If You'll Just Fill This Out In Triplicate

A month or so ago I made a semi-conscious decision to start writing more. Upon reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, I wanted to reflect on my day-to-day state, and to see if keeping a journal would make me any likelier to focus on the positive. I haven't noticed any increase in positive feelings so far, but I have noticed that I'm more aware of expressing negative ones. Oh, I'm no Pollyanna, but I'm starting to choose my words more carefully in some settings, and phrase things the way I'd like to actually feel them.

This is mostly applicable to work, as one might imagine. It's been a challenge - summer is always busy, and with the database conversion and our abrupt loss of a staffperson we're all tense and unable to get everything done. My biggest problem is that, like a senior in her last semester of high school, I'm beginning to lose interest. I know I'm moving on. I know the new systems and projects won't benefit me. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it's making me lazy.



But as an adult, and one with stronger-than-average ties to my workplace, I'm ashamed of this urge. I can't slack off in good conscience, but I find myself lacking energy not to; so I'm slacking off and feeling bad about it afterward. And all the bad feeling gets stuffed down into a bigger jeans size with all the food I've been putting away. So I'm looking for something positive to focus on, something fun and challenging and not too time-consuming.

Hilariously, that something appears to be another blog. Seems like a pretty stupid choice when I recollect that I've only written 19 entries in this blog within the span of more than a year. But the new blog is topical. It's something Marisa and I have discussed for awhile, which is that we as entertainment industry geeks get frustrated by the stupid decisions made by the studios. If only we could run the biz! Of course the two of us would run television into the ground, since all the programming would be cult-and-critical favorites, the kind of stuff we love, and there would be absolutely no According to Jim episodes, ever, under any circumstances. Movies might fare better, but there would be a lot of big stars that would be immediately SOL.

But sometimes I think we actually have pretty good ideas, and for whatever silly pipe-dream reason I want to remember them, write them down somewhere, and collaborate in a more lasting format than marathon phone calls. So I created the Hollywood Suggestion Box, a blog that allows us to write about all the things we wish we could make happen.

As a result of that blog, and my ongoing daily journal efforts (though those run scarcely more than a paragraph most days), I feel like this blog will be even harder to keep up. After all, this one doesn't have a theme, and I always feel like I need to express things in some profound(ish) way because there's the possibility, if not the reality, of an audience. I'll do my best to post the major things - events, big moving- or job-related news, particularly good photos or recipes or what have you. But for now I've gotta come up with my next move in playing Movie God.

And scene.