Better than The Secret!

So recently my friends and I have been trying to brain-storm ways of escaping from the Festering Pit of Despair (aka large international law firm where we all work) before our souls are completely devoured and our spirits crushed entirely. In other words--how can we get out before it's too late? All of us have outside interests and we are all quite clearly wasting our talents here...but of course there is the small matter of paychecks and the fact that we all like roofs over our heads, wine in the fridge, etc. So in the meantime we hopefully cross our fingers while picking lottery numbers and maintain well-developed fantasies about what our lives will be like when we succeed in getting out of this hell and on to bigger and better things. We were discussing our future lives yesterday--Dee was researching the best kind of dairy cows for making artisanal cheese on her farm, Trish was wondering if David Duchovny would write the screenplay for a book she's optioned, I was wondering whether I should source my Pinot Noir grapes from Santa Maria or the Santa Lucia Highlands--and that's when it hit me. What if the fantasy life is the real life and all this (sweeping arm gesture here) is just a very bad dream? What if, in my real life, I live in a beautiful house on the Palos Verdes Peninsula instead of my decrepit little apartment? What if, when that alarm goes off and I wake from this nightmare, I find I'm safe in my comfy bed inside that beautiful house with David Tennant drooling on the pillow next to mine? This got us thinking. What if we were to behave as if we were living the lives we want? It's like dressing for the job you want instead of the job you have right? It's better than The Secret because instead of just "putting it out there to the Universe" you actually start living and behaving the way you would if you were already living your dream life. And maybe, just maybe, you end up with the life you want, or at least a reasonable facsimile. Either that or I lose my rather tenuous grip on reality altogether and end up in a psych ward, heavily medicated. Technically, I will have escaped the Festering Pit of Despair though so I would consider this a win. Perhaps I really have gone round the bend here, but I think we're on to something. To test the theory, we've planned on heading out early for drinks at the Four Seasons (because that's the sort of thing we would do in our real lives). I'll let you know how it goes!

Happy New Year to All Plus a Rant

January 1, 2009. Holy hell! Seems like just yesterday everyone was freaking out about Y2K and the impending apocalypse and here we are nine years later already! Turns out the actual harbinger of the end of days may have been mortgage-backed securities. I have a feeling 2009 is going to be a wild one as far as the economy is concerned. My goal for the new year? Remain gainfully employed--the way things are going this will be no small feat. Other than that I plan to be more social (I went to a party last night and am going to another today. Okay, so maybe it isn't a party so much as it is two people watching a football game...but still social, no?), I'm going to entertain more at my home (which serves the dual purpose of being social and forcing me to clean!) and I'm going to attempt to get a grip on my finances which have been hemorrhaging quite badly the past few months. Most importantly, I will continue to do things for no other reason than they make me happy. We all have to do plenty of things every day out of necessity or obligation that we'd rather not be doing. It is important to take the time for a little bit of personal indulgence. Reading the latest chic lit, opening a good bottle of wine when it isn't a special occasion, watching Blackpool again, making carbonara, hanging out in a bookstore or wine shop, sneaking off for margaritas with your friends at lunch time...just a few of the things that serve no purpose other than to make me happy which I intend to do more of in the new year! If I weren't trying to hold down expenses I'd add shop for purses to the list, maybe if there's a sale! Happy 2009, everyone! I wish you all health, wealth and happiness in the new year!

And now a rant. What the fuck is wrong with people who write horrible, awful things in order to drive traffic to their illegal websites? As you know I fell head over heels for Mr. David Tennant after seeing him in Hamlet in October (I blogged about it in the post Full English Breakfast). Well, as a proper fan girl and true geek I set up a Google alert for DT so that I could keep up with news about him. The other day I got an alert with a headline saying that he had died. I could not verify the news as it seemed to be coming from only the one source, but I was still shaken. I realize I don't actually know the man, but first of all there are very few people in the world I would actually wish death upon whether I know them or not. Second, he's a brilliant actor and I hope to enjoy his work for years to come. Third, he's terribly cute. The idea that something had happened to him made me feel physically ill. Eventually, a friend was able to look at the site the story came from and told me it was something called a torrent and totally bogus. I know nothing about torrents, but I know I hate them. Who writes a bogus story about someone dying just to drive traffic to their site? If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times...I hate people.