Tonight I've come to realize there is a problem. I had planned to go to the Brainwash. I didn't. I had this weird anxiety about drinking. I felt that I wouldn't be able to go with out having a few beers. So I didn't go. This is of course not a good way of dealing with this problem. It's not really the drinking I'm worried about. If I want a beer, I have a beer. Having said that, it's been several months since I did have a beer. I realize now that I am trying to live up to some arbitrary expection of life. I need to lighten up.
I found a bike at a yardsale today. Quite a while ago I decided that I should get a bike for exercise. This time I decided I would spend some money and get a nice bike. So for many months I've been looking with little success. In June I found a bike I really liked at Sportmart. I looked it up on the web and found out that it was a discontinued model, that everybody who had one loved. I went back to Sportmart and they were all gone. Boo.
So today, the folks up the street had a yard sale and there was a funky looking old bike with flat tires leaning up against the garage wall. Other than the tires it seemed to be in really good shape. I picked it up and it was very light. Oh, it's an old racing style bike. The owner saw me looking and started telling me how much "he" used to love his bike. She never explained who "he" was. When I asked the price she thought for a moment then said, "Ten Dollars?" She seemed to be worried that she was asking too much. I quickly handed over the ten dollars and dragged the bike home.
At home I found that I had no way of pumping up the tires so I hiked over to the closest bike store and bought the cheapest "good" pump they had. ($30) Back home I pumped up the tires and went for a little ride. It went great. The shifter worked with no effort. The brakes stopped it quick, but didn't drag at all. I was very happy.
The I looked up the make, Austro Daimler, on the web and it turns out that this a fairly rare and valuable bike. They sell on Ebay for four to six hundred dollars. This is for a bike last built in 1983. A little more research however told me that I did not have one of the more valuable models. Even this model though is still considered a very nice bike.
I started working on a film treatment today. I read the writing gigs ads on Craigslist which are mostly ads looking for a writer with a bestseller or Hollywood credits who will be co-write with some talentless schmuck for no pay. Another big group of ads are people looking for screenplays. That's all the detail they give. This ad was different. They had very specific needs. It was like getting a school assignment. I wrote a quick outline and I really liked it. I don't know if this is what they are looking for, or if I can finish this in a reasonable time. I've never written a serious treatment before.
A while ago I took a course in Project Management. It has helped me at work get control of my work. I have been trying to apply what I've learned to my life, my writing, etc. I realized last night that this attempt to organize my life has been causing me much stress. So I decided to let all the organization go. I instantly de-stressed myself. A couple hours later I had the biggest and most satisfying bowel movement in a long time. Then I went to bed and slept better and deeper than I have in months.
In a few weeks I'm off to three days of training. I'm being re-geeked. Not an entirely bad thing, just a change. I'm still in the same position at work, it's just that my responibilities are shifting again. That's actually one of the things I reall like about this job. This time though it's a bit of a flashback to something I thought I put behind me. The training is for a piece of software made by a company I used to work for. I know the basics but there have been a couple major upgrades since I last used the software. I'm not really worried about all this. It's just another miss in my futile attempt to define myself. Not heading in the expected direction and all that.
Weird connections and disconnections. I had fun. I got to hear a couple of nice stories. Not everything was to my taste, but that's normal. Most of the readers were about my age. That was really nice to see. I have a story I'm going to submit to this journal, and after the reading I'm convinced it's a good fit. The disconnect part was the reading part. Many of the readers wanted nothing to do with the stage or microphone. Many mumbled. Many spat out a monotone stream of seemingly unpunctuated words. A spoke with the flat urgency of unpracticed drama. Oh give me the stage. Give me the microphone. Let me read my words to the hyer-attentive audience. I could rule the room. (It's always surprising when my ego runs amok.)
Got an email today from a clun owner asking me to do a showcase. OK, the enail went out to a bunch of comics, but I'm proud to be named among them. By a bunch of coincidences I'm doing the show on my birthday. A recent horrorscope told me that this will be the best birthday I ever had. Cool!
Got an offer of an acting gig today. Unfortunately I can't do it due to scheduling conflicts. It was for a grad student project and would never be shown anywhere, but it would have been fun to do and would provide some footage for my demo reel. I thought I didn't want to do any more acting, but now I'm not sure.
It was hot. We got a flat. I'm exhauseted. Can't wait for the next trip. Details posted soon in the RV section.
Due to some cancelations it looks like I'm entered in this year's Improv competition. So much for cutting back on the comedy thing.