So yeah, it's been a long while since I blogged.  Why is that?  One day I just quit doing it and for a while I didn't even miss it.  Then I started missing some of my online friends, a few of which I consider to be as good as if not better than some of my real life friends.  I still read their blogs and updates across myriad social sites but it felt like a one sided conversation.  Seeing as I care about some of these people, that sort of sucked, as I tend to enjoy conversing with those I care about and when it comes to online friendships this is sort of the way to do that.  So that's one reason.  The other is that I just wasn't writing.  I mean, obviously I was writing, I'm a reporter and I write a novella's worth of words each and every week.  But I wasn't creative writing.  And when I'm not creative writing I feel like something is just slightly wrong with my soul.  And thusly I rarely feel like doing much of anything.  But things are good right now in most realms of life and in those realms that things aren't so good I'm working hard on getting them there, and that's about as good as I think anyone can be expected to do during their time on this planet.

So, it's my birthday on Monday and I kind of have mixed feelings about it.  28 years old.  I'm fine with the number but I won't be in two years.  I don't want to be 30, not in the slightest, but I suppose I have two years to find some sort of peace in the matter.  My best friend got me an Iphone as an early present and I can't believe how much I love it.  It's a bit of a mixed feeling however as some of my family have made me realize that it probably wasn't the fairest thing I could've done to take on a high monthly bill when in the past they've helped me out financially in times of need.  It's not that I don't get by but it's the fact that when something happens, like your car breaks down or the IRS hits you with a 1300 dollar bill just because your employer classifies you a certain way (true story, it sucked majorly), my family are the ones that step in with the big sums of money to help float me past these major problems.  And I guess the argument they had was that instead of paying this much higher than my current cell bill I could've been saving that much money so that the next time I have car trouble or the next time the IRS screws me for being the "little guy" I'd have my own funds to take care of it.  Of course I learned they felt this way a day after getting the phone and signing a two year contract which leaves you little outlets other than feeling like garbage.  Puts a bit of a weird haze over my birthday on Monday too because the last thing I want is for any of them to spend any money on me after all of that and yet I've always spent my birthdays hanging with my family.  I tend to be a birthday fanatic so it really pains me to admit that I'd rather just skip this one and give the whole thing a few weeks to settle and then get back to normal with my family whom I adore and hate to see upset with me. 

I'm finally going back to church and am so very happy about that.  I love a good church and yet I can find a billion excuses why "this Sunday isn't going to work for me".  But, for two weeks in a row now I've been getting up and heading out and each time it's been such a true blessing.  It's a smart, excited, growing, young church and I really feel energized there.  I feel excited as Sunday looms in the week and I feel energized and inspired when I leave that place.  I feel a desire to be a better person and I feel I have the power to make it happen.  Religious or not I think you'd have respect for the fact that something can have that effect on a person.  I can't wait to be there in the morning.

So, while I have a few trusted test readers read over the first half of my long in development novel Moonbridge, CO I am prepping a new short story collection to publish.  It will be called A Case of the Mondays and will include some of the stories from the long defunct achall.net as well as several new ones I'm writing and several others that were never published anywhere.  I'm really pleased with the quality of stuff that'll be in there so far and the new things I'm getting together for it like "The Daily Market" and "The Crushing Inevitability of Death" are some of the best stories I've written in years.  I'm excited to get something new done and out there for you all to read.



One thing I quickly had to adjust to when I moved into my own house last year was the fact that my next door neighbor has two dogs that will sit in the backyard and bark for hours on end.  I don't mean like two hours, I'm talking more on the level of like nine hours.  At first it was really bad but now I'm used to it and although I sometimes wonder how they stay alive without taking a break from barking long enough to eat or drink I don't really care all that much anymore.  Well, some nearby neighbor (not sure which one yet), got a new dog.  And this one also barks a lot, if you can call it that.  The best way to describe it is to say that the dog sounds as if it's being killed... constantly.  It howls/yelps/screams in agony as if someone is in the very process of murdering it.  And yet, it never ends.  The dog never dies and thus the noise never stops.  I've gone into the backyard and looked around, trying to see if the dog is in fact being slowly and tortuously murdered over the course of the past five days but I've yet to notice anything of the sort going on.

Speaking of dogs, I was almost attacked by a mean dog that charged me while I was out walking.  Sure am thankful that those nice people don't believe in leash laws or anything of the sort.  It was surreal and while I wish I could say I acted manly and tough what I actually did was put my hand up and say loudly "NO NO NO".  To which the dog ignored and continued to charge me.  So, being a genius, I repeat in a sterner voice, "NO NO NO".  And due to what I can only consider the divine hand of my holy lord who doesn't want to see me go out like that, the dog actually stopped in place.  A few weeks later my nephew and I were out walking when a little dog ran after us, but it didn't seem determined to murder us like the first dog did.  Then, that very same night, I was walking back home from my families house when yet ANOTHER dog charged me from out of a front yard.  This one, however, was annoyingly friendly, and followed me for several blocks despite my pleadings that it go home, stay, get back, stop, get away from me, etc.  This concludes my stories about dogs for a while, if not forever.

For those of you not already doing so add me as a friend on facebook www.facebook.com/aaronchall as that's where I do a lot of updating these days.  I hope you're all doing awesome in your life and if you're not, then I hope things turn from bad to awesome real soon.