Personal

We’re having a great time on our UK visit. We arrived at midnight on Monday, and spent the night with Rob King in London. Great to catch up, albeit briefly. Then we took the Megabus to Sheffield and spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning with Mark & Bethany & Adelaide. Had a wonderful time, so good for the soul. Thanks also to Mark’s folks and his sister and Brett for a great time!

We visited York on Wednesday which was really lovely. Now we’re in Birmingham. Yesterday while here, we visited Warwick, took some photos of the castle, and returned a dog to it’s owner. Today will feature a trip to Hard to Find Records, and then Stratford! W00t.

I was challenged by something Faytene Kriskow said at Freshwind. Something along the lines of: “I don’t really watch movies, I don’t spend time doing that. Honestly, I’d rather be making movies that watching them”.

Which is a bit how I feel, but I haven’t been doing much about it. I just finished Season 2 of Dexter, a dark, seductive, violent, clever show, and I love it. I also recently finished Bioshock, which could be described similarly, with a bit more torture and horror thrown in… all dark sounding stuff but it’s totally been amping my muse, to be honest. Both are very artful and well formed creations, and I’m becoming increasingly frustrated with my inaction on the list of things I want to accomplish in my life.

And what do I want to accomplish? I’ve not really posted them concisely, due to fear of them never happening if I do, but here goes, in no particular order… the current things that make up my dreams.

- Make a movie
- Make a television series or miniseries
- Design a video game
- Write a novel of fiction
- Write an inspirational book
- Write plays for the stage
- Write screenplays
- Make excellent dance music
- Make music involving the metal genre, of some kind
- Act in movies, television and stage plays
- Become a world famous DJ

And those are just the things relating to the creative arts. I figure if I can get these ones all going, then my dreams of building a house, raising a family, growing a vineyard, brewing my own craft beer, and other such lofty goals will all fall into place mysteriously. Raising a family… that one’s been chief in my mind for a little while, quite honestly. Not that you should get any ideas, we’re not planning that right now.

So, where do you start? I’ve been working little bits here and there on some of these dreams for a while. DJing’s already happening, as is music production (slowely) but I feel I’m at a financial roadblock of sorts, regarding the environment I do music in (my office is really counter-productive for music creation and arrangement, I need some monitors and more surface space to get things going more easily).

I spent last weekend trying to get my head into Reason, which I really enjoyed. If I’m diligent I’ll spend time on that tomorrow, but we’ll see.

I’ve spent time this weekend letting a novel assemble in my brain. I’m making some notes, not really tying them together yet. I’ve had a screenplay half written for 4 years, which I come back to now and again but don’t quite know where to take it now.

I think paying off our debts will help with my mental haze as well. We’ve not been making the sort of progress I would like, but when Maija’s tax refund comes that should help in a big way. Part of me feels I should be concerned about wanting to accomplish so many things, and all at once. Part of me wants it no other way… but I can’t help feel a bit muddled at times.

I think my biggest struggle is workaholism. Not that I have a big problem, but when I sit down at my computer I so often feel like getting a few more things off my list. Part of that is the nature of working from home, I can do things piecemeal… I don’t remember the last day that I didn’t do any work for TACF of some kind. Probably when I was flying back from Toronto :) Work at TACF is progressing incredibly well, so I don’t have a major reason to put in the extra hours I do.
I guess when I feel like “doing” something, which is most of the time, TACF work is there to be done. There are very few roadblocks to that work, so it’s satisfying.

This weekend has been good so far, just letting my thoughts percolate, and hopefully finding places for themselves. I’ve not spent much time working, for a change, but read some more Oscar Wilde and played the hottest game of Tetris I will ever play.
And I cooked myself a delicious breakfast, just for me.
That’s something else I’m learning, the benefit of taking time to cook for just myself (obviously Maija and I cook together, but until recently I would never bother to cook if it was for me alone).