CanCan the Game

I started today with a doleful post about discouragement. I decided to re-enter something that resembles more the brave attitudes of my many hard working friends.

Keep goin. Keep up the good work. When discouraged, encourage others.

There’s plenty to do, and I have many blessings, I have great support.

Things are slow, yes. But spring is here and it’s resurrection time. Math n Stuff just reordered two cases. SAM reordered two. Things are picking up.

Sometimes things are just tight. Cry. Pray. Think. And keep doing stuff even though you have that empty feeling. Have faith in yourself. Don’t pretend you’re NOT discouraged if you are! But keep moving.

This is what I tell myself. I have so much to be thankful for, not least a wonderful game that I can be proud of.

And great friends.
Great teachers.
Great son.
Great kitty who chews on my hair when she’s hungry. She never gives up. But she does accept delay.
The chickadees are returning to nest in the balcony above.
It’s a beautiful day

The thing about being an entrepreneur is that you really have to be your own noble lord, and you have to work humbly and diligently for yourself.
Where does the urge to self-start arise?
Something from nothing seems to be an operative concept for many of my dealings in this life.
CanCan is a visual metaphor for this: you start with the black and formless void…then, one thing appears, randomly…someone pulls a tile from the box and places it in the center of the board. It just Comes To Be…then everything else flows from that one small appearance from out of the blue…all subsequent tiles relate inevitably back to that first tile.
Why did that first tile appear?
Why did it get picked out of all the others?
Why this, now?
A logical mind will be harassed by these sorts of questions.
It Just Did, it just IS, is the answer from the mystery.
This is the world of the Random.
Chance: what is it? don’t ask. Yet so fascinating.
Randomness means lack of pattern or predictability in events.
Determinists do not believe randomness exists….that is, some people (Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, logicians) believe that everything is Caused or determined by something prior, or by some agent.
Is there a tradition that honors the random? Honors it, not just gives it a nod or denies it completely?
Go back, way back, ancient…shamanic, earth, divinations, trance, magic…before Abrahamic and Aryan doctrines…and yes, you will find the dark and mysterious world of the Random included in cosmologies.
It’s feminine-ish.
To me a good state of being is a balance between the Random and the Caused. Between received and intended.
CanCan is a Luck and Strategy game.
You start with the luck of the draw…what a deep moment that is: why this, now? Don’t ask.
Then Strategy: thinking ahead, choosing, placing, knowing Why, conscious creation.
It’s a game that might describe a beautiful world.

My friend Christine called me this morning to say she really enjoys my blog. She says she feels like we had the same childhood. She is so encouraging to me, (and a pistol), I’m grateful for her. She says when I’ve built my game empire, I can retire and write my book…which led to a conversation about Coconut Grove and why I like the oldest parts of cities best to live in: trees.
Because I will write my book in a warm place, like Marjorie Keenan Rawlings.

But this makes me wonder, how does me sharing my ADHD thought process and some snippets from my childhood further my purpose?? What is my purpose? Do I have a purpose??
How does this further the progress of CanCan? I mean I barely even mentioned the game in my last several posts.
Meanwhile I’m writing a song, finessing it now…and this is helping me let go of something …money is tight, which is a daily grind. I check craigslist for jobs, I post ads about my skills. I’m reading books, mostly thrillers…sort of seeking a forensic tone, just the facts I’m cooking good yummy things with beans and rice and sweet potatoes. I’m getting very precise in how I take walks (not so fast). I Like and Comment on Facebook. I write. I work on CanCan (see below). There’s a lot going on in any one day, and at the beginning of any given day, I don’t know what I will be doing…nobody wants painting done right now. So I do all these things. The order presents itself.

And with regard to CanCan, I’m doing a lot, kind of….
I am getting comfortable with Quickbooks!! This is huge. This is as if I actually passed Statistics (which I didn’t)
I am opening new store accounts, specifically Snapdoodle and Math n Stuff
I’m changing the business structure of CanCan to Incorporated, yeah. Now CanCan is a person too! (Jk).
I’m upgrading my IP status.
I’m making notes about the tweaks to the design and the rules for the next run. I’m designing a flyer and order form
I’m delivering the order form to reps…I’m trying to get in touch with my reps….David why aren’t you calling me back?
I’m talking to the postal service about business postage, and spending hours on the computer trying to set up a business account on the USPS website…
I’m driving to every Montessori school in Seattle and walking in and introducing ourselves (me and CanCan)…
I’m checking in with stores and restocking.
I’m talking to small business counselors and advisors
(People say to me, Have you thought about x, y or z? helpfully, of course…I have to be patient and say Um, yes…been here a while)
…the next big thing once I have my legalities in order will be my next Business Plan, yes, I already wrote a 40 page one…this one will be shorter and will reflect CanCan as a growing enterprise.
Then I will mount a campaign to receive INVESTMENT in my company, which will finance the next run of games and some marketing and maybe some shekels for the CEO…
So maybe,
Part of my purpose is to prove that an artist can make a business without compromising her soul. I will expand on this.
Part of my purpose is CanCan itself
Part of my purpose is to be financially secure without working some soul crushing job
and damn whoever thinks that there will always be people to do soul crushing jobs.
Pardonnez mon francais.
Maybe part of my purpose is sharing my ADHD thought process.
HAHAHA

Sent from my iPad

Some days I don’t know where to begin. I don’t know who I am or how I am, in the sense of “How are you?”, because until I’ve gone out and started negotiating the world, I’m the girl in the bubble. I wake up, think, drink coffee, write, and think some more. I might think I’m on top of it, and out I go, only to find that in fact I’m kind of spaced out, possibly even bumbling, and not interacting well. Maybe this is true for everyone who lives alone. I’m not OF the world until I’m IN the world…and that’s how I stay grounded. That’s why I’m grateful to have a business (well, two, actually). Business keeps my feet on the ground and my head out of the clouds and my hat in my hand.

I think it might otherwise be possible to float away on a stream of reverie, to be caught now and again talking to myself, acting out the story in my head. My dad used to do this all the time. Greg was a hedonist, sensualist, addict, dreamer, music lover, animal doter, escape artist. I admire him greatly. But I have too much of my no nonsense mom in me to surrender utterly to my daddy genes. Luckily, many would say. But, other than feeling judged, as he did, my dad had more fun than most.

And I think I inherited that pesky high degree of aaaaaargh *sensitivity* from dad. Dad could sit with his headphones on for hours, tears rolling down his face, involved in who knows what epic movie in his head. He was very tender-hearted and way too sentimental for someone who, in the main, didn’t trouble himself with the impact of his behavior on others…

Oh well. Those who knew Greg loved him. You couldn’t help it, he was smart and playful and charming, and he had a magical twinkle. He was a golden guy.

This is my mom, O. She is the Mother of CanCan.

Yes, CanCan is my baby, I conjured the thoughts that created the project and the game, and I’m the conduit to and from the various implementers of it. I had the idea, I drew it out, I figured out how to publish it and manufacture it. I sell it.

But without O there would be no CanCan. CanCan has many supporters. But O has been my greatest support and my greatest supporter. She has sent money for most of the graphic design, and some of the web work, and some of the legal expenses. My mommy has been the primary investor in CanCan over the last five years. Sounds pretty professional, doesn’t it??

Where banks run screaming when they see me coming, NOT trailing assets as I am, my mom has extended that helping hand in the faith that I will make this thing happen…she tells me all the time that she’s proud of me, and that she loves me more than words can say. This alone gives me strength and courage, because my mom is one of the strongest, straight-arrow-est, kindest, no nonsensest, highest energy people I know… Thank you, my mummy!! This is for you