2003-06-19 - 4:29 a.m.

I got this whole writing thing backwards when I start flinging out words and telling myself get it down now, make it good later. I never get around to making it good.

I think from now on I�m gonna proofread before I write.

OK--that was a joke. But it�s also one of those things that once you read back, once you think out loud, you kinda consider.

Take my weekends. I�ve maintained a degree of spontaneity, but spontaneity needs a launch pad. Sure it might be cool to all of a sudden start singing out loud for no reason, but unless you�re really smart, you need to first come up with something to sing--you need to premeditate the spontaneity, and the rest will take care of itself. And my weekends have been ever so much better since I started planning �em out in advance.

I never wanted to do that. I fought so hard. I didn�t wanna do family day trips to the beach or the museum, and lug my own soft drinks around in a cooler �cause it�s cheaper, and apply suntan lotion SPF a number defying science but good enough for marketing. I didn�t wanna have to get up at 7:00 AM just so I could feel like shit in some hangover-mocking pre-fab activity space for a few precious hours longer.

Um, so I didn�t make that the plan. Sometimes I can be so stubborn without knowing it. I�ve walked the same way from work to the Government Center train station, and back, for years, and I just thought yesterday hey, when�s the last time you�ve asked yourself if there�s a better way? There isn�t one--I take the most direct route and have been for years, but still--I mean I gotta be asking myself such questions more often.

So I�ve been planning my weekends for some time now, back and forth e-mails with the Roommate, when years ago that would have been unthinkable. A couple of years ago, it would have been oh, I�ll decide that day, depending on how sorry I feel about myself. And then it�d be watching the Sox and cleaning, drinking both iced cappuccino and beer. Of course then (and now) I had to work through most weekends, but still.

So basically, I guess I�m just managing my time better. It�s probably a habit I�ve picked up as I�ve become older.

It�s fun to be older. I have weekends to look forward to. And having something to be excited about is having a very precious thing. I put more thought into budgeting my money (I still insist on not balancing my checkbook, and still occasionally get mad at the bank for �fucking up.�), so that when the event I�ve planned with the Roommate arrives, I don�t ruin it by being dead broke.

I dunno. I�m the kind of guy that�s aware of all the things about me which aren�t pleasant. I�d say. I hope at least. (Two girls at work were talking about a coworker who stares, and I was horrified because even I�ve noticed it, and I just know that for this guy�s entire life, nobody is ever going to tell him that his glances are a little too enthusiastic. And so maybe he�ll never know. That�s one reason why I really wanna learn what people say about me when I�m not around--�cause unintentional honesty is the best catalyst. But I digress.)

So I�m aware that I�m starting to become an old guy. I mean, I�ve been aware of that for years anyway--I�ve never called another dude bra, I�ve avoided the clubs and trendy bars as if I were older than I am, and I haven�t smoked pot in some kid�s basement in years.

This awareness has never manifested itself more fully than today, on my lunch break. I didn�t feel like reading my book, so I decided to browse a Fanueil Hall marketplace store. Which I also didn�t feel like doing.

Along the lines of catching myself being stubborn, of considering a better route when I walk the same boring route every day, of making small changes in my life which lead to bigger ones, I think it�s important to periodically try all the things I decided I hated years ago to see if I still hate them. On this whim, I decided to visit for the first time an American Eagle store that had been open for maybe two years, that I had never once visited. (I actually have an AE tie with sunflowers on it that I got at a mall in Nashua, NH--the mall had an Arby�s and an Orange Julius.)

And the store actually had some nice and cheap polo shirts that I could wear to work but which would also be cool for the summer. But at the same time I was the oldest person in the store, and including the salespeople, and I had at least five years on everyone. That was wacky. That�ll be my life all the time someday, perhaps. Fulla examples in rosy flesh of my own concrete age.

I was told to have a good day, sir when I left the store. He may or may not have smirked. But that�s okay--in fact, it made me laugh. If I have the extra money, I�m gonna go buy one of those damned polos next week �cause I should (the most anonymous one I can find). It�ll be the opposite of buying a condom in a drug store full of adults, but just as embarrassing.

So there you have it--planning weekends in advance, visiting stores previously declared taboo, trying new things if they�re harmless and seeing if they work, and then continuing to do those things. That�s pretty good of me, eh?

Yeah, I guess, it�s pretty cool that I�m doing something that virtually everyone else on the planet does automatically without really thinking about it. But when I do something, when make even a minor decision, it�s such a fucking chess move for me, so it should count for double, eh?

I put way more thought into deciding which pair of pants to buy, it�s not even funny. And then I decide to do nothing--needs more thought--while I walk out of the store in a dilapidated pair of 32x32s that are falling off me and way too long. Hey--they seemed like a good decision at the time, an improvement over the last failure, and I guess I�m sticking with �em �till I can make a better one.

(By the way, what�s with nobody selling jeans with 29 or 28 inch inseams? I�m not that short that I shouldn�t be able to expect to find one goddamn pair of jeans in any store, brick and mortar or online, that�ll fit me.)

So anyway, let�s get this thing over with. So if I can try new things--if I�m not afraid of that, and if I�m trying to not be so stubborn in my habits, and if I can manage my time better than before, why aren�t I getting anything done?

There�s only so much I can blame others on. I don�t have the time to do a project �cause of work--OK, I�ll let that one slide. I can�t play guitar when I get home from work--OK, I�ll let that one slide. But why do I get home from work (at 1AM tonight, and I had been up since 9:00AM) and think to myself jeez, I can�t wait to eat dinner? I mean, every night I think that. And not jeez, I�m really coming along with that project I�m working on. I wanna spend some time on this or that aspect of it..

The reasons are simple, and I�ll say them right now because I wanna say �em.

1) I�m afraid that I�ll be exposed as a charlatan if I put a ton of effort and creative energy into something, and then people don�t like it or don�t get it or think it�s stupid.

2) I can�t make a decision as to what it is that I want to do for fear of making the wrong decision. (Once I get the ball rolling, I�m usually fine).

3) I don�t care enough about my projects to put enough effort into �em, for fear of reasons one and two. Because of reasons one and two. I�ll tell myself that there isn�t enough time, when I could tell myself to make time.

And it�s a triangle. It�s a self-fulfilling prophecy. And that�s reason number four--the one to rule them all--I�m aware of it.

But I�m workin� on it. Unfortunately, I�m workin� on it.

But that�s gonna change, dagnabit. I know what to do, but I just don�t do it. If I�m working all day at work, that�s one thing. But when I get outta work, I gotta think to myself Jeez, what should I do when I get home? And then I should do it. It sounds so easy, but remember--not for me.

Somewhere, two kids are hanging out, and they�re happy just doing whatever they�re doing, and then one so easily it�s like just exhaling says to the other let�s just write a movie about this.

Two floors down, a buncha kids are learning their first few chords. They like Interpol, the Strokes, have never heard of Television, love old Green Day. They like Barenaked Ladies and TMBG. They like Dave Matthews, but think that Hootie and the Blowfish is a joke. Whatever they like, they�re gonna make it big.

OKAY--two things are gonna change around here. First and foremost, if I have to leave myself stickies reminding future me to play guitar in the morning, I will. If I have to.

Number two is this--everything starts out hackneyed. Radiohead was a stiflingly imaginative stupid generic alt buzz rock band much like Type O Negative or STP the evil Beck (not the good one) or Sevendust End Sister Mary Endust Mary Endthree or whatever, and then they got good. It�s fine to write a song that everyone else has already written--in fact, it�s impossible not to. Just don�t keep doing the same song for eleven years.

Anything else? Um, I guess not. Oh, and anyone wanna edit this for me? I ain�t gonna. It�s one of the rules.