Learning By Doing (Not Learning By Doing Nothing)

I was told by one of my well-meaning friends to blog more frequently. There has been a lull – not for lack of interest and motivation but because I generally have a problem to stick with things, which is a really bad condition if you are hoping to work in a profession that is self-motivated pretty much all the way to the end. So here, at the office no less, is me attempting to right my wrongs.

I think it might be good to start with a set of justifications explaining why I have spent my non-blogging and non-editing time in a way that is still conducive to the reasonably priced car project

1) For the first time in a very long time I drove a car.

I have a friend staying from Germany and borrowed a car to pick her up from the airport. This was the first time I had been behind the wheel in over a year – and the occasion required me to drive through peak hour traffic in the misty dark of the early shift and manoeuvre through a car park only comparable to at least the third circle of hell. But it went surprisingly well.

I mean, sure, I may have dislodged the muffler when speeding over the ridiculous curb that precedes our driveway but I have since returned the car and there were no complaints.

The actual embarrassing car moment occurred when I took my friend to pick up a mattress for her from the Donkey’s house. The Donkey has a driveway of the spaciousness and navigative ease of a bottleneck. I did get in alright.

Getting out involved sweat, screams, the smell of burned tires, destruction of all kinds of plant matter and finally the admission that I could not reverse out of the driveway of destiny. Instead the donkey reversed. Which I will never live down.

2) I used ‘power steering’ in a sentence.

Yesterday our friend William came for dinner in his new ute, which was great because I have to learn to talk about cars sooner or later – lest they rip me to shreds on television when the time comes to talk shop.

So I practised on William.

“Does it handle well?” I asked. “Does it have power steering?”

“Yea.”

“Did you hear that, baby?” I asked my boyfriend. “I used power steering in a sentence.”

I did get a weakly supportive grin.

“You’re almost a mechanic,” William said.

“Fan belt,” I said. “Wrench. Uhm...”

I did manage to utter another car related term but as I don’t know how to spell it I shan’t share it with you (yes, I still have some measure of shame).

Most depressingly these are the only two moments in the last weeks spent to indirectly further my future fame and fortune. Wow. That is lame.

Which leads to one conclusion only:

It might be high time I got my shit together and started producing something or other. And it had better be outstandingly brilliant.

How hard can it be?

(Theme Song for this weeks endeavours: 'Nothing From Nothing' by the ever so cool Billy Preston. It'll help if I believe it will. Won't it?)