I'm really bummed that I can't go to Gnomedex. I'll be in New York at a friend's wedding instead. If you can at all afford it, get to Gnomedex. It was my favorite experience of last year and I didn't even get paid to say that. If you go, take Lori for Tequila shots. I won't say anything more.

Ever wanted badly to write but couldn't?

Maybe cause you've filled your head with self-doubt and self-loathing. I know that I've stopped writing because I am not writing for myself anymore. Last night I watched "Finding Forrester" and it turned me around. Screw you all, I'm just gonna write and see where we go.

We all have something to say. It's just a bitch sometimes trying to say it.

Hell, look at that journalist who got fired. He had so much to say that he decided to use an anonymous Web site.

And yet he still got fired.

Oh, the world is cruel. It's such a pain sharing your deepest thoughts and laying your heart on the line.

I know I'm not ready yet to put my heart up here to have it crassly cut the way some of my friends seem to like having theirs chopped open and seared with a cauterizing knife.

So, I stay silent -- for a while. Something impells me to write. It's how I deal with the world. It's how I teach myself. It's how I make myself feel like I have a purpose.

I'm watching the Web, happy that every day new weblogs and new opinions come online.

Scared at the economy and the prospects of war with Iraq. Happy that the stock market seems to have hit bottom, but sad at the broader things going on between us and Iraq. Not to mention how the music and movie industries are continuing to make life less enjoyable for all.

I've just been through a personal war and it ain't fun. No one wins, particularly our kids.

It's good to take off from the weblog once in a while. See a concert. Hang out with a friend. Get consoled by family members. Write love letters. Hold hands with your best friend.

Where am I going? Be careful of how you fight with your loved ones. Your words come back searing at you.

Fight fair, if you're going to fight at all.

Don't write bad things in email unless you enjoy applying a permanent iron to someone's heart (and you want your kids to see what a shithead you were, cause the search engines of the future can find anything you've written).

I have broken these rules in the past. I have been a senseless, careless, asshole. I'm sorry to all those I've beaten with the written word. I've found that I can make people feel great joy or feel great pain with how I arrange these little pixels on the screen (and, I can feel the same via reading too).

If you wanna join the "send a nasty email to someone" club, fine, write that hateful letter. Lash out at your loved ones (or your enemies). Hell, start a Whinerlog and tell the world just what an asshole I (or someone else) is.

Hell, why stop there? Why don't you become a professional blowhard and tell the world that we should bomb Iraq to teach Muslims a lesson.

I know from personal experience in the past two weeks that if you take a harsh stance against someone's beliefs that you'll only deepen their resolve to keep those beliefs.

It's human nature (or at least American nature). We don't like having someone else tell us how to live. We didn't like it when the King of England did it. The Mormons hated it so much they marched their church almost across the entire content to escape it. So why do we do it to each other?

Saddam Hussein is right. We're gonna lose a holy war. We're not on the right side of that one (hell, most religious believers in the United States don't know what their own religion stands for, much less that of some country thousands of miles away).

When I say lose, I mean we're gonna pay a horrific price.

Back to the point, though.

Lately I notice that my friends have been friends. They tell me the risks of my behavior and my choices, but leave the decision to me. Most of my family the same way. I appreciate this approach very much. There's nothing like getting an email with a link saying "hey, this is interesting for your situation." Give me the information. Let me decide whether or not to listen to it. Don't take sides. Don't force me to listen. Don't be a moral asshole unless you're willing to pay the consequences that I'm paying (emotional, physical, and financial).

But some just get into a "the world is black and white" attitude. They figure they have the moral right to tell me what to do without living in my shoes first.

Fuck that.

On the other hand, I'm seeing great beauty in the world again. I'm laughing for the first time in a decade. I'm taking pictures of flowers again. I've started to own my feelings. I've found that the only way I can control someone else is to control myself.

OK, what's the point of this whole post? I need to find a way to let go and forgive my ex-wife. She's done me enormous pain and continues to do so. She says she isn't trying, but that must mean she is just subconciously needing to twist the knife in me. I'm pretty sure I am doing the same thing to her.

It's a hard cycle to get out of. People wonder why they never got invited over to the house? Well, it's cause we didn't want you to witness the pain there.

And people wonder why my fiance and I enjoy entertaining now? No pain here! Just love and fun.

All this to say I wrote my first love letter in 10 years today. Boy, what a blast.

Try it. Write someone a love letter. Turn the hate you feel inside to love. Decide to love someone today. Send a random email of love to someone. Thinking of whinerlogging someone? Try love instead.