365 days of 40, #238-240

So wow!  Who would believe it??? I have an old neighborhood. Or at least a village, and yeah, might not have been perfect, but it was a pretty great place to grow up. 

Today has been one amazing ride.  I spent 6 hours catching up with old friends and had we had more time, we probably could have gone on longer. 

It boggles the mind to the point that I'm still trying to process, but it was so much fun laughing and catching up and generally reconnecting.  It's crazy how there are just some people who you can talk to and no matter how long it has been, no time at all as passed. They are the people who "knew you when" and still care about you no matter what.  What's even harder to believe is that I've known them almost 30 years.  That is way over 1/2 my life.

It was amazing seeing my friend, "A". Growing up I always felt privileged to say that he was a friend of mine and seeing him today and just what an amazing man he is was truly humbling.  We had a wonderfully uplifting conversation and it just gave me hope for the future.  I can't wait till later this summer when things warm up, we're going to have a bbq with him, his wife and his kids along with my mom and sister and all the little people that we claim who inhabit the general area.

Then I saw "R", the said crush and amazingly enough, I was almost fun and charming and didn't completely revert back to being 16 again.  It was a blast reminiscing about the years, and actually have him remember some of the times fondly was pretty awesome.  I told him about my crush on him and how he broke my heart, but all kidding aside, it was wonderful seeing him too.  I hope that he will do what he says and gives me a call.  I did pass out my business cards after all.  It would be nice to just catch up one on one like I did with A.

As I write this, I can't help but just have a smile on my face.  They always say that you have friends for a reason, a season or a lifetime and then there are those that defy description and it's because of them, that you become the person you were meant to be.

I look back and see not only how far I have come, and sitting here at 40, hopefully not half way done, I've done pretty darn good,  but I can look forward to see just how amazing the journey is ahead of me. I can't wait to fill it with many more memories and friends and all of the other things that make a life.

365 days of 40, #237

My day has taken several unexpected turns today that had left me reeling.  First of all, I sent out my first query for my script today.  I have a whole lot more to send out, but I took the first step today.  It's nice to feel like I'm making progress.  I also got a call about a job interview for next Thursday. It's another one at SLCC, this time to run a computer lab at the main campus.  We'll just have to see what happens there. 

Because I can't stand the condition of my house, this afternoon I was bound and determined to take control.  I hit Walmart and got a couple of shelving units fir the kitchen.  It's not done, but wow, it's so much better.  Lots too do tomorrow, but I have an amazing amount of motivation to get my house clean, which is all thanks to the last bit of life that happened. 

I spent time working on Confessions today and I was making up a character name.  The name reminded me of a guy who I knew back when I was in 6th grade and who I spent most of my adolescence hung up on.  Every couple of years I look up him and my other friend from that time, but I hadn't ever had any luck, until today. 

I stumbled upon the twitter account of my other friend and sent him a message to the effect of "hey, remember me?" Needless to say, he did and we spent a good hour catching up.  He then brought up the idea of getting together for lunch with some of those from the "Village", which just do happened to include the guy that I crushed on.  A few hours later, he calls me and says he'll be picking me up Monday afternoon, we're driving out to Tooele for lunch with said crush and whoever else happens to show up. 

My brain hurts.  Over the years,  whenever I would look them up, it was always just an exercise in futility because I could never track them down.  I always had in the back of my mind to the idea to say hi, but never in a million years did I think today would happen.

It boggles the mind. 

Don't get me wrong, it's going to be a blast to see them, but I now find myself facing the fear of reverting back to my beyond neurotic 16 year old self. I'm still neurotic, but at least now I can cope with much better.   For now, I'm just going to have to get my house all clean, to help keep me distracted.  Lots to look forward to in the next few days.

365 days of 40, #235 & 236

It's nice to be getting back to some semblance of normalcy.  I finally got insurance so it was nice to go get a shot in my knee.  I'm really hoping that it will be taken care of here in the next month or so. But last night, my knee was killing me after my shot, which is why I didn't get any writing done last night. 

Today, however was another story entirely.  I finished JAL and I'm really quite happy with it.  I've sent it out for people to read for feedback.  I'm looking forward to that and sending out to agents and production companies. I'm also getting it together to send off to the Sundance labs and the Nichols fellowship contests and any other big ones that might work. It was such an awesome feeling to figure it out this morning. It was just one little tiny scene, but once you got it you got it. Yay!

After I got that done, I started back to work on my Confessions of an Neurotic Cougar script. I already have 33 pages written for it which I can't believe. This one is going so much faster than previous scripts in the past, it might actually be almost ready to go out to contests as well, we'll just have to see.  It will definitely be ready to lunch and a Kickstarter later this year though not necessarily on May 1st. It really helped that I was able to do some networking while doing fiddler on the roof. I got some nice support for that.

Both kids are going to be gone this weekend, so it's going to be a nice time for me to be able to get my house back in order and work on my scripts. It's so nice to be motivated again. :-)  I hate having things hanging over my head and I think having JAL over my head I was just killing me. Time to move forward.

Life is great! I'm so excited about where things are headed, and even though I'm struggling on the job front it's nice to feel like I'm making progress on my writing.

365 days of 40, #234

Time to get back to writing.  The last few weeks have just been completely insane because of Fiddler on the Roof and it's time to get back to some semblance of order.  Yesterday it started by cleaning the kitchen. While it's not completely done, progress is being made.  Same thing when it comes to my writing.  I've narrowed down the scene that is having problems in JAL.  It's SSSOOOO close to being done, but I'm just not exactly sure what I want to happen with it, so it's on hold, but it's nice to have made progress.   I've started my query letter.  It's slow going, but I have a rough draft so it can only go forward.

Today has actually been about Confessions.  I had another interaction with the guy in the other computer lab, who is absolutely adorable.  The very first day we met, we just clicked and it has really inspired me and how I want to have the interaction between my 2 main characters.  Great dialogue that I just couldn't pass up writing down and I even wrote a couple of other scenes.  I still have no idea where the whole thing is going, but it's just fun to have someone to flirt with.  Besides who wouldn't want a cute guy to flirt with.

Speaking of cute guys, I met another one during the play.  Of course, since I'm far too chicken to actually say anything, it's not going to go anywhere.  Which always sucks, but that's my life.  It's also why I'm writing all about my dating traumas or lack there of.

I'm so dang distracted today.  Too much going on in my brain.  So today's blog will be short.  Gotta get back in the habit, I'm going to end strong!

365 days of 40, only 139 till I turn 41

They always say that change is a good thing and today that's what I'm going to do. 

I'm going to continue with this blog, but I'm going to change things up.  This is the blog where I continue to write more about my personal life, but I'm going to start one that is more of my journey as a film maker and if I get motivated enough, I'm going to start a 3rd that is more "bloggy", if that makes sense.  More article type blogs about things that don't quite fit in either place.  I think this separation will help me stay more focused and continue to challenge me as a writer.  

Out of curiosity, I just looked up how many days I have left until my birthday and it's only 139.  That is a rather scary proposition.  That means that I've been 40 for over 6 months.  I'm now closer to 41 than 40. Wow! How did that happen.  

Life has been completely crazy as this week our show, Fiddler on the Roof goes up.  We have rehearsals every night and then on Thursday, we're at the beginning of the end.  Soon, all we'll have are the memories of a fantastic 4 months making friends.

So, it's time to change the title of this blog and start a new one.  I'm feeling excited the future and looking forward to what it's going to bring me.

365 days of 40 #207-217

I can feel myself at that middle stage of a goal where you're hitting burn out and wondering if it's worth going on. That's how I've been feeling lately about blogging.  I think I put this pressure on myself to write every day,  so it's been more like a journal as opposed to a blog where I'm writing about a specific topic.  Not a bad thing, but it's been hard to get motivated about writing much of anything. Granted, not much has been happening of late that actually feels wiring worthy.  It's the same old drudgery that seems to be keeping me in a loop of negativity for the last little bit.  I've just been fighting a case of the blahs.  Nothing is really bad but I'm just feeling off. I know that a lot of it is that I spend too much time alone. This job is going to be the death of me.  Yes, I am trying to use my time to work on stuff, and that has been helpful, though the last week, it hasn't been writing. I think I needed some time away from the scripts.  I'm about ready to get back to those.  I've had to do some other life things like paying bills and today was career day at the middle school, so I used my time to prepare. 

I need to make some changes in my life because staying in this rut is taking a toll.  The writing is coming along, so as long as I keep plugging away, those good habits are going to serve me well.  It's time to add more stuff to my routine.  Specifically when it comes to my eating and exercising habits.  About 80% of the time, I'm making better eating choices, now it's time to keep track of much I eat.  The other is that I need to be moving more.  When I worked at the other campus, I walked all the time so that really helped.  Since that job ended, I haven't kept it up, which has meant weight gain.  Not a good thing. Especially because of the effect it's having on my knee. It's getting so much worse. I'm in pain all the time which then leads me to not being active and stress eating. Talk about a vicious circle to be caught in. 

My mind and body need help, so it's time to get my head out of the ostrich hole it's been in and take the next steps that I need to move on.

365 days of 40 #204-206

The last few days have been rather challenging emotionally.  There was no one thing that got to me, but a combination of things that were all weighing in me.

First I let my inability to get my scene written psych me out.  I was so close to everything that I couldn't move past it.  I needed to spend time doing other things, to clear my head so that I can come back fresh to it on Monday.  I worked on my slide show and I'll be finishing that up tomorrow.  I also watched a new show, Raising Hope, a comedy.  While I love a good drama, I love Dexter and just saw the 1st episode of Breaking Bad,  I've been watching a lot of them and the content was starting to bring me down.  Which I'm sure wasn't helping my mood.

Next, I let a guy get into my head and made me feel bad about myself.  He was so convinced that my past was black and white when that is the farthest thing from the truth.  There are so many shades of gray and no one reason why I did what I did.  I have a past, most people do.  My past is what had made me who I am today, and while I know I have a long ways to go, I've come a pretty long ways already.

Those plus a few other problems that separately weren't a big deal, all caused me to have a minor  breakdown yesterday.  Mostly I just needed to have a good cry and talk it out and I felt ten times better.

Today was another day of healing.  I worked on cleaning then I went to the audition that I had wanted to attend for a while.  Amazingly enough, I made call backs. Very excited and exciting news there.  I also got to hang out with my buddy from power 90. We did dinner and then a bit of retail therapy. Sales are awesome!  Feeling much better. Tomorrow, I have much to do, but I'm getting back on track and looking forward to life.