my floorboards, my heartache

My big news is that a little big of investigating on Saturday led to finally ripping up the damaged area of my floor (the sound of each plank coming up to expose mildew, leftover water damage and cat pee was what I imagined my heart would sound like breaking over and over again) ... which led to more clutter and a "first fight" (or more like "freeze out") on Sunday. Surprisingly, everyone survived all of it, and my apartment is almost back into place (in reverse-world form, since we put everything on the other side). Sometimes you have to go into a corner and cry out of frustration, or put your headphones on and ignore someone for a few hours ... and then talk about what happened, laugh, eat pizza and just move forward.

Without going into detail (because, once again, no journals with kitties on the cover here), love, romance and home improvements are complicated. Witch's brew!

In honor of all that, some Donovan.

A New Era of Inspirational Productivity

Today marks a new time of being more productive. I have a huge list of "to do" items in every area, and the work is flowing ... so I need to jump on every possible opportunity, and that is what I will do.

Here are things I am fortunate to have right now career wise:

1. An extremely varied docket of projects, most of them paid (or with the chance to be very much paid!) that allow me to flex almost all of my different writing muscles.

2. People that are excited about the work I'm doing.

3. Great professional relationships that I need to strengthen and cultivate (and I have worked hard for them).

4. Real inspiration (this is the most important).

5. A desperate need to make money and support myself ... and prove I can do anything.

6. An oyster-like world where possibilities are endless.

I've never embraced the fact that, since losing my major client over a year ago, I really am starting from scratch, and thus have every opportunity to reinvent myself available to me. There's nothing to lose, so I need to seize the completely open future and just go, go, go ...

So, here I go. For real this time.

Unfortunate Craigslist ad of the day

Because Craigslist ads are not perma-links, I will simply re-post the ad I saw in the "cars and trucks for sale" section:

Headline:

Manual trany lessons .....stick shift training - $1 (Astoria)

Body:

Call Ferrari Driving School
Stick shift lessons every day for cheap for beginners and advance drivers.
Going for vacation and you can't get automatic cars ....
Want to buy real sport car .... m3 m6 370z between others...
Need to learn for a job position..
Wants to start CDL career .....
Call now profesional instructors waiting for you!


I have several questions (of course, only if we're really taking this all the way and reading this as not really car related):

1. What is the difference between a "manual" tranny and your everyday variety? Is that like pre-op vs. post-op?

2. What is the difference between advanced and beginner in terms of "operators" (I guess the question is, "What sets the men apart from the boys")?

3. Is "profesional" with just one "s" slightly less professional than regular "professional," but still above amateur?

I also have a statement: I wholeheartedly agree that when you're on vacation, and your inhibitions are slightly decreased, you may be more likely to experiment with a "manual trany" than in other scenarios.

band on the run ...

Here's my quick update:

I'm finding myself suddenly in potentially four bands, almost all of which have shows coming up before October 30th.

Oh boy ... stay tuned ...

stress level midnight

I've been doing a lot of home repairs, thanks to the help of a lovely person, who likely doesn't know how much it means to me that he is helping me create a home that reflects me and fulfills both my work and personal needs (and is turning out absolutely delicious so far).

That being said, I realize as I sit here still awake for the umpteenth or so night in a row well after 2 a.m., my stomach churning out butterflies as a result of change and unpredictable future, present, past and everything imaginable, I realize I have an extreme need to manage the stress in my life. A friend of mine recently joined a Buddhist center and also started doing a month of yoga in order to better balance herself. Neither of these things are really for me, but I realize I am in need of some spiritual refuge to better manage all the beautiful chaos. I am one giant nerve ending right now, and the need to add some order to my emotions is going to be necessary. Of course, I also need to embrace the risky hyperbolic feeling that I rarely let overcome me, because some wonderful things feel like they are happening right now that are going to transform me and those close to me (as a result) for the best.

Georgie Porgie

This rhyme came up today, and it's been resonating:

"Georgie Porgie, Puddin' and Pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry,
When the boys came out to play
Georgie Porgie ran away."

It goes oddly quite well with the lines of one of my favorite Magnetic Fields/Stephin Merritt songs:

"You are a splendid butterfly
It is your wings that make you beautiful
And I could make you fly away
But I could never make you stay."

And, that is my bit of cryptic romance for now ...

All or nothing

I notice with writing that the more I write, the more I write. Deep, right? In translation: writing more breeds more writing, and also more high-quality writing. The more writing I do, the more writing I do. Logical, right? But, I have been operating like an untrained "only when inspired" idiot lately, avoiding the difficulty of struggling over phrases to achieve greater writing heights. That ridiculous and childish process needs to stop. I need to keep practicing putting my thoughts into words, more than just in e-mails to beloveds and friends.

I have a friend that posts little blog entries all day with random thoughts, and I am thinking that this might be a good plan for me. While normally I feel like the most irritating person on earth when I over-update my status message (and thus have stopped doing that), I think a blog is different, because people are presented with a choice ultimately in reading it or not reading it. Likely it's not showing up in anyone's live feed or being e-mailed to them the moment new content appears. Plus, no one is reading this at the moment (save maybe a few), so likely I could attract more people with more digestible posts.

So much for being "less formal." I think I would be better able to be unstructured (was that a double negative positive?) if I was really just writing thoughts off the cuff. Of course, my blogging friend seems to have deeper and more provoking thoughts than what comes tumbling out of my head, so maybe this experiment won't work as well.

Here's to trying to start something new (yet again) ...