Mind Adventures

"The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size." Oliver Wendell Holmes

Things have been mighty quiet here at Casa Del AKA, I know. I’ve been busy working hard on my screenplay Rotten Timing.

I’ve got the beginning, I’ve got the ending, I’ve got the spine and the skeleton and the structure of it all worked out. Now, I’m just trying to add muscle and meat to it - the laughs and the horror and the excitement and the drama and the tears.

Mostly, I’ve just been bouncing ideas like a messy ball inside the walls of my skull, letting them ricochet off the ganglia and coming up with wonderful things. Lots of reading, reading, reading. I try and scrape together the time to wade through the mounds of research material that I’ve accumulated, sitting quietly soaking it all up until a flare gun blasts inspiration into the darkness, lighting up the corners that hold things that I never knew were hiding there. This starts a bout of frantic scribbling, before the cycle begins anew with another round of reading.

I’ve been avoiding fiction since I jumped back into this project. Other people’s ideas leak into my own too easily that way, and its best avoided. Instead, I’m mired in quantum physics and determinism and the teachings of Buddha.

Other than that, work is kicking my ass. Getting out of this job has become a priority. It’s become soul destroying. The only thing that gets me through it is the knowledge that I will be back home with my family at the end of the day. Buttercup continues to be an endless source of pleasure and delight. If I’m lucky, I get home in time to read her a Mr. Men story before she goes to sleep, and then we sit and talk about the story for a couple of minutes before I tuck her up in bed.

This morning, I was heading for the door and I could hear her calling me. I went to see what she wanted.

Buttercup: Daddy! Daddy!
Me: Yes, Baby.
Buttercup: I want to play with you, Daddy.
Me: I want to play with you too, darling, but I have to go to work.

She throws her arms around my neck and gives me a big hug. I give her a kiss and disentangle her before placing her back in her mother’s arms. I’m leaving all this for a four hour round-trip commute and eight hours of being ignored or mistreated in the middle of a concrete wasteland?

Walking out of the front door, the cold wind dried my damp eyes.