Moving On

As noted in the previous comments thingy, I made the decision Monday that I’d had enough of the endless New Deal harassments (it’s been going on in some form or other since March). I had two appointments in one day: I neglected to attend both of them.

The government will, of course, suspend my benefit almost immediately. Well, tough! I almost took this route four months ago, but someone out there (not a Jobcentre person, I hasten to add) decided to treat me with a bit of understanding. Fine. But enough’s enough. Their tiny handouts just aren’t worth the stress. Sunday, I had a recurrence of IBS, which hasn’t bothered me for a year or so. By Monday, it was crippling me. Funnily enough, it’s mostly subsided now. I might be in deep shit as far as money goes, but I feel a lot less stressed out.

Oh, I haven’t a clue what to do. Broadly speaking, I think I have to consider myself self-employed at the moment and figure out if I can make money from something for once in my life.

But I do have a project in mind. Please note, this project is in no way a potential money-spinner! Well, it could be, but only if it generated huge amounts of interest. I consider it more a constructive use of time. I’ve worked on fanzines in the past, but not for four years or so… and this project is a fanzine. It will provide a much-needed new credit for my CV and hopefully be a rewarding piece of work.

Since there is always the possibility that, after procrastinating gratuitously, I’ll end up not doing it after all, I’m not going to be too specific about it just yet. I can say it will be a magazine devoted to a specific individual associated with cinema. And no, it’s not Orson Welles—Orson is tempting, but he’s been treated in print an awful lot; my subject is less extensively covered. It might even form a series of specials covering a different subject each time. Or it might not happen. We’ll see.

I’ve been excited enough to spend several hours working up some page templates and a dummy contents page. I even found a constructive use for the ‘capture frame’ feature of my DVD software, finally!

It’s interesting how being free of the government’s clutches suddenly sparks a positive train of thought; I’ve felt literally incapable of experiencing such ideas for months. These people ought to give more thought to the terrible personal harm their methods can cause to some people. But, of course, they don’t give a shit. Let’s not pretend we’re talking about human beings.