Evie is sleeping in suuuuuper late this morning.  It is 9.30, so I wanted to try and squeeze a little work in.  Look what my darling child appears to have to have done to my keyboard:

I’m rebooting for the third time.  I’ve tried monkeying with the screen resolution, and display options – but I swear, she must have accessed the mainframe to do this.  Maybe she went into the matrix, when I wasn’t looking?

Evie, I love you, but now how is Mummy going to get any work done this weekend?

Super side note:

It took me forever the other night to figure out how to connect the Sonos to Sound Cloud, and then unlink a couple of rooms I had accidentally linked.  I hate technology!

I have gone back to carrying a note book in my back pocket.  I often find the need to jot something down, but when I take out my phone to do that, I can distracted by one of the evil numbered notifications, telling me I have an email or a text – or something else irrelevant to the note I wanted to take.  Suddenly the ADD me is down through the rabbit hole and the creative me is distracted!

I am a techno idiot, yet I work in the game industry.  Something went wrong somewhere, huh?  Aren’t you supposed to do what you love?

And I guess I don’t really mean that, I love my job.  Right now, I especially love my boss and my colleagues, and I love Star Wars.  It’s just a lot less creative that it has been at other times at EA.  It’s a lot more politics and stress.  Whatever, it’s a good job, and it’s well paid – and duh, it’s Star Wars!   How much of a whiner can I really be.  I love it.  I am really lucky.

I also have the coolest business cards on the planet (thanks, Greg!)

But there have been times that my job has also really nourished my personal side.  It has afforded me the opportunity to travel, to see different places I never would have seen.  I have walked the great wall of China because of this job.  I have seen some amazing live bands in Austin, I’ve hit house clubs in Chicago.  I know New York pretty well now – I’ve come out of clubs there and thrown snowballs in the virgin snow at 2am.  I’ve walked the empty street, and hailed the cabs at the busiest times.  I’ve seen friends and eaten midnight curries at dives so packed with fairy lights you have to duck your head.  I used to get to fly home to London once a month (business class, thanks EA) when working on Batman.  I flew to New Zealand dozens of times when working on Lord of the Rings.  Sometimes I didn’t even stay overnight.  I partied with hobbits, drank cocktails with Liv Tyler and Christian Bale and voice-directed Ian McKellen and Christopher Lee (to name but a few).  I have eaten in the best restaurants in the world, and drunk the best wines. I have been to more strip clubs than I care to remember, I have ice-skated at a private event on opening night at the Rockerfella centre.  I have run along canals in Stockholm, walked red carpet movie premiers in Berlin – all on the company dime. And I appreciated every minute of it.  My company even gave me a 4-month paid sabbatical and I got to ride a motorbike from San Francisco to the tip of Argentina.  (The blog’s cover photo was taken in Bolivia on that trip.)  That’s a whole other blog:

Mortocycle Trip for SF to Tierra del Feugo (2Up on a bike)

and a whole other set of pictures:

San Francisco to Ushuaia

Seriously, who gets this lucky?

Some of my roles afforded me the opportunities to really grow as a person.  I have managed movie feature-length budget, and produced live action movies – and I have learnt from the best people, and worked with the best teams.  I have been surrounded by talented and creative individuals – and often I have been able to touch and contribute to the games I am making.

And now?  What now?  I have Evie, so maybe my priorities are changing.  I love my boss, and I love my colleagues.  I really do.  I actually love and appreciate all the teams I work with – but maybe I miss the creative side.  I don’t know.  I don’t mean to sound like a whiner.  I really do appreciate what I have.  Maybe this is just a phase.  I feel like I have been in a bit of a fog since having Evie.  I had the easiest pregnancy imaginable.  I absolutely loved every second of it.  I would be pregnant forever if I could be – LOL!  And I love having a baby.  I mean, duh!  But I feel like my mind might be clearing.  Is this because I am weaning her?  I don’t know.  It certainly isn’t because I am getting more sleep.  I am probably getting less – and that is my own fault.  (My dream baby has always slept through the night, and even to this day, she sleeps for at least 12 hours.)

So what is it?  What am I lacking?  Meaning?  Can I do something more meaningful with my life.

I’m trying to figure out when enough is enough.  How much I can really afford to donate?  Where can I make a difference in the world?  How can I be the best person I can possibly be?  Just work hard, and be better, Dobner!  (Sorry, inside joke!)

I’m getting there.  I have a few charities I am passionate about.  Maybe through them I will find the next thing I am looking for.  Next time go to England, Evie will be a few weeks shy of 2 years old.  I am going to take her to Oxford and show her Mummy’s college.  Daddy will come, too.  Maybe we will take her punting again.  I’m thinking of trying to really do something actionable to help the homeless situation in San Francisco.  I am donating every penny I can.

The world is our oyster.  Count your blessings.  I am counting mine.  There are lots of them.

For now, enough is enough :).

I thought I was done with blogging, but it seems it wasn’t done with me.  Last Sunday, I went to church (!)  I had heard several times, that Glide was a “different” kind of church.  In fact, it describes itself as a “celebration”.

I was encouraged by the fact that I was with the  Claudia (who took the photo above) – and that I didn’t immediately burst into flames as I walked in the door!

The opening prayer is displayed on a large screen, and ends “Halleluja, Shalom, Right On, Namaste”!  This set the scene for a fantastic service full of love.  In fact, love (specifically “self love”) is the central theme.  There was much talk of “losing religion, and finding faith”. One of my favourite quotes was “Don’t use Jesus to be a narrow-minded bigot”!

I went to a Catholic school, but haven’t been to church in years.  (Not since I asked a vicar if I could have sex with my boyfriend, and he told me I would go to hell if I did!)  I loved the non-denominational  aspect, the charity, the handing-out of fans, and tissues… but most of all I liked the music.  Wow, that choir can sing.  It made my heart resonate.  I cried throughout most of the service.

People think I am tactile, but I don’t really like to be touched unless I am initiating it.  I was perturbed at the suggestion we should embrace our neighbours, until I saw the joy and happiness in it.  At one point, an old man (wearing a perfectly-tied double windsor) took his shoes and socks off, snuggled up to me and started snoring.  Claudia held on to me and we laughed and laughed.

The central message, at least on this Sunday, was to relax, to try and love yourself, to chill the “f”out, and let the God, Allah  the universe (or whatever you call it) take care of you.  I am going to try and work on that.  Maybe I shouldn’t have been striving so hard.  I have experienced this a few times over the last few months.  If you just take a step back, things sometimes come to you.

(A quick anecdote on this, nothing to do with god/religion/faith, I wanted tickets to an Ed Sheeran concert this this week and was disappointed they were sold out.  I started to try and “produce” them and find ways to just bulldoze it and make it work.  As soon as I took my foot off the pedal, they dropped into my lap.  Of course, not everything is going to be easy, but I am trying to be thankful for every little bit of life.)

I do know, that in my darkest days, there was a support there that I didn’t know was there.

I smiled and thought of you tonight, Paula. I made a vinegrette with that pumpkin seed oil you gifted me. Thank you.

I’m sure it is all fine.  The tech wouldn’t tell me anything except a couple of the cysts are growing (one is at least 12 cms in diameter now).  There is at least one attached to an ovary (which I knew) and now several in the liver (which is new).

In better news, fries!

Just squeezed into in the briefest of lunches with a dear friend.  I love you, Brian.  Almost as much as the chocolate cookie we split! 

I slept well last night.   Thank you, Anka! 

I was walking home last night and passed a homeless woman.  She said “I like your hat”.  I said “thank you”.  She said “I used to love hats, but all mine got stolen”.  So I gave her my hat.

She said she couldn’t take it, but I insisted.  I said it was one of my favourites, it had always been lucky for me, maybe it would bring her luck.

She said her name was Kentucky, but  her real name was Amanda.  She looked so happy with her new hat and so pretty. I gave her $20 and asked her not to spend it on drugs.  (The cynic is me knows that she probably will, but whatever.)

She insisted on giving me something.  A locket.  I didn’t want to take it, but she said “they” would only steal it from her eventually.  I lost a locket once.  It had been my grandmother’s and it meant a lot to me.

I started crying and told her it wasn’t her fault, but a friend of mine had just passed, and I was emotional.  She told me when I could find her if I ever needed her.  She asked what she could do for me!

I asked what it would take to be off the street, to not get robbed all the time.  Would she need to be clean?  She said it’s not that easy, she has a brain aneurysm.  I have no idea if this is true.  I have a little piece of flint coal in my heart, so I always suspect the lie. But I don’t care if it is true.

She kept repeating where I could find her if I needed her.  I said “but they move you on”.  She said, just keeping asking for Kentucky.  They will find me for you, you said.

We both cried.  We hugged. Life, huh?

People often compliment me on being “genuine” or “open”.

I’m only this open in times of great stress. I feel like a watermelon that got stepped on by a donkey and is now cracked open and spilling seeds all over the place!

I do love my nieces.  I couldn’t decide whether to call this post “Star” or “There but by the grace of god…”.

My mum sent me this photo.  Charlie made it and put it on the Lights of Love Christmas tree in Buntingford.  I cried.

Here is my mum putting hers on for Grace, too: