Recently I have been toying with the prospect of re-entering life and sociability and such stuff again. There have been several been several exploratory forays.
Went out for drinks with Tim on Wednesday to celebrate his not-being-deadness. Was most pleasing to see him not being dead, as well as other folks in a most similar state of vitality. Yay! for not-deadness.
Went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3 Thursday night. Up to that point, I had been carefully avoiding any mention of the subject so as not to have the film spoiled for me. I am now still strenuously avoiding any mention of the subject as I have no wish to spoil the fantasticness by running into any negative reviews. Now, I know there may be some people among my friends list who felt that the film was in some way substandard, and were less than enamoured. This is your opinion and I would defend to the death your right to hold it. However, it does not change the fact that you are unfortunately totally and utterly wrong, as it was a sublimely ridiculous rollercoaster of a fantasy ride... which pretty much brings the whole thing full circle both in reality AND on celluloid, and as such is perfection itself. And it was funny and swashbuckling and exciting and wild and bouncy and cool with lots of pirates. And a monkey. So there.
And time travelling slightly, on Monday I got to see the best performance of King Lear ever in my life at Stratford. And Sir Ian McKellen's penis. Although fortunately not Sylvester McCoy's... The whole thing rocked immensely (the play, not the penis) and left me yearning to take up an MA in English again.
The only slight downside was an unexpected and most unwelcome detour to Birmingham on the way home. They may say all roads lead to Rome. Untrue. At 2am, all roads lead to Birmingham, whether you like it or not.
On the other hand, in a few weeks time the Monkeyboy and myself shall be intentionally heading to Birmingham to see Paradise Lost supporting Type O Negative. Squeeeee! As I am possibly nearly as excited at seeing Type O as he is at seeing Paradise Lost (i.e.veryveryvery!) I am hoping that between us this will somehow balance out and we will be left with at least 40% of a functioning adult human being to get us safely home again. Alternatively, I might have to look into hotels. Or morgues. (The show falls on my magazine's Press Day. I may need one.)
This is one of many exciting excursions I have planned over the next few months, in Operation Life Retrieval. (Others include Zombies, Caravans, Giants, Edinburgh and Stormtroopers.)
In fact, I have identified my three main targets in trying to sort my life out (and maybe get a proper one back, whether begged, borrowed or stolen) as Time, Money and Health.
For Health, I have been prescribed ridiculously strong tablets to try to finally stomp my eczema back into submission, as my life for much of this year has been some variation of living hell because of it. These have come with an interesting and exciting range of side effects that I may catalogue in more details later on, but do seem to be doing the trick, so I shall not complain. But do be warned, next time you say "I'd give anything for just one day without feeling like my skin is crawling with insects or set on fire..." then watch out. The Universe may be listening in and giggling wildly behind its hand.
Now the eczema is hopefully subsiding, along with the myriad other health problems it drags in its wake, I have taken up the freelance work I had to put on hold while I was really ill. This month the plan is to take a step further and tackle Money head on, by finally sorting out an up-to-date version of my website and traipsing it round all the freelance agencies I used to be signed up with back when I didn't have the sort of portfolio and experience that I now do have, but is not currently up on my website. (Follow? Simple!) I am hoping that with my current set up that will bring in the extra money I need to start having one of those life things again. (Stage 2 after that is going down to London and seeing what the Association of Illustrators can actually do for my membership fee, stage 3 is getting sorted out elsewhere enough to start writing again, and submitting to magazines or publishers. And stage 4 is, if that doesn't work, switch jobs to a full time one with a bigger pay packet. Sorted, non?)
Time is currently the most tricky one to sort out, and can be best resolved by me inventing a time machine. (This may also solve Money, due to patents and the like. Although only if somebody else doesn't use my time machine to go back and patent it first. Bastards! Maybe I should wait until somebody else invents a time machine and go back and steal ~their~ patent. That's teach them. Or just go back and patent post-it notes first - they're probably worth more in the long run anyway...)
Really, I think I may have to have a long talk with Time and suggest we put things on a more casual basis as I'm sick and tired of running after the bastard and stressing out at living up to its demands and getting hurt and depressed when it doesn't have enough time for me after all the effort I put in. I need to care less about Time and stop letting it dictate the relationship and just start enjoying myself.
I am thinking of having my second 30th birthday party (the one with cake and summer) some time around the 9th of August, as that will be exactly 6 months after the original. So that would probably end up on the 10th or 11th August, probably the 11th, as that is Saturday, unless my calender is lying to me. Are there any major eventings planned for that date? If not, I'm swiping it!
And good luck to Vix and her merry running companions in the Race for Life today! Don't break a leg!
(I am boycotting LJ names as they take too long and I have an appointment with a dragon and a shipload of pirates to keep... pictures to follow.)
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