The Hourglass of Death

The combination of being my birthday AND being a Sunday has kind of messed with my head today.  Weekends are notorious for flying by, I get that.  No one wants their days off to end, even if you are one of those fortunate individuals who is lucky enough to do something that you love as a career.  But I grasp and claw at Sunday, EVERY Sunday, not because I hate my job but because work is work and play is play, and play is WAY much more fun.  Also because another Monday means another week of my life is gone *POOF* never failing to remind me that I have so much to do that I haven’t done.  And to throw my birthday on top of that…cruel!  I swear every time I looked at the clock today it jumped forward twice the time.

Let me preface the following by saying I am not psychotic.  I am not hearing “voices” or seeing things that aren’t there.  But for some cosmic reason my brain today has been filled with an image and voice from my past, one created by Hollywood in what I feel is one of the most beloved and yet most disturbing movies of all time.  The one image that has haunted me this day, the first day of being “over 40″, this wonderful Sunday, is…

Yes.  The Wicked Witch of the West.  And yes I do in fact think The Wizard of Oz is one of the most disturbing mainstream movies of all time…right up there with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and A Clockwork Orange.  I mean considering the intended audience is children, that’s a pretty warped movie.  And thanks MGM for the annual repeat so that the images from this movie are emblazoned on my brain, not to mention that voice…

“I’ll get you, my pretty!  And you’re little dog Toto, too!!”

Ok eff that!  I’m not your ‘little pretty’ and you’re NOT getting anywhere near my dog.

This brings me to the Hourglass of Death.  It’s that monstrous hourglass with horrifically red sand that ever so quickly counts down the last seconds of Dorothy’s life.  And every single time I looked at the clock today as it was jumping forward exponentially, I saw the Hourglass of Death…how MORBID is that??!!!  And I could hear the Wicked Witch of the West mocking me …

“You see that???  That’s how much longer you’ve got to be alive! And it isn’t long, my pretty, it isn’t long!”

Let me re-emphasize…I am NOT psychotic.  Morbid, yes.  Psychotic, no.

Ok here’s the deal (and the point of this blog)…I have a lot of cool stuff that I want to do.  And I’m not getting any younger.  What’s keeping me from doing all the awesome things I want to do?  I could say I am a busy person and I have a full time job and a house to upkeep and I have to go to physical therapy and I have to work out and I have people to see and blah blah blah…or maybe I am just inherently lazy.  But the bottom line in all of this is that the one single thing that is keeping me from fulfilling my destiny is…me.

Last year when I turned 40, I told myself I wanted to finish my first full length screenplay in the coming year.  Well that “coming year” came and went like the blood-red sand of the Hourglass of Death and I have no screenplay to show for it.  And yes a lot happened in that year and life happens as it does to all of us, but I find myself sitting here in the exact same place I sat last year on this day, in front of the computer contemplating the future and making deals with myself and struggling to find motivation.  I have come to the conclusion that it will take a documented, signed contract to provide the motivation to get ‘er done.  And that’s what this blog is…my commitment to myself to write my screenplay over the coming year, my contract posted for the world to see.  I will provide updates (at least monthly, hopefully weekly) on the blog for those that choose to follow me on this journey (they will be appropriately entitled ‘The Hourglass of Death: an Update’).  My target…an average of 3 pages per week with a goal of 90 pages by the time it’s all said and done.  (For my friends who are good at math, yes that gives me a little wiggle room…for times when I’m out of town, holidays, work insanity, etc.  Hopefully I can achieve this goal in less than a year’s time, but I wanted to be practical and realistic and not set myself up for failure.)

And you are all free to hold me to it!  Comment here, Facebook me, Tweet me into submission…like that nasty, green bitch who will be looking over my shoulder the entire time…

The sand is falling…

Let’s get ‘er done!

~ Kim

P.S.  For those who would like to watch the infamous hourglass scene in its entirety… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNLAc8TnJcg

Caution here’s a spoiler: Toto gets away. 

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~ by KimBergie on July 31, 2011.