I went to see the Laura Dunn documentary The Unforeseen tonight at the Alamo. I’ve been wanting to see it and with M out of town I took myself on a movie date and went on my own. It was a little slow out of the gate, but the cinematography made up for it. It’s sad, uplifting, completely depressing and moving. It’s haunting, really. I was so at a loss when I left the theatre that I drove to Lady Bird Lake and walked out over the water on the pedestrian bridge and watched the sun set to get myself collected.
There were so many people on the bridge. Many sat with their friends, laughing in the warm wind. I watched the cars go by on the Lamar bridge and thought about how much I hate driving. I thought about the project I’m currently working on and how it has little redeeming social value. I thought about how I’m not volunteering for anything lately and how that makes me feel crappy. I felt overwhelmed and buffeted. And then I remembered the game I played with my brother on Monday, the problem/obstacle/solution game. So I played it with myself and came up with some solutions to feeling crappy. Here are some I came up with that I’d like to try:
* ride my bike more
* volunteer to help Project Transitions with their terrible web site so they can get more donations and better help their clients
* insulate and weather-proof my house
* work for better transit solutions in Austin (the new light rail proposal was unveiled today)
* win the Texas Lottery and buy a huge tract of land over the Edwards aquifer and make a nature preserve out of it
That last one will take a bit of luck. Oh, and me buying a lotto ticket.
shannou | 23-Apr-08 at 8:32 pm | Permalink
I’m right there with you on the existential angst/figuring it out ride. Right after I got your text, I sent you one in response about some utopian idea of starting an artist commune, but it didn’t go through for some reason. Maybe my iPhone is censoring my lack of coherent articulate speech.
Perhaps I’ll try the problem/obstacle/solution game and see what I can come up with too!
db | 24-Apr-08 at 9:36 pm | Permalink
That’s a good strategy! Much more effective, I bet, than my recent “yelling at strangers” plan, which has so far been entirely unsatisfying.