victoria_lane

"If you accept a limiting belief, then it will become a truth for you."

-- Louise Hay

Another significant day in the battle to get what I want out of life started early this morning.  Watching pieces snap into place, knowing that I did it with sheer force of will and an unwillingness to settle, is incredibly satisfying.

But it doesn’t take long for the next demand to pop into my head.

However, by July I expect to be in a place where even though my drive to accomplish things will still exist, I will be content enough with what I have that I will start to enjoy life again.

Until then, dissatisfaction is the gas fueling my every waking moment.

I will have what I want once more and I will not let it go once I am there.

"You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The noir script is finally in a place where I have started to show pieces of it to people.  I haven’t heard anything bad but I also haven’t had anyone seem all that moved by it either.  I suppose that’s better than it being flat out terrible. But, then, the lack of real response could be politeness covering up the fact that it isn’t good.  Who knows? 

For me, though, it’s very real. I think about it constantly and move pieces around as well as puzzle through how to give life to all the details so they are plausible.  I can move in and out of the headspace without laboring.  It occupies actual space in my thoughts.   It’s taken a long time to get to this point.

I know what I have here has a lot of potential.  I also know that one wrong move can render it cheesy, preachy or just plain awful.  All I can do is what any savvy creative does… make something I’d want to see.  If it strikes a chord with me, I won’t be alone.

I have been getting these very strange phone calls from spoofed numbers all over the US for a year now.  Sometimes, they are from a recording.  Sometimes, the caller has a very thick Pakistani/Indian accent.  But they all usually contain at least one completely illegal element.  And that is why I haven’t fallen for any of them.

Just this past week, I spent time researching the numbers.  Thankfully, the internet is ripe with shared experiences so I was able to track down a stunning new financial scam that is so sophisticated, I bet it’s lucrative.

Apparently, with a social security number and some basic information, anyone can ask for any credit report they want.  With this information, these groups of scammers set up aggressive and elaborate networks to go after any debts and bully people into paying them off.  They will call twenty times a day.  They will call your family members or friends.  The thing is,.. you aren’t paying the people you owe,  You are paying internet grifters, often international ones, which means they are nearly impossible to go after.

In my case, these geniuses were going after a debt that was already taken care of so I knew right away it was garbage.  Further, they called at all hours, made threats that were completely illegal and called (sometimes five times in a row) with clearly spoofed numbers from all over the US. I had one day where they called every twenty minutes.

Be really careful what information you give out on the internet. I was stupid and applied for a loan a few years back.  Those loan sites will give your information to a network and not all those in that network are legal. 

“To be authentic is literally to be your own author … to discover your own native energies and desires, and then to find your own way of acting on them.”

-- Warren G. Bennis

This week is not going according to anyone’s plan.  My day gig was supposed to begin but the place is still not finished being built and the latest inspection resulted in issues.  Promises made by certain people ended up being a bunch of hot air. 

Purgatory continues.

It isn’t all bad. rochellestarr is getting married in Vegas, which ought to be all sorts of crazy.  And I was selected for a super kitschy art photography project that will result in a gallery showing. 

I’m not entirely sure what to do, though. I am terrible at waiting when I have little to go on.  I am beyond ready for the fast lane again.

"There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life."

-- Frederico Fellini

How fitting that Friday the 13th is my final day of total freedom before I resume a somewhat normal schedule with obligations beyond my own machinations.  I have been waiting for this so I can figure out a new routine.  I do better with limited time on my hands and a full schedule than I do with having these huge swathes of time.  Pressure and I get along fantastically.  And the results are splendid.

Mostly, I want to be too damn busy to notice what is going on around me with such great detail.  It depresses me. Well, human beings depress me, but that’s not news for any of you. 

“To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.”

-- Lao Tzu

It absolutely poured last night. I was up for most of it listening to the deluge outside my window.  Sleep wasn’t happening. I blame the bizarre march of hours that made up Tuesday.  I felt unsettled by a number of situations as well as what I was seeing within some of those circumstances. ‘

I haven’t written a single word this week on the script.  I can’t seem to focus on it. I am too distracted by other things that haven’t come together in this past month.  Mostly, all the pictures from events and charity events that have popped up wherein I look… well…. out of shape.  In Hollywood, this is how eating disorders are born.  Thankfully, I am aware that I can deal with it myself.  It’s not terribly out of control.  It requires six weeks, which is nothing.  But I have to start and then commit. 

Before I get a bunch of comments about how I look fine and blah blah blah, this isn’t about what you think. It never has been.  I don’t care about outside opinions of my appearances.  This is about pleasing myself and having fun being a woman.  I like the way clothing drapes on a fit body, particularly mine. 

And, more to the point, if I am about to do a feature length film, I want to not be distracted by how I appear on camera so I can focus on the work.  It’s going to be a lot of money poured into one place.  I don’t want to have regrets that could have been easily addressed. 

I’d like to get back to the point where I am either getting up and going straight to the gym or having a dire sense of obligation about it until I make time for it before I call it a day.

This is another morning page, isn’t it?

“You never will be the person you can be if pressure, tension and discipline are taken out of your life.”

-- James G. Bilkey

I have several drafts of that elusive one woman show but nothing works for more than ten minutes.  I’d have to fill an hour.  Someone suggested I take all the pieces and put them together but that makes no sense.  A one woman sketch show is not my idea of a good time. 

I have no idea how to go about building something like this.  And all the people telling me to do it haven’t indicated WHY or what they think I should be making of this. Nor do I have any form of support in this phase of a project of this nature. I think I have to abandon it and focus on the film noir.  I know how to do that. I know how to write that story and how to translate it to film.  My entire life has been a slow build to be capable of not only doing that but doing it well.

The biggest hurdle I have to navigate at the moment beyond finishing this writing is finding the DP who can shoot what I see in my head.  And that’s not easy.  Every time I put out a call for a DP and mention this is an indie project, I get all sorts of arrogant submissions demanding huge pay rates coupled with a total lack of connection to the project itself.  They are like hired guns, often with no talent, looking to milk a production for all it has to pay rent and live the fast lane Hollywood lifestyle that is truly the focus of their career.

I believe, however, in the synergy of what I  am creating.  Eventually, a connection will happen.

“The gesture is the thing truly expressive of the individual – as we think so will we act.”

-- Martha Graham

I’m not sure how it happened but apparently my self imposed sequestering has been taken as a personal assault or shunning by someone.  I have been drowning in my own discontent, desperately looking for the smallest sliver of light to warm my chilling heart, yet all of this has been about dissing someone else?  Human beings are so fucking ridiculous. 

Stuff like this just makes me even more comfortable with my decision to disconnect entirely.  It may be lonely at times but it is far less stupid.  I’m tired of having to be the adult and always be thoughtful of other people’s insecurities or quirks yet not allowed to have any of that basic leeway.  It’s so one-sided.  It indicates a real lack of affection.  And that vacuum of gesture speaks volumes to me.

I am trying to restore bliss and creative prosperity in my life.  A friend would understand and support that. Not whine about how they feel pushed aside or dropped.

It isn’t as if I haven’t put out enough signals that I am in a bad place.  I’ve fucking said it in no uncertain terms. 

Help me, give me the room to fix it myself or get the fuck out of my way.

But don’t make this about you.

It isn’t.

We acquire the strength we have overcome.”

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

We spent the weekend laying the foundation for the future we want.  __wolverine__ finally bought a wireless tablet that he can use in combination with our smart televisions so he can work on the projects he’s been dreaming about since I first met him.  He also snagged a music producer’s laptop full of programs we can both make use of for our separate projects.  In order to set it all up, a great deal of work needed to be done.  And a ton of unnecessary or broken material needed to be tossed.  Two artists in one space accumulate a lot of ‘stuff’ in the process of creating.

For me, the goal has been decluttering our live/work space so there is more living going on.  I think my discussion about sacred space has finally made sense to him.  I’ve spent a year making our bedroom into a literal shrine of serenity and fantasy.  It’s the Vixen Cave I refer to in my writing.  I have strict rules for that oasis.  But the sacred space needs to spread.  As much as I’d like to, one cannot spend all the time in bed.  It’s all about that elusive balance.

I desperately miss our balcony.  It’s going to require a tremendous amount of work to restore. My poor little noir lamppost has been toppled over since the last wind storm and left there to lean haphazardly. It’s been neglected for so long.  I want to go out here to drink coffee in the morning or blow bubbles in the evening. 

"What you bring forth out of yourself from the inside will save you. What you do not bring forth out of yourself from the inside will destroy you."

-- Gospel of Thomas

New tech and tools are entering our lives at Chez Schulz-Lane.  It is in perfect harmony with the tenants of Spring; planting seeds and hoping for a prosperous future harvest.  Both of us have reached a point of being beyond tired of not only working for other people with crap wages as payment but having to do so with the most ridiculous amount of unnecessary procedure if not blatant disrespect for our contributions.  American business culture leaves much to be desired, much like American culture as a whole.  We are in sync with a great many things, something that happened quite unexpectedly and without discussion of any sort.

Much to both my dismay and relief, I have one more week to myself to get anything done I want to before I have a little bit of responsibility again.  It’s been a rollercoaster month full of intoxicating highs and deep, dark lows. Between writing and being alone for hours at a time as well as sorting through the lessons of these past few years through meditation, I feel undefined.  It’s been difficult to view that as a positive.  It has also conjured all sorts of long forgotten memories. 

The human mind is a haunted house once you get to a certain age.  It’s full of abandoned, half decorated rooms, murmuring ghosts and cobwebby hallways that lead to nothing. Ignoring it is a mistake.  Embracing it, however, is no small feat.

I’m straining for balance while I have the luxury of time to do nothing but focus on that. Putting my own goals and desires first should be easy but we are all conditioned from an early age to react to survival in the US. It’s part of the control mechanism that keeps us in our places, blinded from reality and dependent upon a system that kills souls to keep them docile.  Being an artist is ‘irresponsible’ and ‘selfish.’ 

I’d also like to get to a point where I am blogging again rather than creating carefully edited morning pages with no content of consequence for anyone but myself or those deluded fools out there who think they can analyze me through social media.