A New Assessment

It's been a while since I've written anything not to do with standup... I think that's a bad thing. It's probably a bad thing. I don't know at what point I became lazy and started telling myself that the workload I had accrued for myself on a weekly basis had become too great to accommodate any writing time, but whenever that point was, it was the start of a period of decline. I always talk about these periods of decline, but I don't think I understand them very well.

It's raining outside, that's good. I like being in my room when it rains. Inside my sanctuary.

I always say – or at least have been intermittently exclaiming for the past three years or so – that every year for me is broken up into two rough halves; one of growth, and one of decline or stagnation. I think I need to try and understand a little better why I think this is though, or at least define what each of those could possibly mean. Right now I feel like I'm in a period of decline/stagnation. I'm tentative to call it out-and-out decline for the simple reason that there are still areas that I've been improving in for the past three or four months (most obviously, standup) but I would say that in general, I feel like I've lost a bit of momentum. Or maybe that's just now? Is my need for structure and order what is driving me to split up my life into segments like a real-time historian? Maybe I'm just having a bad day?

The rain just got heavier. Fuck yes. Rain you angry motherfucker.

The good periods are when I talk about my theory most frequently, probably because it's in those times that I feel most inclined to tell everyone how awesome I am. “Check it out, I'm doing FUCKING BRILLIANT right now, I'm in an 'up' period!”

Uuuuugh, this post really is going nowhere. Finish it dude, finish it. Finish something. I've started a story that I probably won't finish recently, or maybe I'll try and have another crack at it... I'm in that difficult middle passage in the narrative, where I don't really know what's going to happen... maybe I just need to do some hardcore storyboarding. Shit needs a middle.

I feel like I'm in a middle passage of this period of my life right now too... I've been in Melbourne for about thirteen months now – so let's call it a year – and in the first year I accomplished everything I could have ever hoped to accomplish. Let's take stock, shall we?

• I became single and stayed single (doesn't sound important, but is)
• I found a place and a good circle of close friends
• I got a job, then got fired from that job, and then got some more jobs (I have an income)
• I did a festival show and a whole butt-tonne of standup (maybe 150 gigs)
• I took some drugs but not too many (YEAH!)

Okay, so that last one is a little silly, but everything else is good, I've done some good things here, now comes the harder part: what am I going to do in the next year? Let's say this next period will be from now until when I leave for Edinburgh next year (mid-July 2014). What do I need to do until then?

• Sort out the situation with Peek Tours and figure out how I'm going to maintain the level of income I've enjoyed up until a few weeks ago
• Stay single
• Write my show and make it good – commit to my show rather than just getting on stage in front of friendly audiences every now and then and trotting out half-written stories from a show that doesn't yet exist
• Stay hungry
• Write every day
• Drink less and take fewer drugs (BUT STILL SOME YEAH!!)

Okay, that seems like a pretty decent list. I wonder if anyone's reading this... it's always nice to have an audience huh... well that's me, for this one, this time. Sitting in my room, 45 Baker St, Richmond, 3121, Aidan Jones, in effect, looking at the set list from the shitty gig he just had that he wrote on his hand. Feeling Fragile.

Peace, Taco.