Day 295: staring you in the face.

An upside to publicly (or privately) analysing your life and feelings on a daily basis, especially in the bright, honest light of unadulterated sobriety, is that you start to realise things about yourself. Now, there are things that come up that are kind of expected. They're not really surprising because you pretty much knew they were there all along. The discoveries I'm finding interesting right now though, are the ones where you realise that the answers you have been searching so diligently for in the vast universe and the depths of your soul, might just have been sitting in your top pocket the whole time. Very very recently (kind of like in the last ten minutes) something has become extremely clear to me, that before has only revealed itself in intermittent droplets. Let me try and explain. My whole musical endeavour over the last however long has been a mission of creative fulfillment. It has been my quest to find my purpose, and the people who share my view of the world. In a band you have a group of like-minded people working together towards a common creative goal. In its best form, a band is a very communal, supportive and comforting thing. You are a gang fighting against the forces together. In the process, if you're lucky, you produce music you're proud of that other people recognise as being great. The whole experience is creative and communicative, and brings with it a real sense of connection with others. I used to think that being in a band was my only gateway to this kind of satisfaction. But now I think I may have been missing a trick. The work idea I have been yabbering on about in recent days, is quite simply a group of like-minded and similarly motivated individuals working together towards a common goal. The goal is to produce shit hot advertising communications through projects that are genuinely fun to be involved in. It's not an earth-shattering concept in itself. But what is rather earth-shaking for me is the idea that my work may now be capable of delivering the same satisfaction I have sought from rock 'n' roll. And unlike the rock 'n' roll in my life right now, this project actually has the like-minded individuals on board. We've got our gang. Now all that's left to do is go forth together and conquer.

Day 294: magic socks.

Today I arrived home to find a parcel waiting for me from New Zealand. Parcels are always awesome, but even more so when they are surprises and not just your latest delivery of internet shopping (although those parcels are pretty ace too). This one came from Helen, a very good friend of my Mum and Dad's, and also (rather flatteringly) an avid reader of My Year off The Piss. And do you know what was in it? An amazing pair of socks! They are beautifully hand knitted (they put any of my wonky adventures with knitting needles to extreme shame) in a very pretty and frickin cool combination of colours and patterned stripes (they're the kind of thing that could easily hold their own coming out of a high and chunky Miu Miu heel), and they fit me absolutely perfectly. Add delicious coziness to their charm parade and you have socks nothing short of magic. So thank you Helen. I love them. Embodiment of truly caring thoughtfulness, thy name is knitted socks.

Day 293: seven steps more.

Buoyed up by yesterday's good reception to my idea, today I took it to a few more people. And they all liked it too. It helped that two of those people were my Executive Creative Director and my Head of Planning. With them on board, what was an idea has now become something to be put into action. Wahoo! If only my company were in the business of forming bands and making them famous, maybe I would have got all of my music stuff happening a lot sooner too. Never mind. A cool creative project is a cool creative project. It's the stuff I love. And this time, I might just have the help I need to get something really cool across the line.

Day 292: one step closer.

Today I floated my special work idea past a respected gal work pal. She really liked it. In fact she's totally on board too. This was a relief because in the cold light of Monday morning my idea, which basically involves a group of people doing extra work in their own time, felt like it might have been a great heady hallucination conceived in the midst of post inspirational speech drunkenness (not the alcoholic kind mind you, just idea drunkenness), but maybe not such an attractive prospect to your sober and already hard-working co-worker. Anyway, thankfully my misgivings were misplaced. That's one cool, clever and creatively-minded person on board, and as many more as it takes to go. We will pave the road to awesomeness, one brick at a time.

Day 291: pleasantness all round.

Today I fell asleep in my hammock in the sun with my book in my lap. It was just one of many very pleasant things I did during what turned out to be an extremely relaxing weekend. Other activities included doing yoga and going jogging, buying amazing dusky pink coloured roses at the organic market, getting my nails done, having coffee with one of my favourite girlfriends Kristie and her unbelievably cute baby boy Max, watching an amazing All Blacks rugby game at 1am with my brothers and mate Ben (so much fun!), and going out with some other gal pals to a nice bar and actually chatting to some very pleasant men. So life is sweet. My relationship with alcohol is slightly peculiar in that I feel no deep desire to drink and no envy of others who do, and yet am still really looking forward to re-entering the realms of normal drinking folk. I think at this stage I really don't fear alcohol anymore. I know that when I return to drinking I will be far more aware of my behaviour and more conscious of when and how much I imbibe. I am looking forward to being able to make the decision to go out and get a little bit tiddly knowing that (hopefully) overdoing it is less likely to be the outcome. Anyway, I really did have a fun, relaxed and entertaining time this weekend even without the aid of tiddliness. Hurrah. Good times all round.

Day 290: a crystal vision.

Holy shit, I think I've seen the light. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, and I know exactly what lies ahead of me and what I need to do. Now I'm not claiming an ability to predict the future. I'm sure there will be many unexpecteds along the way. But today I feel like I have truly stepped out of the cloudy fog and into clear vision. If you've been reading closely over the past 290 days, or if you have a knack for themes, you might have noticed I have a pattern. It goes something like this: new idea, great enthusiasm, excited extra ideas flying all over the place, attempts at execution (of idea), some set-backs, further attempts, further set-backs, despondence, pouting, frustration, depressed fog, yoga, regaining of hope, dawning of new idea... and we're off again. I repeat this over and over and over again. It's how I roll. Being aware of the pattern makes it bearable, because when you're in the less fun bits of it, you know it's only a matter of time before you'll be back in the zingy, exciting ideas bit again. And I guess the hope is that at some point one of the ideas will actually take off and the despondence, pouting, frustration stage won't get a chance to happen. Anyway, the vision as of today. The music: a solo recording project utilising existing material and co-produced by me and others (I have people in mind). Work: pursue new ideas project with a team of like-minded individuals to produce truly cool shit in the "advertising" space. New York: the work project will help me produce the work I need to get a job in the big smoke. Yah! And now I'm excited. And I have to go do stuff.

Day 289: excited about... work?

Yes this is me talking, and I know it sounds insane, but today I got truly, genuinely excited about my job. Working in advertising for me has always been a bit of a tug of war. It's a creative industry so that's good, but a lot of the time you're working on churn and burn bullcrap that doesn't make the world a better place. I guess I've mainly viewed my job as a good option for a creative person while one works on other creative projects designed to one day catapult you out of the industry. But today I think I had a little epiphany. A new guy has started at our place - the head of planning. Planners are usually a very smart and interesting bunch. This guy is all that but cool too (he wears the best threads), and inspiring. Now if you've been in advertising a while, you will necessarily have sat through your fair share of seriously bullshitty inspiring speeches. Whether it's the new agency direction, the new Creative Director, or just an attempt at bolstering morale, at various points in time people will get up and talk at you in an impassioned fervour, usually spouting a string of the latest buzzwords from the industry magazines. Sometimes it does actually gee you up for a while, sometimes it's just depressing. But this guy didn't sound like a bullshitter. He felt like the real deal. Whether this is true or not, his little speech (notable because it wasn't full of buzzwords and was full of understated coolness, as opposed to uncool, bawdy posturing, which you get a lot of in advertising agencies) triggered something in me. I had an idea. It might be an idea that comes to nothing, but it's one I want to pursue. It was an idea that could see my work actually become a true creative outlet. You see, if I'm really honest, all these years I've been focusing my creative powers on finding ways to get out of advertising. Maybe what I should have been doing is working out ways I could really get in to it. I've always wanted to be someone truly inspired by my work. Maybe instead of waiting for my work to inspire me, what I really needed to do was take my inspiration to the work. I'm sure this latest revelation of mine is something other advertisers have probably known all along (the ones who love their jobs that is). Oh well, never mind. Better late than never.