Pilcrow

I was born on time as predicted, December 31, 40 years ago. I've put everything off until the last minute ever since.

If you've visited my LiveJournal before, you've seen that it's subtitled "We Put the 'Pro' in 'Procrastination'." This is of course a joke at my own expense, but nonetheless there's a lot of truth to it. I must have a well-developed sense of timing for getting things done, because it's rare that I'm actually late in accomplishing a task, but it's also rare that I start something right away, let alone finish it in advance. Often there's something I'd rather be doing. Or maybe some other task that I feel should be done first, to get it out of the way so I can focus on the important one. Or prior plans that I figure I can still fit in before the task. Or I just don't want to face up to something tedious or unpleasant or anxiety-causing and I simply avoid it as long as possible.

This holds true even for projects I conceive of on my own and want to do, spend time thinking about doing. For example, this very series of posts. I am starting it on time as planned, Sunday November 21. But I'm starting late in the evening because I had chores and work to do first, and then I spent time chatting with a friend—a good, worthwhile chat that I'm glad we had and do not regret the time spent, but nonetheless a factor that has pushed this writing task later in the evening. And this writing task is now pushing off the work I still have to do. Furthermore, although I knew it would be best to have a complete list of 40 topics before I began, and wanted to post such a list in advance, I ended up not getting around to writing such a list (though I did solicit topics and have been thinking of more, so I'm not at a total loss).

For Halloween this year I went to a friend's party with a Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog theme, which meant dressing as a supervillain whether based in existing fiction (or fact!) or made-up. Ever since becoming old enough to be responsible for making my own costume, I've never much liked doing so: on the one hand, I want to do it right and look good or else not bother, on the other I don't have costuming skills and don't want to spend the time (or money) to make a good one. However, I happen to have a lab coat, so I knew I could do some kind of cheap mad scientist look, and spent the afternoon vaguely thinking about what I'd do. About an hour before it was time to leave for the party, I was thinking about my villain identity, and the name "Professor Procrastination" occurred to me as something that would fit well with the goofiness of Dr. Horrible. I realized that "Professor" necessitated a slight change in look, so instead of the lab coat I ended up wearing a sport jacket (which happened to be black—that's villainous, right?), nice shirt/trousers/shoes, and a bow tie. Any questions about my credentials or abilities as a supervillain were met with excuses along the line of "well, I've been working on that, I haven't quite got it done yet..." It actually went over quite well, people got the joke and were amused, plus I got to deliver an evil laugh and take credit a few times when someone else innocently mentioned they hadn't got around to doing something. If I hadn't come up with the idea at the last minute, I might have made a "procrastination ray" gun, but, you know... I'll get to that later.

That's about an hour's writing, and 630 words or so. My vague plan is to spend no more than an hour a day on this and to aim for 500 words, so that's a good start.

This past weekend I had the fortune of covering the 2009 Decibel Festival for KEXP. Over four nights from Thursday to Sunday, I heard a lot of different electronic artists, did some dancing, and even got in to a couple "secret" afterparties. You can find my articles by searching the Decibel Festival category on the blog (and for some reason my posts are the only ones under that category, even though they had at least one preview post and must've had some kind of coverage in previous years), but I'll also link them individually here:

• Decibel Festival 2009: Thursday night
• Decibel Festival 2009: Friday night
• Decibel Festival 2009: the weekend

I had a great time overall. If I had one complaint, it was just that the venues were spread out across town, making it impossible to check everything out—though with so many acts and events, it wouldn't have been possible anyhow, and I actually do like the idea of this being a cross-Seattle event rather than a single-neighborhood event. Also, as two of the venues, Neumos and Sole Repair, were directly across the street from each other, I got to see a lot more than I would've otherwise. Not all of the music was to my taste, but there was always something else worth checking out. I also want to give a shout out to the Electric Tea Garden and its friendly staff. Finally thanks to the staff and volunteers of the Decibel Festival for putting together such a great weekend showcasing electronic music; Seattle is definitely a better city musically for hosting this event.

Don't try to tell me that your feet are made of lead
Two choices, hang back or get ahead,
Lead the pack, get it in your head to
Keep on moving, keep on moving
Ha ha haaa, yeah

"Inertia", The Wonder Stuff

Inertia has been holding me back for months. Inertia is another name for myself. "It's not a boy's name, it's not a girl's name / Inertia I'd call my child all the same." As the Wonder Stuff point out, moving forward has its own inertia. I just need to overcome the inertia of rest. Convert my potential into kinetic.

I have a little movement in some areas; you've seen some of that, with so many posts devoted to music and now with some of that writing being done for KEXP and not just for myself. I need movement in several other areas, important areas. But I have such trouble getting going. I could use a push. Can you help?

Lift your foot. Take a step. Lift the other foot, take another step. Now you're walking. You can move. You have motivation. You choose not to move, you fear where the path leads, or you shirk from following it because it looks steep. When the ground crumbles behind you, beneath you, will you finally step forward? Will you take a leap? Or will you let inertia pull you down, let yourself slide away with the ground?

This is not directed at anyone but myself. I'm just getting the thoughts out of my head, they take up too much room, they crowd out the useful ones, they add to the weight of inertia holding me down, in place. Words bind me and ground me, words open me and free me. Words are not the problem, I am the problem, I am the solution. Friends help me find the solution, friends help me move forward, friends help me overcome the inertia that is myself and be the inertia that is also myself. Immovable object, irresistible force. 

Remember you can write. Remember you've kept journals all these years just for this purpose, to formulate your thoughts, to formalize your thoughts, to wrestle the endless gyres into structured paragraphs with beginning and importantly with end. The word spoken cannot be unsaid. Words have movement. Words move your thoughts. Words let you move and shape and structure and reorder and analyze and interpret and understand your thoughts. Use your words. Were you not born with words? Perhaps not, but the being who you are has always had words, cannot remember and is no longer the being who could not read, who did not have words. Be who you are. Become who you want to be. 

Get it in your head to keep on moving, keep on moving.

Monday night I had the good fortune of being the official KEXP reviewer for My Bloody Valentine at the WaMu Theater. It was an awe-inspiring show, and I wrote about their performance at some length. The review is now posted here on the KEXP Blog, so check it out!

I am still behind a few weeks in other reviews! Hopefully I can get to them soon...

Recently in my notes on upcoming shows, I've been talking up this Friday's show at the Sunset Tavern, an album-release celebration for both Point Juncture WA and for Hotels. I still haven't heard Point Juncture WA's album, just some songs on KEXP, so I don't have much to say about that except that I've been eagerly anticipating seeing them live to learn more about them. However, I'm quite pleased to say that not only do I have Hotels' new album Where Hearts Go Broke, I've written a review of the album which is now featured on the KEXP Blog. So if you're wondering what all the fuss is about Hotels, go read the album review, and come see them this Friday!

Scott posted a link to someone else's blog entry which posed the question whether you could write a story using only six words. Although I'm generally not interested in blog memes, I like the creative challenge of this one, so I thought I'd post it here and see whether it spreads out into LiveJournal-land.

My first attempt, which I think is okay, could be titled "Average American Male, Born In 1920" (which itself is perhaps a six-word story):
Born. Educated. Defended. Married. Worked. Died.

I like my second attempt much better:
Left school for city; all phonies! (J.D. Salinger, edited by me)

Post your own stories in the comments, or post about the idea in your own journals and blogs.

So. I still have this LiveJournal, and haven't written in it almost since I got it. I'm really not one to keep a LiveJournal -- I've kept journals before, but they've all been very personal things (read: mostly devoted to me complaining about how miserable I was, how little I did to change that, and how stupid I was for that reason).

I haven't kept a journal in over four years now, mainly because I finally did get my act together and move on in my life. I don't feel any particular need to post updates about my life here; my life's pretty good, my friends listen to my complaints when it's not, and I keep in touch with distant friends and family by email or phone. But I have this journal and I should do something with it.

I also have a need to write. I don't have that burning drive that "true writers" are supposed to have. I'm much more of a dreamer than a writer. But I'm employed as a writer, and I'm finding it hard to write. I also have creative writing projects that I'm really enthusiastic about, yet I'm finding it hard to write those as well. I have the skills and talents of a writer, the interest to be a writer, but I do not have the writing habit. I can and do write a lot regularly, in emails or on my friend's forum, and not all just conversational writing, either -- I can expound at length on many topics, some of which aren't even that geeky. But still, that is not the same as having the writing habit, and all that casual writing has not helped me to sit down, focus, and write, when I have a writing project to be done.

So, I believe I should use this LiveJournal to develop my writing habit, by writing entries daily. It may be challenging to find topics that will sustain my writing - maybe I can pick a theme for each day of the week, so the rotation of topics will keep them interesting. Or maybe I need a weekly theme, so I can work on developing an idea over a short number of entries.

Comments and suggestions will be welcome, from the two of you who actually read or even know about this journal. Hmm, I should probably let a few other friends know about this journal, that could be helpful to me.