Don’t Tell A Soul

Well, we shipped Picasa3. I promptly went home with bronchitis and a sinus infection, the former of which I am still battling because I can’t stop smoking. Don’t judge me. Actually, go ahead, people do it all the time. Anyway, I finally get to take the lid of my “secret projects” and show off my gallery of things you can make with this cool little app which has been a part of my life for 6 years.

Yeah, I do sit in a cube all day and, sometimes, I wonder how that happened to my life. But it’s not without its creative side and, even though I thought I was going to be a rock star when I grew up, for this I am thankful. Picasa was a good planet to land on.

I saw these guys on Donny Deutsch the other night, talking about how to “find your passions” and “live your dreams”, and that sort of bullshit people use to sell books. So how do you live your dreams? I was on the edge of my seat to find out.

First, they had the actor / writer / comedian who left his job as *VP of Time Warner* because he didn’t like the direction his life was headed.  Now, it’s all well and good for someone with VP money to one day decide to fuck it, and focus on writing, but how exactly do regular people do that? He got the idea to quit while he was having lunch with someone about a pilot he’d been working on. Next time I do a pilot, I’ll remember that. 

The other guest living her dreams was once a trader on Wall St. by day, a law student by night, and got by on 4 hours of sleep. So already I know she’s some kind of Type-A nutjob. Now she bakes cookies and sells them in those gift tins you buy for the Secret Santa party at Christmas.

The first step to living your dreams is asking yourself what you enjoy doing, and then identifying a career including those. For example, do you like helping people? I don’t particularly. I like going out to restaurants. I like colorful drinks. I like watching Lost and Torchwood. Going shopping. Driving on the PCH for no reason. Art projects. Pointless blogs. Magazines. Books about royalty. Staring out windows. Listening to music. Taking pictures. So it would seem I am ideally suited for … I don’t know, maybe writing some bullshit book about how other people can improve themselves.

Do you ever feel like moments of your life are like scenes from a movie? It could be as simple as a certain glimpse around a corner, or a snippet of some furtive conversation. I look at the walk down a long hallway, the nonchalant stance in the elevator, the tightly wrapped coat hurrying past the jacaranda trees at night, or the drive through the lonely desert… Moments I’m recording, but unable to string together into a cohesive narrative. All of these scenes, for a story that doesn’t exist. Does that happen to everyone, or is that just me?

First day at the office after my “vacation”. It’s always hard to get back into the swing of things after being away. I rather liked not going to work- I made progress on some art projects, started writing on my blog again, did some around-the-house tasks I’d been putting off… basically all the things I never have time to do when I come home at night and pour a glass of Jack Daniels.

I often think about the paths we don’t take in life. In a parallel universe, I’m a stay at home non-mom and I don’t have to wake up at 7. Hell, I could be married and divorced by now, living in some big house I didn’t have to pay for. What a racket!