I’m going crazy. I mean it, really. I’m going out of my damned mind.

You see, for the past three days, I’ve been working on a blog entry about this whole mid-life crisis thing, trying to put into words what’s been going through my head. And I can’t get the damned thing written. Cassie keeps jumping around the bedroom, pestering me as I write. Michael is getting ready for work and keeps asking me questions like, what are my plans for lunch? All the while, Sam keeps popping on and off the breast. She’s nursing. She’s done. Nope, she’s nursing again. On second thought, she’s done. But wait, maybe just a few more minutes. Nope, we’re off again. On second thought, let’s beat on mommy’s breast and scream because we want more milk. By the way honey, what are your plans for lunch today? Mommy, I want my Barbie doll. Fix my Barbie now. Helen, did you remember to call the eye doctor? By the way, I’m going to karate class tonight, so you’ll be home alone again with the kids all evening. Mommy, fix my doll! Mommy, I want ponytails. Do my ponytails! We’re eating again, no we’re done. Wait, let’s spit up all over Mommy and blow out our diaper while we’re at it. Mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy--

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! Ah ah ah aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! Pasoidhdfhfojnadpo fifgiupqos8seety lwi454y b-9sdfdhg lksjxhisd sfboai sddfhoa pd8f7 hkl hasdf h@#$@ $*@#@%&@*^%!!!

I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I’m just feeling a little stir crazy today. Don’t know why.

Oh hell with that. I know exactly why. I’m trapped in the damned house scheduling play dates, fixing Barbies and nursing babies all frikkin’ day. It’s no wonder my head feels like it’s going to split in half while my eyeballs pop out of the sockets and I do my best Linda Blair impersonation out on the front lawn. And when the men with the funny white jackets come to take me away, ladies and gentlemen, you’ll know why too.

The whole mommy thing is just driving me up the damned wall right now. I’ve been trying for three days to write about how I want to be an artist and how I crave having a little time each day to sit and draw. But it’s gotten worse than that. As I’ve looked at the problem, I realize it’s a lot bigger than me just wanting to sit and draw. Way bigger than that.

I want to be famous, damn it.

I want to have acheived some massive success with my art, but since I haven't been doing any serious work on it since I was thirteen, I'm kind of screwed on this point. So what I'd really like to do is turn back the clock, go back to when I was thirteen, give myself a good hard slap and say, “Pick up the stupid pencil and start drawing now! Otherwise, you’re going to wake up one morning when you’re thirty-seven and realize you’ve got two kids, a house to clean and a husband who wants to know what your plans are for lunch, but you don’t have a portfolio or a cool artist job or even a fine arts degree. Hell, you’ll be lucky if you can even find a 2B pencil anywhere in the house!”

Of course, my thirteen-year-old self will more than likely just slap me back and tell me to kiss off. What do thirteen-year-olds know anyway, huh?

I need to do what I did after Cassie was born. Back then, the midlife crisis was writing. I was desperate to write. I had dabbled in it a bit for a few years, but had never really applied myself. Sure, I had a 20,000 word novella sitting on the hard drive, but I couldn’t publish the dang thing (too long for magazines, too short for publishers, at least back then before the advent of e-publishing). I also had two erotic short stories that I’d managed to sell. But that was about it. So at the age of 34, I sat in the glider nursing Cassie and ranted about wanting to write. Fortunately for me, I actually got off my ass and did something about it. I spent the first year of her life writing a truly horrible trashy gay novel (yes, you read that right) in a three-ring binder. I still have it too, all five hundred hand-written pages. I had planned to transcribe the whole thing into the computer, but never could get around to that. Taking care of an infant just kept me a little too busy. But at least I was writing. When Cassie was almost a year old and I had a little more time, I decided to take things a step further. Writing porn in a notebook wasn’t enough. I needed to write complete stories on the computer and get them out where people could see them. That meant finding a writers’ group.

This part was tricky. I needed a group that I could participate in at my own pace. I couldn’t read and critique ten or more stories a week. I could handle one or two. I also couldn’t manage to make any weekly meetings. I was either in karate class in the evenings and on Saturdays and so wouldn’t be available, or else I was home taking care of the baby while Michael went to class and I didn’t even want to think of taking a baby to an hours-long meeting of a writers group. So that meant the writers group had to be online. Finally, I wanted a writers group that would consider reading erotica, because that was one of the things I enjoyed writing (remember, I’d handwritten 500 pages of trashy gay porn at that point).

Well, after a lot of searching on the internet, I found one group that fit the bill - the Erotica Readers And Writers Association. Erotica was the only genre they handled, but I decided that I could handle that starting out. I could branch into science fiction, fantasy and horror later on, once I’d established good work habits and a regular writing schedule.

Two years later, I’m still on the ERWA. In fact, I work for them as a feature editor for the website. I’ve written yet another gay trashy novel, this time on the computer, and I’m actually sending the manuscript out to publishers because guess what? There’s a viable market for that sort of thing these days. As a writer, I’m happy. The work is slow, but steady. I’ve garnered a few publications and a little money over the last two years. And I’m looking at doing bigger and better things in the years to come. I’m set. I know where I’m going with my writing.

Now I just need to do the same thing with my art.

I’ll talk about that tomorrow, maybe. Sam’s finally popped off the breast and is snoozing and Cassie has yet another play date to attend in fifteen minutes. It’s time for the lunatic to go back to being a mommy until the next time she can slip out to play.

What The Hell Happened To My Life?

I'm having a midlife crisis. This is my second midlife crisis, actually. The first one happened right after Cassie was born. Now it's happening again with Sam.

What's my problem? Before my first child came along, I had no idea who I was or what I wanted to do with my life. I was 33, had two degrees in communications, and had never once gone after any of the things I dreamed of doing when I was in high school. Pathetic, isn't it?

When I was a teen, I knew I wanted to be an artist. Hell, back then, I was an artist. I drew all the time, I had no lack of ideas. Everybody who knew me knew I could draw. I was even voted most artistic in my senior class. Problem was, at some point I sort of lost my way. It started even before I graduated from high school, to be honest. Even as my peers were proclaiming me most artistic, I was slowly letting my artistic interests fade away. I wanted to draw and paint, but I didn’t pursue it the way I should have. I should have taken art classes in high school. Instead, I took band. I should have drawn every spare minute of the day. Instead, I pissed away the days by doing other things, like watching TV, goofing off and hanging out at the mall. That wasn’t to say I still wasn’t creative. By the time I was sixteen, I had gotten heavily into fantasy and science fiction costuming. But my real passion, art, just got left in the dust to wither and die.

It didn’t help that my dad insisted I could never make a living as an artist. I wanted to go to art school. Dad insisted that I major in something “useful” instead. Since I hadn’t spent the last four years of school preparing for art school by taking art classes and building up a portfolio, guess who won that argument? And the end result? A bachelor’s and a master’s degree in communications, two pieces of paper that I’ve had almost no use for in the last 15 years. Yep, six years of my life and several thousands of Dad’s money devoted to a subject I really couldn’t care less about.

To be fair, it’s not Dad’s fault. He also swore my sister Carolyn could never make a living as an actress, but she fought for what she wanted, and she prepared for it by taking acting classes every year in high school and by being heavily involved in school musicals, dance productions, and the chorus. She showed Dad up front what she could do and what she wanted and then she went to college and pursued her dream. It is entirely besides the point that now at 33 she is getting a new degree in something else - physical therapy - because making it as an actor in New York is almost damned impossible. What matters is she pursued what she wanted. I didn’t. Carolyn at least has several years of theater performances and a production company to show for it, even if she is now changing course.

So here I am, mother of two and still wishing I could be an artist. I haven’t been completely without my artistic successes. I have a tiny portfolio of very nice 3D and 2D graphics. Too bad I only complete two or three pieces a year though. I do have a couple of animated cartoons done, the only instances where I had any use for my degree in broadcast communications. I’ve even got a couple of nice colored pencil drawings floating around the house. But none of this is enough to make me feel like I can stand up and shout “I’m an artist!”

To be an artist, I would have to draw every day. I don’t do that. To be an artist, I would have to turn out a prolific amount of work. Do I even have time for that? To be an artist, I would need to do any number of things - take classes, enter shows, submit work for publication in a magazine or online gallery - that I simply don’t do. Why the hell not?

Because I don’t know how. I haven’t been practicing this shit and at the age of 37 I know no more about being an artist than I did at the age of 12, which was probably the last time I took my drawing seriously.

I’ve got to change something. I’ve got to go from being the stay at home mom to being the artist again, because honestly folks, I feel like I’m dying here. I am not suited to just being a mom and I know it. I've got to have something more. I recently bought myself a subscription to ImagineFX magazine. Paid $150 to have it shipped to me from the UK every month. It’s a gorgeous mag, full of 2D and 3D digital fantasy and sci fi artwork. I’m reading every issue from cover to cover, devouring every detail inside. And it’s killing me, because every artist published in that magazine is between the age of 16 and 24.

What the hell happened to me? I'm 37. Is it too late to change things now?