I started getting the phone calls late Tuesday morning asking if I was okay. After a lot of confusion and then some frantic moments, I found out that several local television stations had reported that “Robert Edmisten” was killed in a car accident. That is my partner’s name! People were calling me to find out what happened. And I didn’t have a clue as to what was going on. I was about to call home when I get another phone call, and it’s my Robert.

My Robert received a few telephone calls from relatives that morning as well, one of them being his mother in tears. Talk about an odd moment. Having to explain to your own mother that you are not dead. He called me to tell me what he had heard.

There are, or were, two Robert Edmisten’s in the area. One being my partner of 10+ years (so far) and the other being someone else’s husband (no relation). The other Robert Edmisten was killed in a car accident Tuesday morning (news article).

What a horribly surreal moment….

“You must remember this
A kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh…
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by
And when two lovers woo
They still say, ‘I love you’”

There needs to be more of that in the world these days.

For the past eleven years (not counting a two year hiatus six years ago) I have worked a very corporate, very full-time day job. For the last two years, I have also worked a very part-time tattoo “career”.

I want to leave the corporate day job to pursue my art career full-time. But, there is the consistent paycheck and the medical insurance that it provides that I have a hard time mentally giving up. Being self-employed, as is the case of my tattoo career, is highly risky and very unreliable as far as steady income goes. And don’t even get me started on the cost of health insurance for the self-employed.

I am very thankful that I have the ability to do something for myself. I am just scared to break free from the reliability the corporate job offers…. Decisions, decisions.

I seem to have mostly gotten over whatever it was that was getting me ill. Still coughing a little here and there, but for the most part I am good to go. I even went drinking with my buddy Thursday night after playing poker for a few hours. We stayed out drinking until about 2:30 in the morning and I was really tired the next day at work. Hell—I may have still been burning alcohol at that point. I think I may have made my body so uninhabitable that the illness fled in horror?

Looks like I have a busy day today at work—a couple of appointments at the tattoo shop and then any walk-ins as well. That should keep me out of trouble for the most part.

In other news: why is this so sexy?

I love you, buddy. Hang in there.