Mentalechoes

I finally reached a point where I figured I was just getting too intense for myself. Having a bad acid trip will probably do that to you, so I am not so surprised where that thought come from. But I’ve decided that I’m not going to keep writing self absorbed shit anymore. I’m going to write more about life the way I see it day to day, and use this blog as a place to practice and refine my writing skills. I see funny stuff everyday being a foreigner in a foreign land, and some of it really makes for entertaining writing.

But first I am going to take some time out of myself. Or should I say a bit more time out since I haven’t written here for just over a week now.

Sometimes you just have to know when to let it all go!

Padwanna!

The Wild Turkey shots are still running strong after dinner, and I feel better than I’ve felt in a couple of weeks. Dave came around for a visit tonight, probably the last time I’ll see him for a few months as he is taking off for Canada next wednesday to spend 3 months snowboarding over the winter.

Strangely enough, having Dave come around and tell me about his plans to go away and go snowboarding, was exactly the kind of lift that I have needed. Dave is the kind of guy that just goes and does the stuff he wants, rather than getting bogged down in a mundane life. Totally opposite to me really. But I didn’t really see it before. I spend my whole day bogged down in mundane details of a corporate life that I take far too seriously. Being so close to problems that you forget there is more to life than just those things that cause you stress.

Sitting here writing this blog, it starts to become clear, that which I have been looking for the last couple of weeks (perhaps months). Our minds, if left to run in the routine of a mundane life, becomes boxed in, unable to think beyond the boundaries of daily grind. When this happens, we start to lose our passion for life, and our imagination and creativity. We stop dreaming dreams and we stop believing that we can acheive them. Not straight away, but slowly over time. A slow fading away to obscurity.

Dreams are what gives us our motivation to move through the days, but it is the act of chasing our dreams that gives us excitement in our lives. Real excitement! Not the kind of excitement you have watching a horror movie.

Life is not a spectator sport! Any of us can live an exciting life, all it takes is to step out of the box we live in, and follow the trail of stars in our eyes!

Goddamn… there are so many stars when you take the blindfolds off!

Padwanna.

As I sit here going into my third straight hour listening to really shit hot tunes on the ETN.FM Progressive Channel (find it on search on shoutcast), I find my thoughts coming together on the year ahead (now that I am 9 days into my new year).

-1- Buy more cool music! I really lurv good electronic music, but the last few years I have honestly not added anything to my collection.

-2- Start the design work for a major flat renovation for the summer. My place is still stuck back in a relationship era from 3 years ago. Time to change it!

-3- Stop, starting and stopping with things like exercise routines, screenplays, trashy romance novels, graphic novel scripts, publishing company ideas, and just do them! Completing something is worth ten thousand starts and stops.

-4- Make a bigger effort to talk to friends. And make a much bigger effort to see and spend time with friends who are close enough to spend time with.

-5- Start treating the finance and administration more like a serious part of my life, rather than a neglected pet.

-6- Make time for more interesting stuff in life; like getting out and going to cool places, with good friends. I feel like I didn’t do anything last year.

-7- Stop worrying about useless shit!

-8- Give up self destructive behaviour.

-9- Learn how to cook well.

-10- Have more sex.

Padwanna!

Still feeling so fucking unmotivated for life, I am starting to wonder if I am clinically hopeless!

If it persists in a week I am going to go to the doctor and ask him to put me on a course of strong prescription drugs that will motivate me to be a winner!

Padwanna!

I called up the bank today to organise a small line of credit to pay for a new hot water (slash) central heating system today, and before I had made the call I was a bit worried if they would loan me the money. I am not really a rich person, and I thought perhaps they might make a bit of a hoo-hah about it. But all my worries were for naught because as it turns out, banks love putting you in debt, and will do everything they can to convince you debt is good. My conversation with the nice loan officer chick went something like this.

Me: Hello I’d like to borrow one thousand three hundred euro please to pay for my new hot water (slash) central heating system installation.
Nice Loan Officer Girl: Certainly sir, let me first ask you some questions. Do you currently bank with us?
Me: Yes I do, I have two bank accounts.
NLOG: Would you like another one with your loan? (It must be the ‘do you want fries’ equivalent in the banking world)
Me: No just the loan will be fine.
NLOG: Do you have permanent employment?
Me: Yes I do (and I provide the details).
NLOG: Alright and how much do you want to borrow?
Me: Umm… well is it alright if I borrow one thousand three hundred euros… please?
NLOG: Well I will just do a quick credit check.
… some tapping of keys in the background… and me biting my fingernails…
NLOG: (She sounds very happy now)… Mr McDowell are you sure you only want one thousand three hundred euros? Because we would be very happy to loan you twenty seven thousand eight hundred euros!
Me: Holy shit!!! Are you serious?!
NLOG: Pardon me.
Me: Never mind! No just one thousand three hundred euro will be fine.
NLOG: But the interest rate is the highest on trivial amounts. I would advise you to take a line of credit for at least two thousand five hundred euro.
Me: Well… (some silence as I think about it)…
NLOG: Actually taking five thousand is even cheaper.
Me: It’s okay, I will take the two thousand five hundred option.
NLOG: Very well. But if you change your mind and you want more please don’t hestitate to call up and ask me… for up to twenty seven thousand eight hundred euro. We will have your contract in two days. Have a nice afternoon.

So now the bank owns me… to the tune of two and a half grand. And all the while they smiled as I signed in blood (figuratively speaking) and promised them my eternal soul.

At this point, I couldn’t care less if it means a new hot water (slash) central heating system! Because by god, my place will be a frozen hell in but a few short weeks if I don’t get that contraption installed.

How easily we prostitute ourselves in the name of staying warm and comfy in the European winter! I am such a slut!

Padwanna!

There are two types of people in this world.

There are those people who raise their lives to meet their expectations. And there are those people who lower their expectations to meet their lives.

We each choose for ourselves which one we are.

Padwanna.

I was just checking out the latest bunch of stats on how many people visited my blog daily over the last week – when I hardly wrote bugger all – and it appears a small devoted few of you keep coming back to read rantings of mine on a regular basis (that’s really a lot of R words). You know that really makes me feel rather special to know people out there either -1- like what I write, -2- don’t like what I write but read it anyway, or -3- don’t know what to make out of any of it, but feel it’s better than working.

Now that I know that I have a regular little readership, I finally have found some motivation to do useful stuff, especially being a bit more active in my blog writing. And right after I just finished whinging about how I have no motivation to do bugger all too. Isn’t life ironic!

Well anyway, here is a big heartfelt thanks to those of you regulars that visit me often. It’s youse that keep me motivated to write, and be creative.

One day I will write a screenplay where you are all in it, and we can all become famous. Like some kind of slasher film (like Scream) where this killer is killing off the regular readers of a blog and leaves comments about it. You know that’s not half bad actually, except it’s been done already in a loose kind of way, (and you are all really too nice to have killed in a blood splattering way . This is it, so maybe not a slasher film then. Okay, so maybe a love story, something like You’ve Got Mail meets… another online romance. Titles of which totally elude me right now because I don’t think I’ve ever seen one. A thriller could also be good. Making a thriller out of a blog could be quite cool. Bourne Identity meets Jumping Jack Flash. Or not!

I figure with how popular blogging is, and how many crappy scripts get made in Hollywood, this could be a good opportunity to sell a screenplay and be able to afford a new central heating system for next winter!

Padwanna.

Jez Man… if I get any fucking lazier I swear I’ll stop breathing because I just couldn’t be arsed with the effort!

Maybe it has something to do with the massive hangover I was suffering from yesterday. Yeah well, in part that’s true, but it’s also part of a cycle that I am trying to break out of; being totally full-on with stuff, and then being totally bone lazy after the frenzy peters out. I’ve been busy doing a lot of different things, and now the lazy gland has kicked in, and I can feel that I have zip motivation to do anything requiring effort. (Though I can write this blog, but only because I was here at the computer in the first place).

Is that what menopause is? Maybe I am going through the male version of menopause… 20 years early. Is it a midlife crisis? How does something like that affect you anyway? I thought a male midlife crisis made you go out and buy motorbikes and start dating chicks 20 years younger than you, and get hair transplants. Right well I guess it’s not a midlife crisis. Maybe it’s me just being lazy.

I wish mum was a bit closer. When I was a kid, she always used to give me a kick up the arse if I was being lazy and get me moving if I was slothing around too much. Girlfriends are good for that too. Maybe I need a girlfriend. Okay, lets look for one.

*types in girlfriends in google, and clicks I’m feeling lucky*

And this what came back

Hmmm… well I guess I’ll take that as a cosmic sign that this is not the time to find a girlfriend. Maybe it is a sign I should become a lesbian. Do you have to be a female to be a lesbian, or is it like… a state of mind? Sort of like being a hippie.

Couldn’t even be arsed cooking dinner tonight. I also couldn’t be arsed calling for a pizza. There is raw packet spaghetti in the cupboard. Maybe I could chew on some stalks of that for a while and pretend they’re cheese crackers.

Well I won’t give in to my laziness, like I do every other time. I’ll do 30 minutes of cleaning up around the flat, and then I will sit down and write some more of my fabulously original and funny screenplay.

Or I am going to lie down on the couch and contemplate doing those things with the television on.

Lazy, lazy, lazy!

Padwanna.