4008
Somewhat over-optimistically I thought I might get the script for Meaning of Life episode 1 completed today. I really need time to learn it (though I think I might have to use a primitive autocue for some of it, by which I mean a notebook on my lap). I have a lot of ideas and probably enough material but it is (fittingly given that the subject of this show is Creation) a formless void. And I had the familiar knot of anxiety in my stomach and mild nausea and a sense of disaster that used to be so familiar to me when I was writing (or more accurately not writing) AIOTM. Suffice to say that not much progress was made. As always I need to be able to smell the embarrassment of failure before my brain will click into gear and rescue me. I would much prefer not to go through this rather unpleasant, fallow hinterland before I get there. But there we go. In all honesty I was just a bit exhausted. I have taken on too much this week. The adrenaline and excitement should get me through. And I do have a safety net. If it all goes wrong on Sunday I can have another crack at it on the second record in January. But I'd rather not.
I have recently been enjoying unsubscribing from all the mailing lists that my email has found its way on to. I realised how much time I was wasting deleting all the (basically) spam that has been coming my way, so now every time a promotional email comes through from a shop or hotel or airline or something else that I've either signed up for or (nearly always) failed to click the box saying I don't want to sign up for, I follow the unsubscribe link and opt out. It's nearly always incredibly easy. A few of the sites make it hard to do. But once you've done it there is no more pressing delete when the email comes through. In the end the journey to unsubscribe saves a lot of time.
On the downside though I now feel pretty unpopular. Before this month I would get at least 15 emails overnight (they'd all be spam, but it momentarily made me feel wanted) and then get several pings throughout the day, diverting me from my work, hoping something interesting had come through. Now, already I am waking up to a maximum of four overnight emails (still not from real people, but ones that I am vaguely interested in getting) and can go for an hour or so without getting an email in the day. The background noise of spam at least gave me the illusion of being loved. And even though they never came from actual people I now feel like I am alone in the Universe. I liked them wasting my time. I liked to be annoyed by their arrival. It made me feel relevant.
But paranoid insecurity aside it's liberating to never have to hear from the Writer's Store or Rakuten's Play.com, though I will miss wondering who Rakuten is and why he or she or it took over play.com and overcomplicated a really good website name by adding his or her or its name to it. Rakuten to me sounds like some mythical small mammal god from a Pacific island, which to be honest, puts me off buying DVDs from him. I liked it when it was all about the play and not about the enchanted squirrel who would cause a volcano to erupt if I displeased him, her or it. Please don't tell me who or what Rakuten really is. It will ruin it for me.
Unsubscribe my friends. Unsubscribe from everything. Except my mailing list. Subscribe to that (though it's really easy to unsubscribe from if you want to).
I have never done anything that has made me so happy and unhappy in equal measure.
