Watching Paint Dry

And the seasons they go 'round and 'round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and 'round and 'round
In the circle game
&mdash Joni Mitchell

I'm off to San Francisco again tomorrow morning. I've been going every few weeks since early November it seems, touching base with the family, always for something, to do something, or whatever. Going up there is like the :02 gap between songs on early CD's. It's a pause between tracks on a spinning record playing the soundtrack of my life. Fitzgerald said American lives have no second acts, but this certainly feels like it. Vogler would call it Testing Allies & Enemies.

Playing my role as I should, I've been meeting and talking to all sorts of new people lately. Frankly I don't know where the old ones have gone. In the mythic structure, these people are supposed to aid or hinder me as I enter the next step, The Innermost Cave. I can't wait.

In the meantime, I've finally finished the last of painting of the new, improved bedroom. If that's the cave, then I'm at least pleased with the colors. Accoutrements would be nice.

Purge and Cleanse

Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
C'est payé, balayé, oublié
Je me fous du passé

— Edit Piaf

That soup I last mentioned nearly killed me. It didn't come in the form of a large and slow moving Torb, nor soup either, but as an innocent bowl of rice, spinach, and chickpeas. Innocent but hardly innocuous. And so sick I was, vomiting for almost 12 straight hours, dropping 5 pounds, and taking days to recover. There is though a certain thrill to surviving a blow like that -- a Darwinian high, let's call it, and to do it alone too, but that didn't last too long.

Next in the queue would be my cat, Vegas, getting equally sick. A sympathy illness perhaps? I don't know, but I am happy to report that she seems to be recovering and my $10/day tab of laundry seems to have run it's course with the illnesses.

So now what? Recovered and still in the new year, I forge ahead, redoubling efforts at redoubled intervals, onward again -- it's a geometric progression that defies mathematical certainties to asymtopically approach the Point of No Return. New scripts, new hot contests, new cold query letters, repeated phone calls, fresh thoughts like paint in stale air. We will see what the breeze is like higher up. Where else is there to go?

It's so beautiful in Venice these days. I'm very thankful for where I live.

Step Into The Light

It's 2010, bitches. And I've decided to renew the blogging, but this time I'm not telling anyone about it. So if you're reading this, you're a resourceful, crafty m.f. and I salute you.

Today my phone rang once, while I was in the shower, with a call from a friend in Colorado. He had nothing particular to say, but it was the first phone call I've received from anyone resembling a friend since Saturday. Almost made a week, and I guess I still can if I'm only looking in the local set. Sometimes I just hate L.A. It's an incredibly lonely place and I'm sick and tired of being the one to initiate anything and everything that I do. I just want to be invited to do something -- is that so pathetic?

So thus begins the blog of 2010, not with a mighty, rallying cry but with a petite, unanswered whimper. I should start over.

I've discovered Californication -- the Showtime series with David Dachovny. It's much different that I had originally assumed and I'm quite enjoying it. It reminds me very much of my life minus the kid, the agent, the money, and the sex. But everything else -- ha ha -- is dead on, said the fish to the fly. The writing, or lack thereof, the girlfriend, or lack thereof, the angst. Dead on.

In other news, I'm running, painting, reading, and filling my days somehow despite the weight, but isn't that the way of the world? Isn't this how everyone, everyone moves and swims through the schmegma of the modern world? Run faster, the rallying cry goes, swim stronger. Consume and fight on, fight on.

Soup's on. To be continued...