6/22/07 - Get By With a Little Help

I was pretty bummed last night for some inexplicable reason [read: PMS] so I did what I always do because it always makes me feel better: I called my friends.

Talked to Carl briefly and realized I've been virtually unemployed for most of this year. Of course he gently reminded me that everything would be okay in Carl-speak, and while he always makes me feel better, it also makes me really, really miss him. I miss my Carl.

I got to talk to Bjorn last night while she was driving around in Hollywood, and she had a lot of good advice and reminded me that I'm not lame. I love to hear advice from friends who know me so well. they know my virtues and weaknesses and they really help to guide me in the right direction, which has no set destination. They really help me to just do what I do best.... which is just make things, all the time, in every medium.... and that I shouldn't worry about where I'm going with all of this, but to just keep doing it.

Why? I was telling her I like what I do, painting, and music-ing, and Inter-web documenting... but how am I going to make a living out of it? She said, 'Well Jo, you already are. This is your living. You are living it. This is your life.'

I forgot that taken another way, 'making a living' doesn't directly refer to paying my rent. She reminded me that jobs are just jobs, they come and go. It's your life that's important. She's reminded me of that for years, and I love her for that.

God I love my friends so much. They teach me so much through their love, and without even trying. I remember when Mike was in town, and we drew while my lovely DJ friends played records and blessed my house with their presence.

I was having such a hard time. Then he told me, 'When I feel like I can't draw, I just try to draw things I liked to draw when I was really little. It helps me loosen up.' So we just scribbled like three-year-olds. He gave me five seconds to draw a face with only scribble lines. I kept saying 'I can't do it! I'm so out of practice.' But he just kept saying 'See? You did it! You do perfectly fine without even thinking about it.'

Did I mention I love my friends?

One of Bjorn's suggestions was mapping out a geographical space based on my experiences, creating an interactive map where you click on a location and you get access to writings about my experiences there and links to relevent articles and profiles I've written about the characters I've met there. She said above all, I'm a traveller and a documenter, and it would be a great way of creating a tangible memory network on the Interweb that is also a record of my memories and experience in cyberspace, mapped out over geographical space. I think it's a great idea. I'm going to build on it, bit by bit... I guess I already have been.