Is Psycho About Me?

So, I'm watching Psycho on a gloomy Saturday afternoon and I'm thinking if Janet Leigh could have gone back in time and made some choices differently, thereby preventing her from being knifed to death by a cross-dressing sociopath in an empty roadside motel, she probably would have. Although I hardly think it was Hitchcock's point to make the viewer panic about the possible outcomes of choices available to them, thats the effect it is having on me. The bliss and curse of unemployment is that it offeres so many choices, at least it does to me, given that I have no other commitments; no kids, no book club membership... Basically, I have no life.

Everyday I get to decide when to get out of bed (if I get out of bed), whether or not to change out of my pajamas, what to do, where to go. What jobs to apply to, what internships, what to do with my career, my future, my life, whats going to happen to me!? This is an ugly downward cycle of thinking, more often than not leading to a panic attack, but at the same time it offers an enormous amount of freedom (or the allusion of freedom). Because I feel that every choice I make now will affect every future second of my life something as simple as choosing a brand of toothpaste a Boots can leave me in tears. Why do there have to be so many!!!

She just pulled off the road towards the motel. Bad choice. Am I about to pull of the road at Bates' Motel? I don't see how, I couldn't afford to spend the night in a motel and I certainly don't drive. Last time I got behind a wheel I sideswiped about a half-dozen other cards in East Acton and hit the curb on the Hammersmith Flyover tearing an enormous hole in the tire. Thankfully it wasn't my car.
My partner sat on the hood chain smoking while I struggled to remove the damaged tire before, after about an hour of straining, we attached the spare. I was unhappy to discover that Zipcar charged us for the tire. When I crashed our rental car in Spain two years ago we didn't have to pay anything. The woman at the rental agency in Bilboa was surprisingly (and thankfully) uninterested.
"I dented the car in Oviedo."
"Ok."
"Then I crashed it in Santillana the day after, sorry."
"Was it your fault?"
"Um, no..."
"Ok, its fine."
I also got a rental car stuck in about three feet of mud in the middle of a field in Kosovo while looking for a Roman ruin.
"I think its just up here."
My partner wasn't impressed with my navigation, "We're in a field."
"Its just a bit further, I can feel it."
"We're going to get stuck."
"No, we'll be fine!"
We got stuck. I was also charged for another flat tire. It's a long story. My partner still glares at me when I mention it. I never found the ruins.

What was I talking about? Oh right - I shouldn't drive if I don't want to die. Choices. A good choice...

So, yesterday I was offered an internship position supervising a London gallery. Since this is my second long term internship in the past twelve months maybe I should change the name of the blog to Diary of the Serially Unpaid. But does this mean I'm employed? Not in my mind. Janet just told Anthony Perkins that she's going to go back to Phoenix to return the money she stole while they're sitting in the room full of dead birds, but its too late. Minutes later the be-wigged Perkins attacks and, leaving Janet dead on the bathroom floor. Chilling.

Now I'm worried. If I make the wrong choice somewhere along the line that could me in the shower. Given my obsessive worrying about every decision I make these days the idea that one wrong turn could land me dead in a bathtub in a rural California motel doesn't do a lot of good to my fragile state. To help me get a grip, I've signed up for a free weekend seminar at a Holiday Inn in Fitzrovia at the end of the month. It's called "The Awakening: Activating the Truth of Who You Are." I know. This shit is too perfect. Apparently, during two full days at the Holiday Inn I will be awakened, which I'm looking forward to. The organiser claims, "Anxiety, stress, sleeplessness, depression and pain are all your body's call to awaken you to your truth." If thats true my truth is practically kicking and screaming to be awakened. I'll provide a full report of the awakening after I have been awakened.

Before that glorious day, however, I will start operating on a schedule again on Monday, when my new internship begins. Fingers crossed my decisions this weekend (or ever) don't lead me into a Hitchcockian nightmare!