and no, motherfucker, that is not a grammatical error in the title. that is common newyorkspeak, the same way that “are you going to the cash-checking place” is common newyorkspeak. never heard nobody call nobody on neither one of those lines (not even me, not even when i get a picture in my head of homeboys dumping piles of wrinkled dollars on a dirty counter in order to have that cash “checked” and the bored clerk that’s got his shirt misbuttoned looks awful tired riffling through it all and just says “next!”).
anyway, if there is a such thing as Type A disease, i have it and i have it but good.
i haven’t even been out a full week yet: monday was turn-in-your-laptop day; wednesday was looking-out-for-the-girls day; a couple of days had more than a few answer-phone-calls-and-pings-about-shit-that-used-to-be-my-problem hours. not that i mind any of this. i’m just saying it hasn’t even been a full week off (plus there was a doctor’s appointment somewhere in there, and my father’s mini-surgery yesterday).
nevertheless! i am beating the CRAP out of myself for not having made more progress on my projects of choice this week. which is not to say i made NO progress, but i made nowhere near the amount of progress that i thought i could have (now, now, let’s use the right word: i mean SHOULD have) with a whole free week even when the whole week wasn’t entirely free irregardless i feel, as i always feel, as i likely eternally will feel, that I JUST DID NOT WORK HARD ENOUGH.
and then i get to fretting over what’s not done and of course when you are fretting it’s impossible to get anything at all done, so you resort to whatever your personal fretting-time activity may be. some people knit. some watch evil TV. some, who shall remain nameless, play spider solitaire.
so then even less, of course, is getting done. and the fretometer blasts out of the top of the scale — it’s 102 degrees and rising in fretopia.
meditation doesn’t work because i can’t meditate and fret at the same time. yoga doesn’t work because i hate it. long walks don’t work because they take too much TIME. don’t you see, TIME is the problem here.
which is of course what i said when i was still working a f/t dayjob. which i am not doing now. i have more free time right now than i have had in decades. so time can’t be the problem.
i am the problem. it’s that Type A shit. i’ve been in denial about it all these years but the evidence is in and i’ve got a helluva case. likely incurable.
how can i fix me of this? any and all ideas are welcome!
oh — and just so that this isn’t an entirely useless and absurdly self-centered blog, here are a few fun facts:
- the CDC actually has a swine flu RSS feed that you can subscribe to. i subscribed this morning and there are already more than 60 entries there. how have they found so much to say in so little time?
- the most coherent and thoughtful article i’ve read about the flu was written by susie madrak at crooks & liars. she’s also got a great piece up about how spain is investigating torture under the bush administration and may prepare an arrest warrant. and this is no joke — when they issued such a warrant against pinochet’s henchmen, one was arrested in the UK, extradited to spain, and is presently serving a 30-year sentence. i’d like to see george or dick or bybee doing thirty years in a spanish jail. issuance of such a warrant effectively means they can forget about traveling to europe for the rest of their miserable lives.
- you can get great pro-audio cables custom built AND cheap online from redco audio.
- if you are in NYC, you can join me at the bowery poetry club on may 19th for an event protesting the planned execution of troy anthony davis in georgia.
- antidepressants actually may turn out to be the root cause of the increasing familicide epidemic in this country. (yes, i told you i hate that word and i do hate it but that doesn’t mean i can’t use it.)
how’s all that for a mixed bag? still looking for cures for either Type-A-hood or fret syndrome. smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.
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{ 4 comments }
When I’ve had extended stretches of time off — which hasn’t been in years — it always took me a day or two to “unwind” and get my shit together to work on projects. Once you get in the habit of not having to go to the day job, you’ll find a new rhythm and the projects will begin. Just you wait and see.
I will *never* go back to cubicle-ville, or corner-office land (unless EVERYTHING is ecstatically perfect for me). I *love* being my own boss and taking my own assignments, making my own schedule, and limiting my interaction with office culture to “here’s my invoice” e-mails.
I get paid for writing about things I want to learn about, and yes, I still have to write and edit textbooks once in a while, but I am a real writer today.
For your readers navigating the gig economy: DO learn about the tax stuff NOW if you go self-employ. If you don’t know what you can deduct, you will get spanked big-time on April 15 (you have to pay FICA and double this and that in taxes when you freelance or have your own biz).
ps Colin is right. You will find a new way of working on projects, and it’s no longer in the interstices of your life. The best part is the exploration, the projects you’d never dream of chained to a desk. So, type-A, give a little time for the Goddess to come in and lift you even higher than you can imagine now…
I agree with George. How you can expect to “come down” from the nightmare of office politics and “get it done yesterday” mentalities in less than a week. I think you need time to add a little rest into the mix.
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