Eagle-eyed readers could probably tell that my heart hasn't been into this for a while, and there's a reason why: I realize it just doesn't fit me anymore. Blogging every thought, every intimate detail of my life, has been a part of me for more than ten years now. And it was a truly tremendous thing on a lot of levels. It opened me up - personally and creatively - and taught me to not be afraid of the monsters in my closet. Rather, I learned to exploit them for my needs, whatever those might be at any given time.

But my tastes are changing, my desires are shifting, and I'm finding I want to take the things I would normally put here and use them in other ways, in other venues - and in some cases, not exploit them at all. So that's what I'm gonna do. The blog will probably stay here until I do a redesign, but once the new storefront goes up, it'll be gone.

Before I completely shut the doors, though, I wanted to take one last kick at the cat to say thanks to those who have continued to read throughout the years. It's been cool to have a collaborative partner in this thing, both people who felt comfortable enough to comment on the site, and those who preferred to e-mail me directly and have a dialogue that way. I appreciate it.

Here's to future endeavors. Rock on.
Carly

* I have mixed feelings about my trip to India. It's interesting to go to a place and have expectations, but also not have expectations (if that makes any sense, which I'm sure it doesn't.) I didn't go expecting to have an Elizabeth Gilbert-style awakening, but after hearing so much about how - despite the in-your-faceness of the poverty and whatnot - it was really a friendly and beautiful country, I was hoping for... I don't know. A sense of peace, maybe? Looking back, I've never been in a spot where I've felt both welcomed and hated so much at the same time. Some people really were genuinely awesome and taught me a lot, while others reacted with revulsion and, at times, anger (I was punched in the arm by a random passer by during a rickshaw ride through Old Delhi.) I spoke with my doctor about this after I came home, and she said, "Never expect anything from India because it will always kick your ass, even when you don't expect anything." Which I found interesting. Equally as interesting to me was her follow up comment: "When I came home from India the first time I thought, 'That's some place I never need to go to again.' But that's where people need medical help, and so I continue to go.'" (In short, my doc is awesome - she's launched a worldwide non-profit of doctors offering medical care to people all over the world.)

* Comic Con was a blur. Literally. I don't ever want to do anything like that ever again on the heels of the worst bout of food poisoning I've ever had in my life. I'd say it was a mistake to go so soon after, but I was able to experience some fantastic things, meet some amazing people, and do some wonderful interviews with inspiring creatives, and I really didn't want to miss out on all that. I just wish I didn't feel like hell the entire time. There were days where I felt on the ball, and others where I was so off that I think people thought I was costumed as a zombie. I actually gave up early and drove home Saturday night. That said, seeing the fan passion, exhibitors and witnessing people geek out over the coolest things was well worth the gastrointestinal distress. (Here's all my coverage from it.)

* I finished another script this past week that knocked the hell out of me, but thankfully I've learned some useful tricks that made my recovery time take only a couple days rather than nearly a month this time out. I spent much of the past week feeling wonky until I gave in to a two-day creative coma, where I spent my time napping, watching copious amounts of Lost and napping some more. By Sunday morning's hike I was ready to run a marathon. I find it interesting how much a script can suck the life out of me, especially when I open up an emotional vein... and man, did I open a vein on this one. I started working out the hardest part of it when I was on a girl getaway trip with Retta up in Mammoth, and it wasn't until we started YouTubing questionable television memories from my Canadian childhood that I was able to pull myself out of the void I was in when I was writing. Even so, I'm endlessly thankful I can go that deep... and also find a way out of it to go back to being the happy person that I am.

* Of course I have to share some of my idiotic childhood TV memories with you (and I feel as though this should explain A LOT about me):

This is the classic that is The Hilarious House of Frightenstein. This clip is of Wolfman Jack, who would routinely play music that he and Igor would dance and air guitar to on a psychedelic background:

This show was fucking genius on so many levels, and not just because it was clearly created and executed by hardcore drug users. Seriously, watch the associated videos - especially the ones with The Oracle, SuperHippie, and the Grammar Bammer Slammer. And bear in mind this was a kid's show. Someone needs to release the entire series on DVD, stat.

Then there was The Polka Dot Door:

For the record, Polkaroo clearly went through some kind of sex change between when I used to watch it and 1986 - Polkaroo sounds way more feminine than I remember. And though it's not embeddable, I love this clip, which led Retta to ask me countless times what I'm up to with my wagon. (It was funny to us, but then, we'd had wine.)

Of course I couldn't resist the Fraggle Rock theme, and my favorite Canadian cartoon short, "The Cat Came Back" (not the Fred Penner version):

I refrained from showing her the "Log Driver's Waltz" or my absolute favorite of all time, "The Big Snit":

Seriously - who comes up with this stuff? (And does anyone remember the one with the dude who is trying to compose on his piano, but procrastinates the hell out of himself? I love that one, but can't remember the name of it. I think it was another NFB short.)

And last but not least, Today's Special, which seemed to be either a rip off of or an inspiration for Mannequin:

The less said about this, the better.

* I'm finding myself less and less interested in travel writing these days, with some exceptions to the rule. India definitely took a lot out of me, but aside from all the food poisoning drama and all that, I'm losing my taste for junkets. I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to see the places I've seen and done the things that I've done, but being on trips with others can sometimes be super draining when you're surrounded by super negative people... and there seem to be a lot of super negative travel writers, for whatever reason. I'm lucky that my last few trips have been solo ventures that allow me to bring a friend along so I can avoid this, but I'm kind of feeling like my travel writing experience is drawing to a close... which is fine by me. It was an awesome ride. But it's time to do something new.

* I've been going through a really interesting learning curve with setting boundaries and finding it's not as difficult as I thought it would be. In many ways I grew up in an environment where there was no such thing as boundaries. They almost weren't allowed in a way. So I'm not just learning about setting them, I'm teaching myself about them, too. There have been about a billion examples from my past that have made it difficult to learn how to put my foot down firmly and actually mean the word "no," and also understand that if someone continues to try and push me, or hates that I said it, or thinks that I'm a bitch for saying it... well, that's their problem and not mine. It's been a lot of trial and error, sometimes with interesting results. But I can't say I'm regretting it. Not one bit.

* This week marks 10 years ago that I moved to the U.S. and eight years ago that I moved to L.A.... and I've never been happier with this decision than I am right now. (But that's an update for another time.)

* Great change is in the wind. Can you feel it?

And now, I'm gonna go watch and review Adventureland.

Lemme back up a little - and also, clarify: it's still cool, it's just that getting food poisoning really fucking sucks. And as baffling as it may sound to those of you who know how much I've traveled - and all the wacky foods I've eaten - this is the first time I've been on the receiving end of bad food gut wrath. And I can say without a shadow of a doubt I don't ever want to experience it again.

I landed in Gurgaon in the wee hours of Monday morning India time (which meant it was around Sunday noonish in L.A.) I promptly went to bed, spend the first day hanging around the hotel, and then the real adventure began the following day when we drove into Delhi. I can say with complete honesty that after seeing how people drive in India, I will never again complain about L.A. traffic. There are lines on the road, but everyone ignores them and drives where they want to. They cut each other off. The amount of near misses in a short jaunt is staggering. And yet, miraculously, accidents are rare and there's no road rage. I have no idea how it works - I'd be at a loss at attempting to navigate their roads - but it works for them. Somehow there 's sense in the chaos.

We started out in Old Delhi, where - two by two - we were assigned rickshaw drivers who carted us through a wholesale marketplace whose streets are so narrow, cars can't fit down it. And yet somehow there are fleets of large oxen carting massive packages of junk, and people are everywhere, motorbikes fight them for space... it was mayhem, and utterly fascinating. We stopped in the spice district and checked out some goods (and yes, the smell was incredible), and then hopped back in our rickshaws to finish up our tour. I took at least a billion photos, half of which were of the electrical wiring haphazardly strung about. How there's not a massive electrical fire every day is a bloody miracle.

After lunch we visited the Gandhi memorial (marking where he was assassinated), then got suckered into a high-pressure sales experience with a family-run rug company. Thankfully it was made up for by taking us to Dilli Haat, an outdoor bazaar/market of handcrafted goods of various kinds that were incredibly reasonably priced - and bargainable. Day three took us on a five-hour road trip to Agra, where we visited the Taj Mahal (outstanding - pix don't do it justice), ate at an awesome family-run Indian food place (that also served Chinese food - we watched a Bollywood movie as we ate), and hit up the Red Fort, where we got stuck in a flash monsoon and wound up soaked to the bone. On our drive home we sampled Indian rum and pumpkin candy, then retired to our rooms to prepare for the following day's flight to Goa.

This is where the trouble began.

The hotel made arrangements for me to have sashimi sent up to my room. This isn't overly bizarre, as they have a sushi station in one of their restaurants, which specializes in delicacies from all over the world. I'd had their sashimi for lunch and dinner already, and found it to be more religious experience than meal. Their fish was flown in directly from Japan and was so melt-in-your-mouth good... just writing about it makes me want to order it again, even though it's responsible for making me have the most violent tummy trouble I've ever experienced.

Anyway. So I ordered. It had been about seven hours since I'd eaten anything before I ingested my sashimi delight, which accounts for why I plowed through it despite thinking the shrimp tasted a little strange. But I was on a mission at that point: eat followed swiftly by sleep.

The next morning? Chaos - worse than that of the driving conditions. I'll spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say, I have no idea how I managed to shower, pack and primp in my condition. Fast forward to the airport, where I was swaying uneasily as I stood in line waiting for my seat assignment, and I was getting this old, familiar feeling of maybe needing to faint - the ringing ears, everything sounding like I was underwater, my legs feeling like jelly. The last time that happened was roughly 11 years ago - and I fucking hate fainting. The helplessness of it all is more upsetting to me than the actual fainting (which, I suspect, gives me much fodder to discuss with my therapist.)

What happened next is pretty much a blur. I told one of my travel mates I was going to bite it and didn't know what to do, and then suddenly I was sitting on the floor, surrounded by people. Then I was being wheeled through the airport, feeling like I had the world's worst sunburn, barely able to hold my head up. On a bed in medical, I finally found enough energy to let tears slip out of my ducts, whereas doing so before felt like it would take too much energy. I told the doc what the trajectory of my illness was while his assistant stuck a thermometer in my armpit, then later read the reading to him: 113. Which, I think, means I should've been dead, so who knows how accurate that was. But it sure felt like death. (Cue the melodramatics!)

I was given a round of antibiotics and oral rehydration salts, and given the option of flying if I wanted to. The intense gnarliness of the fever peak that hit me in line seemed to have broken enough to leave me moderately functional, so I pushed myself to get on the plane. I slept most of the way, then went straight to bed as soon as I got to the hotel. And that's where I stayed for the next two days - in bed, watching DVDs, cuddling a hot water bottle and listening to the Arabian Sea crash outside my room.

But this hasn't soured me on my Indian experience at all. I kinda feel like - maybe naively - this is part of what travel is all about. It's experiences, both good and bad. It's a test of your mettle, your survival skills, your faith in yourself. Of course, this could be the softened optimist in me talking right now - and to be honest, I'm not yet 100%, so you might want to ask me about this once I've fully recovered in a couple days. But at the moment I'm feeling pretty blessed that I was able to get swift medical attention and awesome, 'round the clock care when I needed it, in such an amazing setting. And yeah, I'm happy to be heading home. Not because of this, or despite it. Just 'cause it's time. (It's time for a lot of things, really.)

Speaking of time, that's enough out of me for now. I'm a little light headed and I'm thinking there's gotta be some strange subtitled movie on TV that I should watch. So I'm gonna lay in bed and do that, and also pray that this bug bite on my hand doesn't develop into something life threatening.

I'm going away,
Headed off to India.
Does "jai ho" work here?

A business-class flight,
With lay-flat seats, catering.
But I won't sleep. No!

I can't wait to see
Everything I'm going to see.
Like sacred cows, man.

I didn't get shots,
So no street meat for my gut.
Damn. I like odd food.

Guragon, Delhi.
Goa has a techno scene.
Re-live the 90s!

Will see Taj Mahal,
Try ayeurvedic treatments.
Spiritual, yo.

And then, Comic Con.
Indians, then nerds abound.
Mothership? I'm home.

5. Canadian chocolate. I know that technically this falls under the header of "English chocolate" considering most of what I love is Cadbury-related, but whatever. The way I see it, it counts. Here's why I'm still obsessed with Canadian chocolate despite the US having Godiva and Choclatique and the like: because their garden-variety chocolate bars haven't got wax in them the way U.S. chocolate bars do, therefore making them creamier and yummier and all around better tasting. Which isn't to say I won't suck down a Hershey's if I'm in a pinch, but I'd much rather have a Caramilk, a Wunderbar, a Crunchie, a Mirage... mmmm. Also, Smarties kick M&M's ass all up and down the block, and anyone telling you differently is clearly selling something. Or on something.

4. The great outdoors. I spent many a family vacation either camping, staying in a cabin in the woods, or doing some natural variation thereof, and I can't help but think that it's stuck with me considering my affinity for hiking, biking and various other kinds of ings I prefer to do outdoors rather than being trapped inside at some stuffy, meat-market gym. I love the beach, I love the mountains, I can spend hours in a car en route to spending time at either or both... and though I never appreciated those trips when I was a kid, I sure as hell do now. (Hence why my 4th is being spent camping... with a bunch of actors. This oughta be good for some kind of blog fodder next week.)

3. Queen Street. I grew up in Edmonton (the mall!) and Calgary (the Stampede!), but never really felt at home in either. Nothing felt quite right until I moved to Toronto 13 years ago and lived in various spots all hovering around Queen Street. When I went back for a visit last July, sure, some things had changed... but on the whole it was exactly how I remembered it: vibrant, fun, packed with people, a real community feel - exactly the things I love about where I live now. You could walk everywhere and run into everyone, shop for anything you could possibly need from groceries to clothes, and then hit a pub or club in short order. One of the best summers of my life was the last one I spend combing Queen Street with pals before I split for San Francisco. I'm always gonna love it.

2. Certain TV shows. I'm sorry, but it needs to be said: a lot of Canadian TV was crap. But the stuff that wasn't? Gold. Say what you will about The Beachcombers, but it was the first Canadian TV drama I got hooked on as a kid, largely because there weren't many other options on the grid at the same time, and I found myself fascinated by the concept of a dramatic show about... logging. Seriously. But then I discovered Degrassi and that all fell by the wayside. Degrassi was the shit to me, because it dealt with so many things that so many people didn't want to talk about. I salute it for that, and for provoking my first incident of yelling "NO WAY!" at the TV when, during School's Out, Caitlin said the word "fucking" on national television. (I still love that the CBC didn't censor that.) Of course, I grew up on the Friendly Giant, Mr. Dressup, the Polka Dot Door, Today's Special, Jeremy the Bear... but Degrassi and The Beachcombers were the two shows that really made me pay attention to TV in a different way.

1. Shar and Renee. Two of my oldest and dearest friends, residing on either coast. They have seen me through all kinds of bullshit, been there during the best and the worst without judgment, always treated me with love and respect, visited me in my new homeland, welcomed me to stay with them when I went back to theirs... and the country is a better place with them in it.

And Alanis just came on iTunes as I finished writing this. How's that for synergy?

Happy b'day, Canuckland!

So. You may or may not have noticed I skipped updating last week. That's because this time last week, I was chin-deep in one of the most emotional scripts I've written to date. I was in the home stretch, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, and though I finished it in enough time to be able to crank out some kind of blog entry, I had almost no energy left. And what little was left was used to make a celebratory sour apple martini. And then I went to bed and tried to sleep.

Note the word "tried."

I wanted to sleep in the worst way. My entire body was exhausted. I believe my brain was, too... and yet, falling asleep and staying asleep felt like an exercise in futility. No matter how much I meditated or listened to hypnotherapy CDs, I couldn't get to that blissful state that usually locked me in dreamland for a reasonably uninterrupted eight hours of zzzzz's. My brain was jumping all over the place. I was having disturbing dreams. And then, last Friday happened.

I'd made the decision after I finished this most recent script that aside from rewrites on what I've already done, I needed to take a break. I've been really proud of the work I've done - especially on these last two, in which I essentially opened many veins and really jumped into some deep emotional crap to create them (as evidenced by this last post.) At one point I'd told Sharolyn that I felt like I had tapped into this crazy energy that really connected me to the way I felt at the time something really profound was happening to me that I wound up recounting in one of the scripts... and I felt the person I was writing about, too. Almost like they were there with me. It was insanely intense and unlike anything I've ever felt before. And it wound up helping me write something that I had no idea I was capable of writing.

So following last Wednesday, I started feeling really depressed. I was drained. I went to my acupuncturist and when she nailed my energy point, I nearly leapt off the table. "I don't get it," I told her after I finished howling in pain. "I mean, I'm kind of sleeping but not really... and yet, when I hike I feel fantastic."

"Yeah, that's not real energy, though - that's just auto-pilot. It's like false energy, not root energy," she explained, and started telling me I needed to meditate before bed. I didn't have the energy to tell her it wasn't working.

By Friday I was sinking further. I really don't have anything to feel depressed about right now, yet that morning I found myself sitting at my computer answering e-mails, and I started to cry for no reason whatsoever. I thought maybe I was going through some kind of creative postpartum depression and rallied myself for a hike. Predictably, I felt great while hiking... and then when it was over, I felt drained all over again. I just wanted to go hide in a cave with my favorite comforter and pull it over my head.

On the way home - head down in "Don't bother me" body language - this guy walking past me grabbed my arm. I looked up and took my earphones out of my ear.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Why?"

He looked at me for a moment, unsure of what to say next because really, how do you respond to that? And then he pulled one of these out of his ass: "Hey, don't I know you? Yeah, you're, like, from Russia or something!"

And I said, "You don't know me." And I kept walking, sticking my earphones back in my ears.

A flash of fear washed over me. I knew he'd started following me. I'd hoped he'd get the hint and go away, but no. He followed me for two blocks until we came to a stop at a crosswalk. He walked right up next to me and started nattering again, and I took my earphones out and said, "What?"

"I'm sorry, I thought I knew you," he said. "This town can be really small sometimes. You looked familiar."

"It's okay," I said, and put my earphones back in.

But he kept nattering. And then he said something bizarre.

"You know, there was a homicide down the street," he said.

At this point I'm thinking, Really? This is your game plan? To follow me for two blocks when I've made it clear I want to be left alone, and now you're going to talk to me about murder as some kind of pick up line? Needless to say, his approach came off as more than threatening. So I turned to him and said, "Look, I'm sorry, I'm just busy."

And he went off. "Oh, I get it - it's because I'm black, isn't it? If I were blond haired and blue eyed--"

"The fact that you went there just proves that you and I have nothing to talk about," I said, cutting him off. At this point the light had turned and I crossed the street, and promptly ducked into a store and informed the woman running it that I was being followed and threatened, and that I needed to hide out for a moment to make sure I was safe. And then I sat there and shook for a bit. And then I went home.

The next day I called my energy worker and told her how I felt like I was going insane, and how I was attracting people who were fucking with me, which isn't the norm. I knew I was off kilter and not myself, and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. And she said to me, "Okay, what I'm seeing is you haven't disconnected from the energies you tapped into to write your screenplays, so all those people are swirling around you and taking over, and there's no more room for you. It's why you can't sleep, it's why you feel disjointed, and it's why you feel like you're stuck."

I knew exactly what she was talking about. The things I've been dreaming, some of the thoughts that have flitted in and out of me... they aren't mine and don't feel like me at all. And I forget when I'm in the middle of doing a creative project that there are certain things I have to do on an energetic level to take care of myself - chiefly among them, Epsom salt baths and periodically doing a scrub with lemon and sea salt. It all sounds odd, I'm sure. But for some reasons these things work for me, and when I do them on a regular basis, I run in peak condition. The problem is, when I need it most - in the middle of a creative boom - is usually when I ignore protocol. And then I wind up in trouble.

So now I'm in that mode that we've probably all found ourselves in - where you've eaten like shit for a month and suddenly your jeans don't fit, and you're going, "How the fuck did that happen?!?" Except for me, it's energetic. I did a massive cleansing in my apartment on Saturday that knocked me on my ass, and Sunday I felt more even keel, and was capable of my first decent night's sleep in about two months. Day by day I've been feeling better and more like myself, but naturally, I'm frustrated that I'm not back to 100% already now that I've figured out what the problem was. I'm recognizing that it's probably going to take a month of hard work to get me back up to par, so I've been doing my best to balance my responsibilities with taking good care of myself.

I've read a lot about this sort of thing recently - in fact, in one article Johnny Depp was talking about how after finishing a particular movie, he wound up super sick and drained from playing a character that required him to tap into some pretty dark stuff and he found it hard to shake. I get it. I get why screenwriters are paid so much, and in turn, why actors are paid so much. Getting deep into a character is intensely hard and draining work, and you can really fuck yourself up in the process if you don't take care of yourself. Actors and performers going mental, writers becoming recluses and addicts... it makes sense. I understand it. And I have such a newfound intense respect for everyone who envelops themselves in this craft. I'm watching movies and TV in a whole new way. I'm seeing my actor friends in a different light. I'm reading up on my heroes and learning from their processes differently, too.

For all the bullshit that seems to go on in Hollywood, the creative process behind it is a pretty fucking fascinating thing. Which is a good chunk of the reason why I want to be a part of it. The other reasons? That's a discussion for another time. I have a date with my bathtub, some salt, and Tori Spelling's memoirs.

I won't lie - I lost it Saturday night. I'd been working through much of the day, but there's something about writing at night that's both comfortable and gnarly for me - especially if I put on the appropriate mood music. I find writing to music just amplifies what I'm working on and motivates me to keep going. I tend to have a soundtrack for each job. So generally when I'm working on blog posts for AOL and whatnot, I listen to peppy, poppy music. Corporate stuff usually gets more of a techno thing, and when I need to mellow out and focus on interviews, I'll listen to something more ambient or kundalini. And when I write something agonizingly, gut-wrenchingly emotional where I have to rip open old wounds, out comes the playlist with 21 hours worth of slow, depressing, my-world-is-coming-to-an-end kind of music.

(As an aside, I had a moment while working on this particular script where I was thinking I should drag out the appropriate songs from my youth - the tunes I'd listen to when I'd break up with a boy or something. Y'know, stuff like "Could've Been" by Tiffany and "Foolish Beat" by Debbie Gibson, or even better, "It Must've Been Love" by Roxette. But now I hear those songs and laugh my ass off at how melodramatic I was back then. Kind of breaks the mood, you know? That said, "Somebody" by Depeche Mode will always floor me, teenage angst be damned.

Anyway. I digress.)

So there I was, in dim light with my gut-wrenching playlist writing about gut-wrenching things, thinking, "Piece of cake, I've lived through this - it'll be easy to mine for content." Famous last words. I mean yeah, it was easy to mine for content, but the difference was being able to say what I really wanted to say about it, with the character I was writing for being the age I was when I was going through it. And then all of a sudden I was back there again, really and truly. It was like I was feeling that pain for the first time.

So yeah, I lost it. Went to bed. Slept 12 hours. Got up the next afternoon and wrote some more, and managed to go to bed at a decent hour and put in my usual 8. Didn't eat much, but wrote like there was no tomorrow.

I had this moment where I wanted to run from it all and find someone to talk to about it - it took a Herculean effort to get me back to my computer on Sunday afternoon, but I didn't want to quit when it was going so well and take the chance that I wouldn't start again. But the more I thought about finding someone to talk to, the more I talked myself out of it and decided the best thing would be for me to channel it into what I was working on. So I did. And then later that evening I got an e-mail that said the following:

"You're not going to have a lot of people you can talk to about this."

So very, very true. And I'm glad I put it all in the script. But man, am I ever looking forward to getting together with friends to talk about everything but what I've been writing about. Especially because writing about writing is getting a little too meta for me. Time to go experience life for a bit.

Despite the bipolar aspect of this transition, I'm actually having a lot of fun. I've been to bat at this game more times than I can count, and when I look back on my first few scripts from when I was 19... ugh. Horrifying doesn't even cover it. And when I compare it to what I'm doing now, I'm eternally grateful that I spent the last decade plus reading and obsessing over structure and dialogue, worked with mentors who believed in me and offered invaluable advice, and put my ego aside to listen to people offering me constructive criticism.

There's no way I would've been ready for this a few years ago. And I'm not saying I'm the world's foremost authority on how to take people cutting up your work, but I think years of working with a bazillion editors has made it easier for me to understand that it's not personal. Or at least, discern between those that are personal versus those that are structural, mechanical, what have you. Either way, scriptwriting has renewed my lust for writing in a way I never thought possible. I've always been passionate about the written word, but not to the point where I've wanted to dry hump my laptop upon completing a key scene. (Okay, that might be taking it a bit far, but you get my drift.)

And the thing of it is, I have no idea where I'm going to land. I'm seriously leaping without a net. There are a number of avenues open to me right now that I'm carefully treading on, which includes the interest of producers, agents, managers and the like, and that feels nice. But I know that there's no deal until there's a deal, and that the way something appears might wind up as something completely different by the time all is said and done. So I'm staying open to what comes, the possibilities that present themselves, the opportunities that arise.

It's kind of funny because to the casual observer, it would appear that there's nothing to get giddy over... and yet, I am. I'm beside myself with glee that I've taken this step, beyond happy that there are people enjoying the work I've done, and joyous beyond compare that I'm just taking this step - this first, teeny tiny step. God knows what's gonna happen when I get to live the dream. I might explode.

I can't wait.