Welcome Back

This is exciting.  I'm excited.  Are you excited?  It's time to reopen the Asylum.

I've had a month off, there's no two ways about it.  After managing an almost water tight 50% every day post schedule last month, I've had a bit of a break.  A little rest.  I've been working a lot, as I'm sure most of you will already know.  To be quite honest... I feel a little burnt out.  I truly have no idea how you do a full time job; I don't think I can.  Not full time all the time.  Not like this.  See, working full time like that is, uh... What is it now?  It's distracting.  I think that's the biggest problem really, it takes over your life.  It becomes your life in the absence of your actual life.  I haven't written for a month because frankly, I haven't felt like writing after sitting at that desk, answering that telephone and kicking the photocopier for most the day and then hot footing it to choir only to be late anyway because of having to take the bloody meter bags to the post office.  Yes, "because I don't feel like it" is exceptionally weak, I mean weak, but it's what I've got, and importantly, it's what you're getting.  

Work has been bringing money in though.  But that's another story for another time.

I need to get back to work on this though.  I need to start my novel!  A great novel full of social pitfalls, the trap of growing up, and importantly, all of my mistakes so you can avoid them.  Or feel superior for having avoided them already.  Which is where we're going with this.  I have come to understand that I am a man who makes fundamentally bad decisions.  And I make a lot of mistakes.  So many.  I don't think I've ever made the same one twice, unbelievably... More that I make such vast, colossal waves of them that I've never had to repeat anything.  Like 'Just a Minute' but for critical errors in judgement instead, and rather than Nicholas Parsons, the never-ending self-doubt and blaming and... You get the picture.  I just get things wrong.  I can't interpret social and interpersonal relation cues correctly, I can't tie my shoelaces properly, I probably don't clean my teeth often enough.  The list is endless.  

Actually, one of the big problems I have is that I do not say no.  No to people.  Work with me here, it looks odd I know.  It looks even stranger when you consider that one of my chiefest regrets is not saying yes and taking a chance at University but... You know, it was a different time and I wasn't as capable (or appear to be) as I am now.  It's all smoke and mirrors, guys, and any denial of that on your part is an act of deception on YOUR PART WOOOOOO.  I digress.  The point is that there's not enough people that get told "no".  Or at least I don't think so.  Don't think I'm excluding myself from this as well!  I'm sure there have been people who regret not saying no to me, and that's hardly limited to my ex-girlfriends, either (ha ha ha).  There's some kind of... Oh, I dunno, I need a soundbite don't I... Miasma of mediocrity.  There are too many things in my life that are simply "okay".  There's no real screaming excellence (except for my uncanny ability to scream to a melody) around here, and equally, nothing that's utterly dreadfully terrible.  I might as well be thankful for that!  I think that my extreme and debilitating social anxiety that stops me from taking chances on things, I steer a middle way (yes, the via media).  I need to make some changes.  I don't mean redecorate my webpage again either.

This is obviously going to take some time working out, and you will be pleased to hear that I will be moving to a full time writing schedule.  I recently wrote a concert biography (which I must post on here, is only for the laughs) in which I claimed I was preparing for postgraduate study and building a portfolio... And if I want to get anywhere near doing a Masters, I need to keep practicing.  I don't have a course or any deadlines or anything, so it's all personal just like it's always been really.  I've already been asked to write the programme notes for the Christmas concert already, so that's good... I haven't exactly been inundated with work requests but hey ho you know, these things take time!  Speaking of which, I'm actually going to be sensible about this "full-time schedule" this time.  As long as I'm writing at least five out of seven days a week by the time I'm 25 then I'll be doing juuuuuuust fine.  If not, then... We rethink.  Like always.

I'm really quite unhappy though, and just like always, I land the blame for that squarely at my own feet.  It's cool though, you know?  Like a few things, it has to be this way, and please please please don't try to persuade me otherwise.  The struggle is real, after all.  [cue laugh, fade to black...]

The Asylum is open again.  There are many doors that haven't been opened, and maybe there are some that can't be closed.  But we'll find out when we get there!  I might even write some fiction again...