ASPIRATIONS 2006-7

It's strange how life works. I have absolutely no idea why I'm in Los Angeles of all places, or why I keep getting jobs in telelvision, but it's happened for the past year.

JOHNNY FINGER: Does this mean you'll do another television show?
P: No, Johnny. Now I'm ready to get back to writing novels.

Applause sign FLASHES.

JOHNNY FINGER: And how exactly are you going to do that?
P: Unemployment, Johnny.

I also need to clean my room. That's quite an undertaking. I don't have that messy of a room, but when you're getting ready to write a novel, certain things have to be cleared out. I have not ever been keen on this, but I'm going to have to, as there are piles of things that have simply accumalted while I have been working from 7AM to 10PM every night. Mostly, it's knick-knacks not unlike the day after Halloween, when the wrappers are piled with edibles, and you can't make heads or tails of what happened to all your Three Musketeers. That's about where I lie now, as I root through dozens of books and typewritten pages to see where I left of, and whether I can salvage, scrap, or begin again.

JOHNNY FINGER: Do you like being you?
P: Yeah, it's nice.

Sometimes I wonder about dashing off poems instead of novels. It's an easier return, as you get to make your work appear a helluva a lot faster and easier than a whole novel, but I'm just too attracted to the form. There is so much I want to discover about myself and my characters. It really beats every art form. Well, almost. Painting is still so easy and so much fun.

The great thing about writing novels is that I can usually do a painting while I write one too. It sort of breaks the monotony of all that hard core dance that has gotten to be a little bit out of control...

Yes.

I wonder what I will write this time. It will be interesting.

JOHNNY FINGER: What else?
P: Oh, nothing. There is no news in my life. Most of my friends are in other places or simply too busy with the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles life for me to have contacted them to give you the ditty.

I have also been horribly sick for the past couple days. I could barely walk.

Now I feel moderately better. I can still wheeze disgusting sounds, but I'm happier then I was in my cough medicine haze.

Screen wipes George Lucas style to an overgrown lizard who eyes a scrap of vintage music paper. On its right side is a small list that makes up for its stature with the large amount of hope attached to it.

We see this hope as we would a ball of yarn rolling up a fire escape; the video in reverse and our fingers crossed.

DREAMS AND ASPIRATIONS for 2006-7

1. Write another novel.
2. Sell one of the 4 books I've written.
3. Fall in love with myself all over again.
4. Become a better writer.
5. Live somewhere else for a while or find a new place to live.
6. Find a community that welcomes me as much as I welcome them.
7. Be kinder to myself and others.
8. Figure out everything.
9. Laugh a lot.
10. Travel.
11. Dance and write, dance and write...