I’m feeling rather bleh right now, and I have no idea what to write about, so I guess it’s time for a biographical update.

Let’s see. I had therapy last Friday afternoon. It felt good to be back, so to speak. I like Doctor Costin. Inasmuch as anyone does, he “gets” me. And talking with him is usually fairly productive. He adds that vital ingredient to my therapeutic process : someone to ask the questions that make me think in new ways.

That’s important because, bright as I am, left to my own devices I end up just going around in circles. Big circles, but nevertheless, progress is extremely slow compared to that which I get from having someone give me the questions I need to be asking myself.

I’m going to be seeing him again on Tuesday. As it works out, I have no classes this Tuesday or the next. So I can at least get some therapy weekly while that lasts. After that, my schedule becomes a real dog’s breakfast and I have no idea when I will have the opportunity for regular therapy again.

Plus, ya know… writing a movie and a TV spec script.

For the movie I will be writing 20 pages a week, which sounds like a lot, but it’s only a little less than three pages a day, so really, it’s not so bad. I will likely do more than that once I really get cooking, but it’s comforting to know that there’s a reasonably small daily minimum for those days when I am low on energy.

Like today, for instance.

I just have to keep reminding myself that the first draft does not have to be perfect (for there will be more) and that the important thing is to get the first draft done so I can concentrate on improving it. This, of course, runs contrary to my usual “fire and forget” methodology.

But that shit is for children. I am going to have to grow the fuck up and invest in things for the long haul if I want to make it as a TV writer. And that means staying with things even after the initial creative impulse has faded away and every instinct is telling me to put as much distance between me and the end product as possible.

As if it was not so much an act of creation as an act of excretion.

What else… last night Joe’s parents had me, Joe, Julian, and the incomparable Miss Felicity over for a barbecue. It was a pleasant evening. Tasty food, good company, and time spent out of the apartment and out of doors. It’s good for me to escape my little cloister here on a regular basis. School helps, but it’s not enough. It does me a lot of good to hang out with regular folk if I can just get over my fears.

I have to admit, though, that if school had resumed today instead of tomorrow, I would not be able to enact my “staying open and accessible” agenda. Too much bleh!

One odd thing about last night : it has been a typically super sunny and hot August day all day…. until Joe and I headed over for the BBQ. That was the exact moment the cloud cover showed up and suddenly it was much cooler and dimmer. And that cloud cover lasted almost exactly as long as our meal did!

So uh…. thanks?

Back after a brief lie-down. Feeling a little less bleh.

Can’t say I am looking forward to going back to school tomorrow. I feel like I could use another three or four days off in order to truly get the most out of this downtime. If you had asked me about it way back when my vacation time started, I would have been rock solid certain that I would be bored out of my gourd by now and itching to go back.

But the truth is, it took me a while just to relax long enough to start really enjoying the time off. I can see that now. Next time, around Halloween, I will do my best to relax early, or rather, give myself permission to lay my burdens down and not think about them for a while early.

I do feel somewhat recharged, which is good, ’cause that is kind of the point of vacations. I feel like I got to let the tensions slip away and relax in preparation for the considerable increase in burden that I know is coming my way starting tomorrow. I feel more or less prepared to throw myself into the new reality and stretch my limits to meet the new task.

The first part’s probably gonna kinda suck, though.

Adjustment periods often do. That stretch of time between initialization and adaptation can be a real bitch. It’s so bad that a lot of people balk at that point and quit, and end up not growing as people as a result. And then, they wonder why they feel so small.

I know this, because I’ve been one of those people for much of my life. But not any more. For one thing, I have school to pull me forward. I can’t balk at the challenge without failing school and that is one thing I am most definitely not prepared to do. School is my ticket to the real world, where I can do things like earn money and buy things and earn some respect from the world, and I need it badly.

But besides all that, I want to grow and stretch and become more than I am. The pain will be temporary but the improvements will be permanent, and so it’s a very good deal. Over the next two weeks I may find myself feeling tired, uncomfortable, worn out, confused, depressed, or alienated, but I am willing to do whatever it takes to keep going and triumph, whether or not it takes gritting my teeth and doubling my resolve or just sitting down and having a good cry.

I will survive. I will prevail. I WILL BE MORE.

So sayeth the fox!

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.