Today's contented cat photo has been brought to you by the cold and rainy weather we are having. That and the fact that I have not made the bed in weeks. Oh dear.
There are a few things I have decided Brain. These desicions have been crawling doggedly through the ooze of the lowest depths of my most hidden thoughts. Once free of the murk and the sludge of things put away to be forgotten, these intrepid thoughts got caught in the hot springs of the frenzy which is my brain trying to figure out a plan, and bubbled with alarming speed to the surface of my life. Tthat is to say, this has been in me for such a long time and now that's its finally worked its way out to the light of day, I'm manic to begin. Anyway, here they are.
1. I want to be a children's book illustrator. I've always wanted that, but never had the courage to go for it. Never could stand the thought I might fail at it. But I wont fail. As long as I draw and illustrate I am not failing so all I have to do is do it. Of course I also kind of need to make money doing it so that's another hurdle but we'll work on that.
2. Why did it take me so long to do this? (this not officially a decision more of a musing) Well a number of reasons, but the biggest one is I never had the opportunity to have access to so much medium before. I didn't want to "waste paper," you know, by drawing on it. Well now there's photoshop and i can experiment to my little hearts content. I am so happy. Poor, but happy.
3. I am who I am so dont fight it. I am just who I am and that's all there is too it Brain. I've been very concerned that if I dont do lighting I'll lose my community of friends. I worry that they wont understand my desire to to steal pallets and make them into picnic tables and grow watermelons and bees and chickens in the backyard. I worry they wont want to be my friends any more, that they only liked me for my position behind the lighting desk in the club. It was great to run lights in the club. Infinite creative potential there, but that's over and nothing like it has come along after. I wasn't into the technical parts of lighting except as far as they allowed me to make the lights sing. So without that venue what seems to be left in the lighting world for me is just boxes to push or heavy things to schlep. Dont get me wrong, I'll still push boxes or schlep things or press buttons if the opportunity arises cause I need money to support myself, but I'm taking the plunge and no longer calling myself a lighting tech. I'm an illustrator now. This decision is probably destined to be questioned by me during long nights of insomniac tossing and turning and every time I want to buy something but can't because I have no money. But I'm willing and B., God bless him, has said he's willing. We'll do it for as long as we can make it work. I am going to be an illustrator!
In an effort to save money B. and I opted out of any Black Friday madness and spent the entire weekend at home (brief trip to Target to get Christmas lights does not count, as would be scrooge-ish not to put up a couple Christmas lights on first house ever owned). Earlier I had noted a spot where a bunch of driftwood had washed up on the rocks of a dam near my running trail. B. went along voluntarily (though he later regretted it) to help me collect the wood for some projects. B. was embarrassed to climb around on the side of the dam in front of people jogging by, so I went down the side, clambered over rocks and rattlesnakes and terrible sticky vines which catch your clothes and wont come off, and fetched back wood to the top of the hill where B. was waiting. B. squirmed a bit but he helped me carry it all back to the car. I am so excited. We are making the stuff we got into two different tables (we'll need to collect some more wood to finish) and a frame for my ugly mirror in the bedroom. I got great exercise and we had fun (B. had fun even if he hates to admit it). Now I think I have convinced B. to try using collected wood to put down the floor in the outbuilding. this means i would probably have to learn to use the scary saw that B. has but I'm willing to try for the sake of recycling and making cool stuff out of things we find. I have always loved stuff like that! The whole point of leaving my cushy job at Disney was so we could get a house in a place like this and do projects we'd always wanted to do, like raising chickens and learning to grow sunflowers and spinach, and build our own floors out of bits of old barns and fence posts.Which brings me to decision number four. Which is; Just go with it. Stop freaking out and worrying so much. This is your life, it is what it is and you arranged it to be this way so ENJOY it already! You're on the right track Brain but you'll still get run over if you just sit there. So get up every morning, get dressed (this is a key strategy to living a successful freelance life I am learning- after putting off one too many trips to do productive things because I was still in my PJ's at 4:00 PM and why change now since I'd be going back to bed so soon?). Get to work enjoying your life and what you can learn to do.
OK I'll do the best I can to remember this Brain. Probably will last until I my next trip to Target when I want throw pillows and can't afford them. What can I say, life is full of choices.
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