Haven't written in over a month. Nothing to say which comes, I think, from an extremely mild form of depression. Not clinical but a sort of self-disgust stemming from doing nothing much constructive...then of course I don't do anything which makes me feel worse so I don't do anything which makes me feel worse, ad nauseum. Have started keeping a record of c/t sessions with Balthazar on another blog which is something. Too much time playing games, the usual solitaire, free cell, spider solitaire and mah jong. They are a way to do something while keeping my mind numb.

Then I read this morning a quote by Marianne Williamson, a 'spiritual activist' and author who I had never heard of until now. She wrote, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us." It is the fear that once I begin something I must keep on with it. I cannot just languish in the middling ground of existence. I must make my existence count for something. I don't mean earthly success or at least the success measured in money or fame or power but the success of exceeding my own expectations, no matter how little they are. So I pass time (how sad a phrase is that?) playing mindless games rather than raise the bar of my own life. (I suspect others camouflage this urge with alcohol, drugs, food, parties, sex, noise, anything to silence that 'still small voice within' even if it's only for the duration of the game or until the last donought is eaten).

But it is the new year, albeit over a week old. The old games don't satisfy and the guilt and sadness become too burdensome so something must change. Thought a good start would be to blog something other than clicker training sessions.

It's very hot, no clouds and in the thirties. Think I could/should do a quick session with Balthazar (want to start doing more than one session daily) but the thought of standing in the sun defeats me. Even with a hat, the rays cut and burn. Walking the dogs between 3:30 and 4:45 is hot; dogs are hot, sweat runs down my scalp and drips onto my neck, socks are soaked within my shoes. Direct sunlight is not something to be sought out in the midst of a subtropical queensland summer.

Found an old dream notebook full of tiny cramped writing where I've recorded dreams while barely awake. The first one is written on December 4 but I don't know what year. It's not more than twenty years old though because I remember keeping this notebook by the bed in this house.

It reads: "I've been travelling and brought paintings with me to where I stop. It's like East and West Berlin before the wall dropped. I've made it to the free side from the unfree side. My paintings are hung at a friend's. An old man,, a critic, and his young female assistant come to view the paintings. They're in pastel. They're good enough to put in an amateur show they say. But look at this one and this one! Along with my work is work by another artist - in oils and she's very good. One painting is very vivid, a yellow face in the clouds, perspective-wise near, emerging from the roiling grey clouds. In the lower part of the picture are 3 lights, 3 UFO lights. The signature is 3 tiny figures, stylized bare-breasted women. It was painting by a woman. I think to myself how brilliant (I"m really disappointed they only think my work mediocre) and why couldn't I have painted that, then realize I've dreamed it and I certainly can use that one or any of 'her' paintings. I did not go on to a lucid dream from this. At this same place I can trade in books and pay my way. They (Jimmy Barnes) don't want me to pay what I owe in book rental and petrol."

This is like the dream of a stranger. Am immediately struck by going to the free from the unfree, by the superiority of the unknown female artist's work, by the realization that she and I are the same as I have created her oils as well as my pastels and finally by the three UFO lights and the three sylized female figures as a signature. Of course I cannot now recall what that yellow face in the grey clouds looked like but I do remember a few years ago seeing an abstract painting in the background on some tv show and being struck by the absolute beauty of sunshine yellow against steel grey - and how I unsuccessfully tried to recreate that explosive colour statement in a painting.