You'd think I'd get tired of always being right.

Ok, so when I started all of this, I knew in the back of my head, despite all of my good intentions, that this would likely fall by the wayside in no time. I knew that I would be gung-ho about blogging, about writing in general, and about sharing creative space with friends and family. We actually all kept it up for a while, much to my surprise. I suppose life gets in the way, though, and other things become a priority.

That's the thing, though. For most of the last year, I have had little to no priorities. I had no job, no relationship, no life, pretty much. I sat around, watched a lot of tv, searched the same few job websites way too much, and just generally did nothing. The logical person would assume this meant lots of time for blogging, writing, journaling, and creativity in general. Sure, being laid off did afford me time to do all of those things, but I couldn't bring myself to blog about my life. Here's how it would have gone:

Got up at 10 today. Ok, maybe it was 11. Had some lunch, surfed some job web sites, watched Gilmore Girls.

That's seriously what a typical day looked like for "Lay Off Sandi." Who in their right mind would ever read anything like that? Why would I want to write it? To make myself feel worse? No, I decided that until I had something to write about, I was not going to write anything at all.

Isn't it funny how I could make that rule and stick to it, but "Stop eating junk food" falls by the wayside after a day?

I don't really have a huge lot of things to write about, because with the one exception of getting a job, my life is pretty much as boring as the above statement; I just get up much earlier. I had signed up for a Creative Writing class at MUN, and was really looking forward to getting those proverbial creative juices flowing. I knew I had some good ideas, I just needed a little prodding to unleash them. The class was cancelled due to lack of interest. Come on, wannabe writers! There's got to be a few more of you guys out there somewhere!

In lieu of the class, I vowed to write something every week. I gave myself homework, as it were. I would either journal, blog, or work on some stories. So far, it's been going pretty well. I have started a short story, I've at least re-read a few I've already started in the hopes I'll pick them up again, and have even written some haikus. Don't look at me like that. Haikus are fun.

I was talking about this with The Friends, NL Edition, AKA, Tracey and Dave. They are not to be confused with The Friends, Ottawa Edition, or Susanne, Frank and Paul. Tracey and Dave have also shown an interest in blogging and writing, so we three decided we would write something and get together semi-regularly to present it and discuss it. Well, we gave ourselves our first assignment, but have sadly not been able to get together for the review. I have four pages of a short story to show them. If it doesn't totally suck, I'll post it here.

As well, I've toyed with the idea of a personal blog. I love the idea of it, and it will be fun and cathartic to write about what I'm feeling or what's happening to me, but I am really afraid it's just going to be a whiny complain-fest, and no one wants to read that. I've got a few entries written, though, and I like them so far. I'll update this blog and Facebook with details if I set this up.

Here's a haiku, just for fun:

Go see my new blog.
I swear it won't be whiny.
Hopefully, you'll laugh.

All I Have To Do Is Dream

I always used to be so envious of those people who remembered their dreams. I mean, it isn’t as though I didn’t sleep enough to have dreams! Everyone who knows me knows I’m quite a fan of the late-morning lie-in. I just never had those dreams where I would wake up and think, “Hmm. A unicorn flew down from heaven and gave me a jelly donut. What does that mean?”

If I did remember my dreams, they would be quite literal. If I had an exam, the night before I would dream that I missed it, went to the wrong room, studied the wrong subject, or something similar. I would dream about work, or watching tv or something like that. I actually have had dreams where I was sitting at my work desk, my phone rang, and I answered it. A customer would ask me for a serial number, I would give it to him, and that would be it. Imaginative, no?

I had friends with dream diaries and dream books so they could decipher what the various strange details of their nighttime reveries meant. Who was the strange man in the corner? Why did they go through the red door? It all had some hidden meaning. Me? I got customer calls. I don’t think the dream book had much to say about that.

Lately, though, I have been having strange dreams. I don’t always remember them, but details do stick out in my mind. I had one dream recently, where 5 numbers kept flashing in front of my eyes. I don’t know what they meant in the dream I was having, but you’d better believe I played the lotto that week. Needless to say, I didn’t win anything, but it certainly was worth a shot. My theory on that is that 6-49 and Super 7 requires you to choose 6 and 7 numbers respectively, so after playing my 5 supposedly prophetic numbers, I would have to play other numbers at random. Which ones do I pick? It’s a bit of a conundrum.

Last week, I had a dream about a web site I created. Yes, I know, yet another exciting and obscure dream. I dreamt that I created a web site where people would submit their writing to me, whether it be poems, short stories, general musings, and I would post them. I would contact publishers or the publishers would contact me and we would work to get them published. I saw the website in such fine detail, it was weird. I had such a great feeling about what it represented and what I was doing. Since I have been thinking about doing something like this in real life, there’s no surprise I dreamt about it.

I’ve been wondering a lot lately about how it would be to work in Publishing. It would satisfy my crazy, Grammar Nazi ways as well as nourishing the writer in me. I would love to be a part of making someone’s dreams of becoming a published writer come true. So, you’re saying to yourself, get off your arse and apply for some publishing jobs, Stupid! Well, sure, that only makes sense, but I do lack certain necessary qualifications for said publishing jobs, like an English degree, or any experience in the industry. I don’t see my in-depth knowledge of Corel product part numbers as helpful to me in this endeavour.

So, I’ve been thinking about turning our humble blog into some sort of hub for my writer/photog/artist/musician friends. I would love for it to become more. I don’t know what the ‘more’ means yet, but I would love it to be something akin to my dream, where we could turn our writing into actual published work. There are many details to consider and work out, but I think it’s worth a try. A few of us Noseworthys have written blog posts about the lack of creative jobs and having to consider ‘regular’ jobs and be a writer on the side. Well, we could also take matters into our own hands and make something happen. No one’s going to come knocking on our door unless we put ourselves out there.

Soon, I’ll be emailing friends and acquaintances who would have something to offer our little blog, and hopefully, we can begin to post their work here too. I’ll get the siblings to do the same, and maybe we can start our own little community of creative people. It seemed to work in my dream! Hopefully I can make this one dream come true.

I also have this recurring dream where a very close friend of mine shoots me in the head. What do you think that means? Look that one up in your dream books!!

Punch It, Chewie!

When I was a kid, I loved being on stage or in front of people. I didn’t really get terribly nervous about dance recitals or school plays. I seemed to be able to just shut out most of the worry and fear of what may go wrong and just perform. Mom may remember that differently, but I don’t recall being particularly nervous.

I would usually be the one thrust in front in dance shows, partly because I did tend to remember the routines quite well, and also because I would smile and perform. I’m not saying I was a fantastic dancer or anything, but I would look as though I was enjoying myself on stage. I remember being told that I was like this from dance teachers and also from a school teacher of mine whose sister was in my dance school. He would make a point of telling me how much he enjoyed the dance I was in, and that I was smiling and having fun throughout. Once, he even did this while I was with a girl from my dance class, and he didn’t say anything at all to her. She was pissed.

I liked reading aloud in class, and I liked being asked to take on special tasks. I loved being the announcer at church, I loved being on the radio in university. While my stomach would be doing flip-flops, I still did enjoy playing in a big hockey or soccer game, or being asked to referee a playoff or a final. I knew that I could handle it.

Now, though, I seem to have forgotten all of that. I forgot the confidence I had when it came to being in front of a crowd or performing something. I have an almost crippling fear that I’d mess up, look like a moron, or just plain fail. I don’t want to be in situations where I have to talk or present in front of people. I feel almost like I’m going to throw up when I’m forced to do anything about it.

I don’t know when that switch was flicked, so to speak. I can’t put my finger on when all of this mattered to me so much. I worry that if I write something and put it out there for people to read that they’ll laugh, or think I’m stupid, or not read it. I can’t even be silly in front of my friends, for God’s sake! Whenever I’m in a position to be silly, like on my podcast, I can’t do it. My mind is working overtime and I stress over whether or not I’m funny or interesting or smart. I can’t tell myself that sometimes, people just won’t like you, or that not everything out of my mouth has to be comedy gold. That doesn’t seem to be good enough for me.

I have some friends that don’t mind sacrificing a little dignity to get a laugh or a reaction. I am so envious of them and their carefree attitude. I’ll never be the “look at me, look at me!” type, but I would love to be able to make a pratfall, growl like Chewbacca or sing out loud in public and not care about what other people are thinking.

This may be something that happens to everyone as they get older; who knows. You would think it would be the opposite, that when you start to get older, you give less and less of a crap about how others looked at you. Old people don’t seem to give a rat’s ass what they say, how they say it, or if they fart in a crowded room. In the end, who cares? They aren’t hurting anyone, really.

So, I am saying it here, I am not going to care so much anymore about what I say, how I say it, and who hears it. Of course, I’m not going to start walking around hurling racial slurs or derogatory comments at people, but my fear of someone thinking I’m stupid should not be enough to curtail my creativity or sense of fun. There will always be detractors, in fact, I’m sure there are people out there who don’t like me already. Hell, the internet is nothing but message boards full of people who hate everyone and everything. I, myself, have posted comments about people or movies or tv shows that I don’t care for. But, people listened to comments like that, no one would make music, tv shows or movies!

This is years and many layers to get through, people, so don’t expect me to do a complete 180, but I will try. Silly Sandi has been unleashed. Ask me about my Chewie impression.