AW: Checkin

I originally titled this "brief notes" but as they were not very brief when I was done, it seemed best to change it.

On the check-in...I did daily pages each day. One day I did them right before bed. They didn't really do much for me that day, I just filled them in and went to bed. I will try to avoid doing that again. (Then again, I was already trying to avoid doing it, so obviously I'm not doing so well.) The other days I did them either right after getting up, or sometime during the morning at work (about 50/50). I meant to avoid the morning-at-work after the first, but it didn't work that well (pardon the pun). So far I have not been interrupted as much the other times, but if it becomes an issue, I'll just take the journal and go to a lounge that is part of the building's common area, not part of our office, and do them there. People generally only try to track you within the office.

The Artist Date I took last Saturday felt like a flop. I think it was plagued by a "should" - Brokeback Mountain had won all these awards and I was horribly curious. But that curiosity was a "should" in disguise - I "should" like it because "everyone" does. On the plus side, I ditched the should and walked out. I'm not sure how much of that is not liking it (I didn't dislike it, so much as lack any real strong liking/interest - the scenery was gorgeous, and I liked watching the sheep in the first part?) and how much is just that I DID NOT want to see where I knew the plot was going. I simply did not want to watch it. At all. (I did not know about the ending, although I do now - that would have upset me even more - but where the plot had to go after the one guy was married was sufficient that I did NOT want to watch it go there.)

But at the same time, I went to the dollar store that same day, NOT for an AD but to look for something I wanted for a project (and didn't find), and I had a BLAST. I came home and watched portions of the Lion King II and had a blast at that. So I kind of did have a good AD as well, just not the planned one. Maybe there's a lesson in that - I'm not good at being spontaneous and maybe I need to learn to be a little better at it. Preferably without being out quite as much as walking out on even a matinee movie costs these days, of course.

I have already seen a couple people say they need to push more, they're not pushing hard enough. I wonder if that's not true for me also. I'm not seeing much progress - activity, yes, but not progress - on my part. At the same time I know that pushing myself usually leads to criticizing myself hard when I don't do well enough - don't spend the time I said I would, don't whatever. And then I am frustrated and guilty which is not a good recipe. I need to find some way to lure myself into trying more art/writing/crafts/something, though. The trick is in the luring, rather than pushing. I'll have to think on that one. Maybe I should just push myself, except that I know that at the first sign of failure I'll start a circle that just makes it harder to do, and really, I'm not perfect, so sooner or later that would happen. Probably not useful. :)

I read the whole chapter through. I did blurts and affirmations, but they didn't really turn up much - the tricks she uses to draw the blurts out just didn't get them for me. I had more luck finding negative spots by just nattering on generally and sometimes they'd wander out. I did part or all of each exercize except the walk, but I'll be honest, I did most of them briefly and sketchily. I didn't bother cartooning my monster but I did write it up (well, you saw!), and I didn't do a walk unless you count going through the mall before I even read the exercise, which seems to be stretching it. (I leave for work when it's dark and get back when it's dark, this time of year. It's been raining all week. I love the rain, but after a 20-minute walk in it I'd be very thoroughly soaked - not real good in the middle of the workday, plus the area around work is quite traffic-busy.)

And now on to chapter two. And I may need gel pens soon. I haven't used mine this frequently in a while and I'm running them out of ink and finding some dry ones (ack!). I have a good set of six right now and some more after, but doing morning pages will run them out of ink in a week or two at the most. I'll get more when I'm down to 2-3 working ones, I think. I can use normal pens if I have to - I have plenty of those - I just like glittery/metallic things that are brightly colored!