Category Archives: Procrastination

Bloody Sunrise, Bloody Moon, Bloody Hell.

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Five ticks past 11 at night. I’m liable to argue with myself about how to roll out of the bed when the alarm sounds and the neighbor’s rooster crows a calling response in the morning. I greet the day, a habitual grudge, as the morning is forever coming too soon. A whispered, “Fffffucking hell” upon waking, or a happy thought for the two minutes I still have to rest until the alarm goes off again. Five minutes before 7 is as early as I have been able to force myself to wake.

Monday through Friday after the last minute moment of rest is caught, I fling my legs off my bed in groggy and immediate search for the pants and t shirt I wore the day before and the day before that. I allow myself 35 minutes exactly to greet, breakfast, and don the children in their outfits. Quickly weaving out of outfit arguments, rhythmically encouraging swift cereal spooning, eschewing the notion that socks should match, brushing a quick tooth, inevitably yanking a hair too hard mid sweep. Tears. Sighs. Kisses. 7:40. Public school starts too early.

There is supposed to be a blood moon tonight, and there likely is somewhere. Here there is only an orange glow casting off some low clouds to northeast. Can’t see no blood moon. Only stars I’m seeing is the glowing lights on the tops of the cell phone towers across the railroad tracks up Lee Street. Can’t see nothing. It’s quiet out, though.

blood moon

Blood Moon. AKA Total Lunar Eclipse. Somewhere Else. Not currently visible to me. 

Seriously, Dude. Blues & Cupcakes.

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I’m in the new house now in Greensboro. The house is finally settled. We’ve been here since September, mostly. I’ve been drowning in a great depression for a month now, a rather heavy one. I’d like to think I’ll be able to shake it off, but I haven’t been able.

The year always starts with a bang. A new place to start counting from, now’s the perfect time to do what you’ve been putting off, let’s get skinny again!

I’ve gotten fat this past month and a half of 2014. I’ve stuffed my face with pretzels dipped in sour cream, in sweetened condensed milk. I’ve squirted Hershey’s chocolate syrup into the carton of strawberry ice cream and finished off a quarter size box of Breyers. I’ve eaten my children’s leftovers, used two bags of oatmeal at breakfast, and sprinkled lots and lots of salt on my single serving microwave popcorn. I’ve drank orange soda and milk and juice straight out of the bottle and put it back in the fridge. I went out for a burger and fries at Hops Burger Bar and had the most tasty burgers I have ever tasted in my life (get The Big Truffle if its on special), three days in a row. I’ve eaten my children’s candy. Cookies have been made and I have been the monster.

I shower hardly ever. I cut all my hair off. I am slowly slinking into being a blob on the couch til I’m dead.

Who am I kidding, I’ve been depressed for a while. It’s easy to say it when you just say it instead of putting it off.

I’m depressed! Okay then? Yes. Yes you are. Depressed.

Reason’s I’ve been depressed:
1. Children’s father is a nightmare to deal with. I’ll keep that explanation short and simple for now. No details. Just the thought of a tangent makes me scour. GRRR SERIOUSLY, DUDE.  I see now why some mothers opt their children’s fathers out of their lives. And I don’t want to do it. But I am convinced you are a psychopath.  And I’m not using that word to be funny. SERIOUSLY, DUDE. Look up the definition and deny deny deny who you are some more

(oookay)(back to the lissst)

2. General lack of healthiness. Can’t find jeans that fit right.

3 Can’t seem to wake up at 6 a.m., which for some reason, I have equated waking at that time to achieving happiness.

4. There is no music going on in my life. Unless you count me singing to The Little Mermaid Soundtrack in the car and my daughter shushing me.

5. I don’t see my friends as much as I thought I would after I moved back. I fully accept some blame for that. Life happens, like a nail gun on repeat.

6. This house I’m renting is okay but the oven and the tub and the kitchen sink suck.

7. I haven’t been writing, and writing always helps. Always helps.

8. Children are difficult to take care of day in and day out and day in and day out and day in and day out and day in and day out and day in and day out. It’s one of the joys of single motherhood.

Yeahhhhhhhdepression. So what now?

I dunno. There’s this blog post I guess, which is something good come of it. I’m writing. #winning

heh.

Somebody give me a fucking cupcake.

SERIOUSLY. Need cupcakes. Gourmet with neat flavors.

CHOCOLATE-CUPCAKES

Maybe I should make my own cupcakes and apply that thought to life.  Make my own way, and do the things I need to do to get myself out of this got-dog depression. I started this blog saying I was going to get up at 6 a.m. the following day, and I never did. Maybe tomorrow I will.

Seriously doubt it.  Maybe. I’m depressed.  And it’s supposed to snow. Maybe I will start writing in this website I paid for more, though. Maybe. Hopefully.  Writing helps.

So do snacks. Snacking my way through the depression. Gotta stop doing that, too. But not tonight.

Wanted: Stardust Honing Business Skills Stapler

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I’ve decided today that I need to go to business school.  I need to rack up a bunch of debt, become more poor than I already am, and insert myself into a place that seems unfamiliar.  Numbers and deadlines, hosiery and telephones, oblong tables and elevators.

I don’t fancy myself a business type, but I do covet the fancy business skills that I lack. Perhaps, I just need some assistance digging the skills out and shining them.  Business school would be an expensive shovel, but  a costly twenty thousand dollar dig may motivate me to more assertively advance my creative endeavors. Is there perhaps some sort of business skills stapler out there with the capacity to attach the needed attributes for my toils? The endeavors crawl into me and creep out constantly, with no fruits to bear. I’ve got dreams to remember, but a reluctance to heels.

There is something that holds me back from producing my visions, my art.  I stew my musings in private.

I am a musician. I am a songwriter.  I have written 91 songs.  I have recorded less than a quarter of those songs.  Or, to be more clear, there are rough practice recordings, but in 10 years I have not released one damn full length record.  I was 25 when my old band, Scarlet Harlot released some overly rushed to be produced album.

A year and a half ago my band released an EP, but even that is three years old.  Yeah. It took  a year and a half after the recording sessions to release the album as an EP.  To be fair, my band was rolling and recording and ready, when I zapped into super secret hermit mode upon finding out I was toting a baby bomb.  Stopped recording. Stopped practicing.  Stopped everything. Unplanned pregnancy equals freak out time. I froaked. (yes.)

But, still, that is just an excuse.  I’ve had hundred of them. Like: I don’t have any money to start this. Or: I’m really sad.  And: It’s not perfect yet, it’s not ready. Also: I’m having a kid. Then: I’m having another kid. Yes: I smoked too many cigarettes, and my throat hurts.  Excuses, excuses.

Would going to business school rid me of the procrastination? Is there some sort of insertable drive I might acquire where I stop the excuses and continue a vision through to a fully explored path?

There is some button that I just don’t have.  I am a damn dreamer is my damn problem. And I’m okay with that, is my other one.  Does business school provide one with some sort of hammer or rope with which to exact a swing of upward mobility? Is there some ladder I can scale to reach the next level of continuous motivation to achieve my dreams?

Perhaps I should just get a payday loan, risk the interest on that junkie, get a bunch of money and record a bunch of albums and publish my children’s book.   Would the interest on a payday loan be of enough motivation to me  to right my wrongs and ring my mid-life bell into productivity?  35 is mid-life, y’all. Should I go business school? Or get some seedy loan? Should I start a letter writing campaign?  Start a youtube channel?

What the hell am I waiting on?

I have a job. I work for great people. It’s not a job that I will advance in;  the advancing of position has never been of much importance to me. I’m not that type of personality where I need the best job with the best money. But realistically, I could use more money.  Because. I don’t have health insurance.  I can’t afford it. I want it.  I need it. If something goes wrong with me, I’m gonna die.

I don’t feel like I’m poor, but I am.  I have great talents that could make me less poor, if only they were asserted.  I want better for my daughters.  We are not at the bottom of the barrel, barely. We budget and make do. But, there needs to be a change!

When do I start? Who’s in charge of pressing the start button?

Me?  Yes. Me. Why haven’t I hit it yet?  Maybe I’m about to. Is there some strange moon tonight?

Ho-boy. I looked it up. Yes. Yes, it’s the stars.  Always the stars!

The moon is in Aries.

I’m born on the last day of Pisces.You know what that means, right?

In astrological terms, if you’re born on the last day of a zodiac sign, you’re born on a cusp. Meaning, that you are strongly influenced by the next zodiac sign but you’re NOT the next zodiac sign. Pisces are dreamers, engulfed by emotion. Aries are do-ers, riddled with ambition.  Technically, I’m supposed to have some Aries traits up in my mix, somewhere.  They were prevalent in my younger life, but long since laid dormant. My Pisces particulars are evergreen.

Tonight, them traits are on alert. I am beaming. I am scratching at the bit.

I kid you not, my steady gears are turning, I feel a wriggling, I feel a jump coming.  I mean, seriously? SERIOUSLY?  Today I began to think about something that I HAVE NEVER EVER CONSIDERED.  Business school!! Business school???   Cutthroats and stressors, brown noses and bitches.

I don’t need business school to do what I need to do.  You don’t need business school training to just begin, do you?  Follow through is an exertion that does not require a life ladening loan.

You just need the moon to come round right. Right?

Dear Moon, don’t you go. Glow, glow down here. Dear Moon, you got a hold on some soul up there. Dear Moon, could you  phase me to the next stage of my life?  Dear Moon, I got a ladder, gonna climb up to you. Dear Moon, I got a rope, gonna tie on to you . Dear Moon, would you swing me on into the light?  I’m a shadow to shine over, I’m a shock of a shell.  Dear Moon, you kept beaming, lives been through hell. Dear moon, if there’s a man in you, would you please be mine?

Message In A Bottle: Lucinda Williams

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I ran across this Lucinda Williams video a few minutes ago. She comes out and blows her opening number because her capo is in the wrong place, and she’s singing in a higher key, and she can’t figure out what exactly is the problem. Her techie has to tap her shoulder and tell her that her capo is in the wrong place.

This has happened to me on a couple of cheek reddening occasions (with the exception of a band mate pointing out the error instead of a techie) and this slip of Lucinda’s made me feel validated. She messes up, blows it off, rocks it out. Yup. That’s how it’s done.

Lucinda Williams is one of my favorite rock and rollers, and I’ve often thought I should try to sell her some songs. If I knew how to go about doing that. Anybody out there know how to go about doing that? I have some swell songs, I promise.

If I were to write a message in a bottle to Lucinda Williams, and throw it in the river, this is what I would say…

“Dear Lucinda Williams,
If this message that I’ve pushed in this bottle and thrown into the Tar River has reached you down in New Orleans or wherever you are, well I might say that I have finally had a change of luck, and perhaps the thoughts in my head were made to be more than just thoughts.

Hi! !!!  How are you doing? I hope you are smiling, and I hope you like this bottle?? I thought it fanciful enough to be endearing and strong enough to withstand the trip downstream . I didn’t really want to give the bottle up, I’ve had it for years, but I thought, what the hell…Lucinda will like it.

So. I really like your songs and the way you sing, ma’am. I’m a singer songwriter as well, and I think I have some songs you could go to town on. Do you ever think of dead people talking to you when you sing? I get Kurt Cobain and Whitney Houston for some reason cheering me on in my head when really getting into the act of singing and playing. You know that spirit you get into, right?

Anyways, Lucinda, I don’t wanna keep you too long. You never heard of me, and I know you got thangs to do. And I don’t know if you ever get songs from other sources. But if you do, and you feel like giving this single mama a shot, I got some songs for that. Like lots of them. And I could use the help.

I hope you have very fine day, and I hope this message in a bottle somehow finds away into your heart. I’ll look to the birds for your reply.

Super,
Suzanne.

So, yeah.  Splash.  Start floatin’, bottle.