procrastination report 3

I was reading Louis Theroux's book Call of the Weird where he followed up on some of the strange people he followed in his Weird Weekends TV series, and there was a section on a kooky ass hypnotist turned life coach who charged gullible losers thousands to 'teach' them to turn their lives around. This guy was called Marshall Sylver, and I'd never heard of him. He seemed like a bit of a dick. Then, when I was tidying Stephen's room, I found a plastic bag full of old cassette tapes - 6 of which were Marshall Sylver tapes on achieving Passion and Power. I glanced at one momentarily - it was about achieving passionate relationships. I mean - I couldn't believe it. Talk about synchronicity.

I didn't really have anything planned for the rest of the year - I'd hoped to get as much writing done as possible, and I was sort of... floating. I was feeling a little lost, but then I was about to start up a couple of spec projects - a personal thing, and a new feature idea - when these phone calls just sort of came along. I was feeling guilty about not pulling my weight financially - then a few freelance edit jobs came along. I was a little despondent about the lack of auditions - then an audition came along, and not a crappy commercial one that I knew I had no chance of getting. I've got a couple of other things that I really have my fingers crossed for, but... it feels like the universe is sort of, well, looking out for me and if things don't really go my way on the surface, then there is a reason for it. Sometimes you just have to sort of go with the flow - I mean, without being lazy about it - but I guess the best sort of journey down a river is a mixture of paddling and just sitting.

I've had a lot of my own company this week, but I don't think I've been lonely. There's been quite a lot of sentimental time - in the spare time between appointments, I've been tidying my childhood bedroom that I haven't slept in since I was 15, and a lot of the stuff hasn't been touched since then. Cinema is great at crystallising a feeling, but I don't think a film could really do the 'tidying childhood room'- feeling justice. It's not just a sentimental mood - it's the time and the minutiae. The layers of history, trying to remember every little piece of rubbish which turns out to be an old treasure - a plastic brooch, a special roll of stickers. It's like an archaeological dig of my life - I'm finding thing after little thing, the old neural pathways fire up, and I'm suddenly reminded of things I haven't thought about for over 2 decades. And then suddenly I've been sitting there for hours on end and I'm late for that thing and I have to rush off. I could probably sit there for days. It's a solitary exercise best done by oneself. I make out like it's a bit of chore, but I think I love it.

I had a vivid dream a couple nights ago about driving down a new stretch of wide wide motorway. It was night, but when I reached this stretch of motorway, it was lit up as bright as day. It was lit up so brightly, and the lights seemed so much like the sun that I had to brake in astonishment. It was weird because later, I thought that it might have actually happened - like I discovered that new stretch of motorway from Westgate to the North Shore, and I think the dream sort of looked like that. I'm not sure why this dream sticks in my mind so much, but it has, so I just thought I would mention it.

breakfast:
Milo and the last of S's birthday waffles.

verdict:
We'd bought some Chinese Milo while in the Xinjiang province, and we didn't end up opening it until now. Alas I'm not used to Chinese Milo which is quite different to NZ Milo so I had to throw it all out. Frozen waffles usually toast pretty well, and we had a surplus of about 5 waffles which I've been working slowly through the last couple months, but this last one was a bit off. I mean, I ate it, but I left the last section because I'd had enough. I cooked myself a nice lunch not long after brekka.