Tag Archives: procrastination

Hesitating Suzanne

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Here’s a song i’m singing in my head as I work on cleaning the house up when I’m not distracted by something else.  Like the guitar. Or the children and their hunger. Their thirst. Their arguing with one another.  The cries. The stopped up kitchen sink. The cats and their meowing.  The call of the computer. The thought of something more. 

Here’s the song:

I’m not a fan (I’m not a fan)

Of Suzanne (why’s that man?)

I think she can

do better

than she does. (i hope she does)

I think Suzanne (i think Suzanne)

Should get a plan (get a plan)

Get herself together while she can (yes ma’am)

I ain’t a fan (ain’t a fan)

of Suzanne (c’mon man)

she don’t do anything that

she’s dreamed she can (aww man)

Come on Suzanne (Suzanne)

I think you can (Suzanne)

Don’t think you can’t

Then you won’t

and you never will. (and you never will)

The Day of Reflective Goals & Paper Notebooks

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I came in from sitting on the porch and thought, “I don’t ever write anything down anymore.”

My younger self came supplied with notebook and nice pens, ever ready in the bag of dreams, to whip out and.  I haven’t kept a serious notebook now in, what?  3 or 4 years.  I found myself immediately blaming the computer for making me a slave to it, and thinking the only suitable format for writing was kibbling on it’s square letters and symbols. 

But it’s not the computer’s fault I don’t write. It’s my own fault.  Or. It’s circumstances.  You know.  

I wish there were some form of magic where I could just say snap and everything be way way easier.  It’s nine o’clock and I am exhausted.  I want to write more.  

I’m challenging myself to write something. Anything for the next 5 days.  I am always so long winded I intimidate myself.  But. I need to practice 30 minute writing spells for the next five days to complete a goal for myself. I’m not really a goal maker, so this is a big deal. Because you’re supposed to set goals, right?  

I remember being taught that in elementary school, but it didn’t translate to real life for me.  

I need to start making goals and lists. Crossing things off gives you a buzz, right? Sure. I’ll believe that.  

But I’ll need a notebook for the lists and goals.  I need to start writing more. With a pen.  Like I did in my previous life. 

Before children and struggle.  

Anyways. That’s all for the night. 

 

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?

There Are No Cartoon Birds To Pull My Blankets

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6

I didn’t get up at six, just in case you were wondering. I got up at half past eight with no shame on my plate. I ate a handful of regret come evening time when everything I had needed to get done during the day had not gotten done. I don’t know how people get up so early. I know that it is probably great, the feeling of rising with the sun. But how do people do it day after day after day after day? Dawn comes and I am still weary from the hours I could not sleep the night before. Before the second it takes me to shut off the alarm clock is over, I am already fast asleep. Pillow on the head, praising the cool sheets on my cheek.

My Daddy got up at the ass crack of dawn for years when I was growing up. By the time I was out of bed to get ready for school, he would have already been up, breakfasted, read a couple of newspapers, and headed out for his first job of the day, the morning talk show for WYRN 1480 AM. I would listen to him on the clock radio in my Mama’s room while getting dressed for school. If we weren’t listening to him on the radio, we were listening to MIX 101.5 play “Lady in Red” like it knew that was the best song ever to get your day going.

I am so much like my Daddy. Why then can I not find it in myself to get up when I tell myself I would like to get up? The time comes around, and sleep changes my mind. I want sleep as long as I can possibly get the sweet swaddling of it.

The thing is, I know that this ability to sleep in until after eight is ending soon. My daughter, Ollie is going to be going to kindergarten in the fall. For the next seventeen years I will be waking with the worms to find myself plucked out of bed too early for my retaliating sleep pattern to kick in. The task of sending my daughters off to the early start of the school bell rings a slow dull moan in my psyche. If feels as if sleep is about to elude me for the rest of my life.

Half of me bemoans the early morning. Half of me wishes for it to knot me up in it’s bright beams and shake me til I’m wide awake and sugary sweet with love for it.  At night I beg the sunrise to slap me.  Morning comes and I curse the light.

There is so much to do, there is never enough time. When will my will wake up and wheel in the sunrise?

Is there a way to set your clock radio to play “Lady In Red” for the rest of your mornings alive?

Official Reading of the Scroll

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I told myself this morning that I would go to bed at eleven tonight. It’s now two minutes past midnight. I told myself two hours ago that I would start writing this blog post, but I didn’t start til now. I told myself last night that I would get up at six this morning, but I got up at eight. I’ve told myself again tonight that I will get up at six in the morning. And I’m going to. It’s six minutes past midnight. This is my anti-procrastination writing blog. I am going to change my life for the better.