help.  A secondary purpose is just to share more of myself with those who know me already.

A concern did cross my mind recently.  I always hear about how we shouldn't be self-centered and self-focused.  I'm worried that maybe I am being too self-focused--it seems like an autobiography could be an ultimate expression of self-focus.  Yet I don't feel like it's bad to write.  However I do worry that I am trying to make myself look better than I am.  I joke that I'm trying to make myself appear strong and brave against significant opposition, while appearing humble in the process.

Anyway, I finished up a first draft a few months ago.  I just sat on it though, because I had the sense that it was horribly boring and needed some significant rewriting in order to be ready to share.  A week or two ago I pulled it out again and started rewriting.  I just finished a rewritten draft and have been working through editing it.  I hope that it will be done and ready for release soon, perhaps a month at most.