Only a bit obsessed

When I first came to Thailand I couldn’t find elastic bands anywhere. I hunted in stationery shops, ironmongery shops, anywhere I thought there might be a chance of finding them. I knew perfectly well that these canny fasteners were available as most of the street food is sold in plastic bags, secured with elastic bands but could I find out where to buy them? Nope. Eventually a year or two ago I noticed novelty elastic bands appearing in funky stationery shops; call me boring but I wanted utilitarian not poncy.

Hair grips were also a problem; Daughter occasionally needs hair grips to put her hair up in a bun. I scanned the beauty departments, markets, chemists, supermarkets; hair clips, ties and bows? Yep: EVERYWHERE. Hair grips? Was it some kind of conspiracy?

It was the same thing with safety pins and blotting paper. I even went into the Mont Blanc pen shop and asked. I described how to prevent your ink from smudging after you’ve written with your beautiful ink pen. No; clearly I was from Mars. In the end I was so traumatised that my sister in law purchased blotting paper in Bath, England, and sent it to me. And I bought wholesale sized cartons of elastic bands, hair grips and safety pins when I was in the UK. Sod’s law is that now I see hair grips everywhere.

Today, I’m obsessing over treasury tags. I need them. I may not be able to write and carve up my first draft without them. I’m going out, armed with a picture to see if I can locate them.

I might be some time.

Procrastinating? Me?

A Someone? Or a No-one?

I’m sitting in Starbucks (again, I'm considering shares... or maybe they'll sponsor me.) This time I’m up the road in the Grammy building. I hardly ever come here even though it’s the closest one to my apartment. In my first year in Bangkok I came here all the time with K (*Waves to K.*)

So far as I’m aware Grammy is The Place for pop music. It’s an entertainment company; a record label for big, big Thai pop stars. It’s always full of funky Thai youngsters and older, producery looking types. Or maybe I’m just letting my imagination run away with me.

Today though, it's not in my imagination; there’s a film crew here. There right here, feet away from me in Starbucks, not just in the Grammy building. I hope they don’t swing the camera around to catch me eating my muffin…

This is turning out to be the ultimate in procrastination. Watching; no idea what’s going on or who she is. I still can’t stop watching.

Yes, I have no shame.

I can blog this, I think. I'll get my camera...

Recovery

Oh there’s no pulling the wool over your eyes, eh?

“I think the plan is to gather information now, find out who the characters are, and then write, write, write over July while I’m in England.”

No, you say, get on and write now. Caught procrastinating again!

*****
I’m reading ‘Floor Sample: a creative memoir’ by Julia Cameron. Yes, THAT Julia Cameron: Julia ‘Morning Pages’ Cameron, whose ‘artist date’ is an essential for when the well feels empty. Flicking through The Artist’s Way in my final year of my fine art degree rescued me from a horrible and lingering ‘I can’t do this’ crisis.

I’m about two thirds through it and I really can’t put it down. She’s fascinating. Brought up a catholic she sought “a personal God … I wanted a God as intense and personal as my spiritual questioning. I wanted a God who just plain liked me.” She had a doomed marriage to Martin Scorsese – doomed essentially because she was an undiagnosed alcoholic and admits “I confused alcoholism with creativity.” She got sober (of course it wasn’t as easy as I’m suggesting) and draws parallels between reliance on a higher power working to help bring sobriety as well as helping to bring other things, such as ideas. Told by her sober alcoholic friends to consider God her new employer, she should appeal to Him for ideas.

Now I don’t have a faith – not a religious faith at all – but I am aware that faith … in myself or my ability or something - is crucial to being able to write or make art. I guess you could call it ‘confidence’ or ‘self belief’ but I don’t, it’s most definitely faith – I have pretty much zero confidence in my creativity. I think it’s also the subconscious rather than an external being (not that God has to be external – maybe that’s why He’s different for everyone) but it’s made me think harder about asking for help for the things I want to solve.

It’s also made me realise that ‘on flicking through The Artist’s Way’ isn’t really good enough. I am going to try to do the twelve weeks course from start to finish.

Two faced ...almost

180 words into my 1000 word article ... I need a cup of tea.

Even the washing up looked appealing.

Then I saw some eyes ... having cleaned a bottle, I added a mouth. I ran off to get my camera. If it'd been turned 90 degrees anti clockwise I could've made a devil face because it has horns. I opened up Photoshop to make a devil face for all our pleasure.

And then I realised what I was doing...