…The year 2010 for Scorpio

1. Mysterious-looking dude with mysterious-looking website must have cred: Big love, wacky work, facing fears.

2. Yes but no but yes but…: You may get the biggest break of your career or maybe nothing will change and you’ll be bored with the same conditions, people, and prospects.  You may find love, or maybe you’ll break up, or perhaps nothing at all will happen.  Finances could be good, but they could also be bad.

3. I wish I could write jokes like these: “…if you were not here, there would be no world.  Or there might be, but you wouldn’t know about it…”

…I love things that seem impossible

1. One-man band. Once it was travelling minstrels, or a big outing to a concert hall, then it was gramophones, later tapes, then CDs.  Now I can have entire bands by the thousands sitting in my pocket to carry with me wherever I go, making every tedious task interesting and every empty moment full.  I know this is old news but it’s still pretty amazing to me.

2. Time travel. I can fly for 13 hours and arrive an hour earlier on the clock than when I left.  Why aren’t there headlines about that? (thanks Josh from The West Wing)

3. The truth.  I can know everything about everything ever if I choose the 
red pill.  Omniscience is just so convenient nowadays!

…Ingredients for vicarious living

1. Keep your options open. If you decide something, that instantly means you have to do something.  And if you have to do something, you don’t get to be a spectator.  So ignore any twinges of inspiration, forget about having a timetable, and stay in those PJs.  Don’t let life get in the way of your doing nothing.

2. Unlimited supply. Line your every surface with stimuli – books, DVDs, music, games – so you don’t have to actually do anything in order to feel everything.  Any kind of adventure or fulfilment you could ever want is right at your fingertips.  Sure, your skin may go translucent from lack of natural light, and your torso may adopt a spherical shape, but those people in that frame/on that page/in that song are doing more than enough attractiveness for you.

3. Cloak of invisibility. If you’re too noticable in real life, you’ll be too busy being you and won’t have time to experience life through fictional characters.  But if you’re invisible – like a ninja or… someone who’s invisible – you’re free to live life to the emptiest.  Free as a dodo or a pterodactyl.

…New Year’s resolutions: Draft 1.3

1. Take resolutions seriously. If you’re going to resolve to do something, do it – don’t be a liar/slackarse.

2. Don’t take resolutions seriously. After all, why set out to be a disappointment?

3. Decide early and often whether to take the piss or be sincere so as not to confuse self and others. Yeah, that’s a good one.

…Why I may go back to uni

1. You live, you learn. It’s not just a catchy Alanis Morrisette refrain that’s less embarrassing than her misguided references to ‘irony’ and less yodelly than the things she thinks ‘you oughta know’.  After years away from the ivory tower, I’ve realised that living isn’t enough for me.  If I don’t go and learn something – preferably something with no real-world application – very soon, my brain is going to melt out my ears.

2. Student for life. I always had a sneaking suspicion I’d be one of those people who couldn’t stay away from studies for too long.  Sure, I’ve studied acting and singing and yoga (sort of) and writing since my academic days, but these don’t add up to a classy bit of paper you can mount on your wall in manner of a doctor, lawyer, or wanker.  I want validation, approval and assignments I can get distinctions in.  Yeah, you heard me…  What’s that, 3000 word essay?  Can I defer?

3. Self-awareness. With my dress-sense, level of maturity, and deep attachment to my backpack, I already look like I never left.  I may have been asked once or twice in recent years (or days) if I was a student.  And, hell, we all know how fulfilling it is to meet the expectations of others at your own expense.