Procrastinator help thyself

So the last two books I've read have been self-help books. Yup. I am now one of those people. The books, Think and Grow Rich! by Napoleon Hill and How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain De Botton, were actually in many ways good. For me anyway.

Think and Grow Rich!

My (ex?)-yoga instructor recommended this one. For the most part it was all about the power of positive thinking, with many examples of how positive thinking has helped people to overcome tremendous odds. One of the suggestions (which I'd actually heard before) that I'm working on is that if you don't believe in yourself or you don't have that burning desire or drive for whatever it is that your goal is, just keep telling yourself that you do and eventually you will.

Speaking of belief in myself, the book also made me realize something. In the book were many anecdotes about people who were told that they couldn't do something, but they inevitably proved their doubters wrong. These stories made me realize that no one has ever told me that I won't be able to achieve my major life goals. No. One. If everyone else believes in me, why don't I? Just crazy I guess. Anyway, no longer. If the people I love and respect believe in me, then fuck it, I'll give in to the peer pressure, I believe in me too. (Maybe that sounded sarcastic, but I'm actually serious.)

How Proust Can Change Your Life

Sometimes funny. Sometimes deep. Kind of dark for a self-help book (Chapter 4 is titled "How to Suffer Successfully"), but it opened up my mind and sent me back to seriously considering writing, art, philosophy, friendship, love, and life. I had thought I had been considering these things, and maybe I had, but this book cranked my thinker all the way up to eleven.

Two things in particular struck me in this book. First, Proust wrote some beautiful and insightful stuff. I've never read his book, but now I think that maybe I should. Second, I have a lot in common with Proust, and I quote:

"In 1899, things were going badly for Proust. He was twenty-eight, he had done nothing with his life, he was still living at home, he had never earned any money, he was always ill, and, worst of all, he had been trying to write a novel for the last four years and it was showing few signs of working out."

Scary. And that is just a snippet of the similarities. I guess I can take comfort in being so similar to someone considered by many to be a literary genius. But I don't want the life described in the book. I don't want to produce only one novel (even if it is dauntingly lengthy and brilliant). I don't want to be cooped in a room most of my life, writing and rewriting who knows what in the comfort of bed. I don't want to be a good friend to a lot of people but never get married.

So I'm working on it. I'm trying some online avenues to meet people (no I won't tell you where). I'm putting serious effort into finding a job (I know, you've heard that before). And I'm working, wah-er-king, hard on my book. I think it's finally starting to take shape. I look to have the first draft done in the next few months. The end of the year at the latest.

Anyway. Thanks for reading.

I'm grateful for the 759 pages of Potterific bliss that are in my future (20).

The moon

So last night I was holding two halves of an English muffin over a surprisingly blank section of the counter when I realized that the toaster oven had been abducted, taken by its owners to camp for a few weeks. Damn. So, not having my primary snack option available, I decided to head out to the nearby convenience store for some alternate source of snackage and. . . the moon. . . At the stop sign I nearly forgot I had been driving. The gibbous moon was wrapped in ribbons of cloud that were outlined by the light reflected from the moon. Almost looked like a swirl of cream on the surface of a cup of black coffee. Amazing. Stunning. Moving. Something good.

Anyway, I have updates on list related pursuits, but I've already written quite a bit today, so I'm going to procrastinate the update until tomorrow. For now, I have a question: How is it possible that every time I've been waiting in line at the cash register today I've been stuck behind someone trying to use a coupon that was intended for use at a different location? Weird.

I'm grateful to write and read and play and listen (20).

Fragments of my recent life

I've had a wall in my life for a while now. It's a good wall. When I'm tired, I can lean on it, and it will support my weight. When I'm bored, I can throw a ball at it, and it will throw the ball back. When I need inspiration, I can look at the beautiful paintings hung at eye level. From time to time, however, I decide to run headfirst into the wall. Yesterday was one of those times. The wall is probably getting tired of this foolishness, and my forehead is starting to flatten out. When will I learn? The wall is a wall. No matter how good a wall it has been to me, it will always be a wall.

Last night I watched the first three minutes of Futurama and realized that Fry must've been based on me: "I'm just as important as him. It's just that, the kind of importance I have, it doesn't matter if I. . . don't do it."

Went to the driving range with z-man this morning and learned two things: 1. I have a severe slice. 2. Always bathe and shave before going to the driving range because the woman behind the counter is cute and smiley.

After I came out of the bathroom after the shower I took after I got back from the driving range, my niece, Elephant, said, "Uncle [Procrastinator] why are you wearing handsome clothes?"

"What?"

"I just wanted to know why you're wearing handsome clothes."

"Handsome clothes? I guess because my ugly clothes are dirty."

"The clothes you were wearing were cute."

"Oh. Well my cute clothes are dirty too."

Heh. I love being an uncle. To make the scene even better, when z-man found out I was wearing handsome clothes, he said, "Back to the driving range then." Heh. I like funny people.

When I was making a lunch of the leftovers from last night's dinner, homemade macaroni, which I missed because I was busy with the aforementioned wall, I realized how completely self-involved I've been recently. Only a few days prior, I was telling tz and z-man how much I love baked macaroni. Then they make baked macaroni, and I don't even have the common decency to show up and eat it? Really? What is my problem? I don't deserve to have such wonderful people in my life, but I am grateful for them (20).

There's too much roadwork in this state right now.

I'm at my parents' house because we're going to be helping my grandmother move this weekend. We stopped in at my brother's house, and my other niece, ladybug, came up to me and gave me a big hug and an even bigger kiss. Have I mentioned that I love being an uncle?

Damn Tigers.

I'm grateful for "Fuck was I" by Jenny Owen Youngs (20).

I'm it! I'm it!

IME tagged me for an Eight Random Things About College Me quiz. So, here are the rules!

Each player must post these rules first.

Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

Tagged people post their eight things and these rules.

End your post by "tagging" eight new people to play.

Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog for these instructions.

Here goes:

1. I sometimes make hand gestures that don't match what I'm saying. Because of this fact, there were at least three people in college who made air quotes whenever they greeted me.

2. I played in a Christian band that consisted of agnostic me on bass, no-longer practicing drummer, and Christian enough for ten singer/songwriter.

3. Majors I've had in college include astrophysics, computer science, physics, music theory, religious studies, English, and. . . does 'undecided' count? As far as minors go, there's political science, philosophy, and professional writing.

4. The semester I lived in the same dorm as piwok I spent a good deal of my time in the lobby playing pool. I was pretty bad at pool, but that didn't stop me from putting my birthday money toward buying my very own pool cue. Within three to five months of buying the cue, I stopped playing pool altogether.

5. I had a friend who was ultra conservative. For some reason, he thought I was conservative too. I'm not sure how that happened because we disagreed a lot.

6. After an oral exam, my French teacher told me that I defend myself very well. I think that was because I was willing to lie when answering the questions. He asked me what I was going to do over the weekend, and instead of trying to figure out how to say what I actually was doing during the weekend, I just said that I was going to play tennis with my friend.

7. If you don't want to know what a procrastinator bragging looks like, don't read this list item. I'm really good at math. Really good. In one math class I took, the professor would hand back the graded tests and then we would spend that class period going over the problems that people had questions over. Usually, he would have announcements and then say that anyone who didn't have any questions over the test could leave. One day after the announcements he forgot to let people know they could leave, and I kind mouthed a few words "Is it all right if I. . ." and pointed toward the door. He kind of laughed and said, "Yeah. You can go." When I started to leave he said, "Actually, maybe I should just give you this." He held out the chalk. "And let you teach the rest of the class." That made me feel sooooo good that I literally skipped back to my car. I think I smiled for the next three days.

8. I never smoked pot in college. Most people think I did. But, well, I didn't. Maybe I should've. I don't think I'm likely to ever have the opportunity again. And even if I do, society looks at pot smoking in college and pot smoking after college completely differently.

That's it. I don't think I'm going to tag anyone. All the people who I know that read this blog and have blogs have already been tagged. If I'm wrong and you're reading this blog and you do indeed have your own blog, then TAG! You're so it right now.

I'm grateful for silly little internet traditions (20).

Ollie Ollie Oxen Free

As at least one of you has noticed, I've not been posting much lately. Where have I been? Hiding. Why have I been hiding? Laziness? Embarrassment? Depression? Shame? Low self-esteem? Yeah. Probably a cocktail, a nice fruity one with an umbrella, of all of those and then some. Mostly, I've been trying to avoid announcing the news that has so far led every person I've told to respond with a that'snotreallyasurprise type of comment. Anyway, here it goes:

I'm no longer pursuing a career in nursing.

For those who know me, you may lump this decision in with the numerous other times when I've dipped my toe into the shallow end of a career pool and immediately pulled it out and run around shouting, "It's too cold! It's too cold! I can't possibly swim in this career; it's far too cold!" Even though this decision may seem exactly the same as previous decisions, I put a lot more thought into this decision and I'm confident I've made the correct move.

First, I need to offer a little background that I've been promising for nearly a month now: The Writers Conference. While at the conference, I gave a couple of pieces I've been working on to a couple of the fellows to read. While the first manuscript consultation I had was very encouraging ("This section of description brought me back into the scene. It was very beautiful without being too flowery or poetic. No it was poetic. Simple and poetic." "These parts were quite funny." etc.), I still wasn't especially encouraged because the fellow's literary sensibility was completely different from mine. "It's a good exercise to imagine what animal your character's soul looks like." So even though she offered praise and some really good suggestions for my work, I wasn't that strongly swayed by any of it.

The second consultation, however, was insane goodness for me as a writer and a person in general. The first thing he said was, "I get the feeling you don't like writing dialogue very much."

"Yeah."

"Well, you should. You're very good at it. Actually, you're a much better writer than I feel you give yourself credit for. You're quite good."

This exchange did two things for me. There was the obvious confidence boost that comes from any sort of compliment. But more importantly, It showed me how obvious my lack of confidence is to everyone I meet. Before the consultation, I had spoken with this fellow for not even five minutes and he had immediately picked up on my lack of confidence. I'll discuss my lack of confidence in another post, but first I should finish what I started.

The manuscript consultation offered a lot of good advice for me given my particular writing style. The fellow told me that I'm good at dialogue and dramatization. I'm good at implying, showing, the tension that's beneath the surface through action instead of exposition. He said that when my manuscript got bad (and there are parts where it got really bad) was always when I relied too heavily on exposition and the writing got too internalized. I actually knew this about my writing but for some reason have been ignoring it lately. Anyway, he said that I should keep working on the project and that if I finish it and get it really polished up I should either enter it into a long-short story contest or, if it got to book length, I should shop around to try to find an agent for it.

Woohoo! There's my confidence. I AM a writer. I'm not just a guy who likes to write. I'm a writer. I'm a writer. I'm a writer. I left the conference with the distinct feeling that within the next two years, if I work really hard, I could either have a deal to publish my first book, or be well down the road to such a deal.

Which leads me back to my decision about nursing.

I want to be a nurse. Caring for people is something that means a lot to me but I don't do nearly enough. I would love being a nurse. But what I really want to do is write. Those of you who've known me my whole life may be surprised to learn this, but I've always wanted to be a writer. Always. As a kid, I used to write stupid little stories that were basically rewrites of whatever movie, book, tv show, or play had recently struck me as entertaining. I can't think of a time in my life when I haven't turned to writing for some reason or other. Now I've got the confidence in myself and my ability to feel like I'm close to that goal, and I don't want to postpone it any longer. Nursing school would be at least two years of grueling work. Knowing myself as I do, I can't picture myself writing even once a week while in a program as time consuming and exhausting as nursing. And I don't want to wait two more years to start working toward my real goal of writing.

What if I did become a nurse though? What if I decided I could put off my writing for two more years? At that point, I would have to make a decision. Should I be a half-assed nurse or a half-assed writer? It would seem impossible to have two careers and not do one or both of them half-assedly. So I've decided to instead just find a job that wouldn't cause people to suffer if I did a half-assed job at until I can start earning my living as a writer.

There it is. I will not become a nurse. I am a writer.

I'm grateful for growing confidence (20).

Max's Race

I know I've promised more on the conference, and more is coming. Actually, I've half-finished a post already. But I must post about today. I ran my first ever 5k this morning. I haven't run for about three weeks, so I wasn't really in top form. But I did come in in under thirty minutes, and I wasn't the last in my age/gender group. So I'm generally pleased with my results. I am a little disappointed with myself for having to stop and walk for a few minutes. If you're interested, the official results are here and here's a lovely photo of me crossing the finish line.

The whole vibe there was so warm and friendly. I think I kind of love runners. At one point, I felt as though I were about to throw-up and decided that I should probably start walking to avoid an embarrassing, disgusting scene. Somehow, I ended up walking next to a woman who was walking as well. "Are you going to run the last stretch?" I asked her.

"In a little bit."

We walked for a bit longer, and I then said, "Alright, let's go." And we both started running again. It was a good moment, because it felt like we were feeding off of each other, pushing each other to add that extra effort. Then that vomity feeling came back; I slowed down; and she took off. I never saw her again so I don't know how well she did. But I'm always going to have a fondness for this total stranger whom I was shoulder to shoulder with for maybe three or four minutes.

Another fun runner moment: The final bend of the course was lined with trees, making it difficult to tell exactly how much more was left to the finish. As I was approaching this bend, one of the runners who had already completed was walking back up the trail, and he looked right to me and said, "Only 200 more yards." Now, I'm sure he probably would have said that to any runner along the way, but it felt so personalized, as if he knew how I, specifically, was struggling just to finish, and he was saying, "You're almost there." And he did know how I was struggling, just like he and everyone else before and after me had struggled around that same bend. But his words and the expression on his face gave me that Icandothis attitude I needed to push me through to the end.

I'm grateful that around every bend there was a collection of people cheering on each and every runner (20).