Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

betterment

Slam Dunk, Bitches

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Usually when I read some sort of “organizational self help” type of article I think, ahh, all things I know how to do, just nothing that can happen inside of my house. Because, while I am occupationally an organizational dervish, my home persona is not exactly the paragon of effective time and resource management.

(Maybe if I had my own production buyer a team of Sr. Designers at home things would run a little more smoothly? Oh, and an industrial printer. And a “Send Calls” button.)

In any event, I was tickled to read CNN’s Six slam-dunk time management tips article, because I engage in all six actively at work and at home.

And, then I realized that this is a signal that I’ve actually, puzzlingly, logic-defyingly become good at organization within the bounds of my own home.

I keep trying to figure out how it happened, but I can’t seem to nail it down. My big 2006 personal goal-setting was a nice boost. Being super-autonomous at my job definitely had an impact. So did helping to organize Lyndzapalooza. Of course, regular Arcati Crisis rehearsals with Gina kept me on a schedule, to which I added voice lessons. And, I totally reorganized my home office this winter, and totally re-filled my desk a few weeks ago when I bought my new mixer.

Et cetera.

Moral? Time management is a use-or-lose sort of skill. If I was still in the state of last summer, where I pre-scheduled my entire work-day only to return to a house where my primary task was watching seven seasons of X-Files as expediently as possible, then my time management would continue to suck. If that home life is filled with things you are excited about accomplishing, the excitement eventually trickles down to grocery shopping and doing laundry.

Okay, maybe not doing laundry. I don’t think I’ll ever be efficient at that.

Whoever’s Listening

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Two years ago this week we were just about settled in this house, and I was packing up my gear from the third annual Lyndzapalooza. I had only written two songs in the previous year, and I hadn’t played anywhere other than Lyndzapalooza in just about that long. I had no new recordings to speak of.

A year ago this week I had just finished my yearly engagement at Lyndzapalooza, and otherwise hadn’t played anywhere other than the Shubin X-Mas Revue since… well, since the last Lyndzapalooza.

However, I had also just written and demoed two new songs that seemed not to suck, and I was arranging for and singing in an a cappella group (the latter for the first time ever).

Minor changes. Little earthquakes.

This year I am not quite packed up from Lyndzapalooza. Gina and I practiced weekly for several months to prepare for our evening set, which featured harmony on every song. I’ve written several new songs, and have played a few monthly engagements at Melange Theatre. Though I haven’t recorded much lately, I tracked 30 new recordings in 30 days of November.

I’m finally re-enrolled in voice lessons, with an awesome young PhD candidate at Penn. Also, I was hired (hired!) to co-write two songs, which I just finished recording (and received payment for!).

And, just to keep myself limber, I’m throwing a dinner/concert for my mother where I’ll be playing two dozen of her favorite songs, and I’m arranging the entirety of Tori Amos’s new album for guitar.

Still not quite a rock star, yet – considering I let my musical life grind to a halt in 2005 – I’m gratifying by my acceleration back to musical relevance.

In Which I Confess to Lazing

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If we define me by being musical and active and despising passive expenditures of time, then I think it’s safe to say that I went through a bit of an Anti-Me month in February.

Mostly due to video games.

Let me back up a step. In 2004 I gave up network television as a concept; it figuratively and literally doesn’t exist to me anymore, the latter because we haven’t had a vestige of television reception for going on three years.

Since 2004, 95% of the television I have watched (intentionally or not) has been Eagles games. And, because we don’t have reception of our own, most of my Eagles-watching is done with friends.

This season the group of friends happens to also be a group of depraved video-game maniacs, and when we decided to get together for one post-playoffs hurrah we did nothing but play video games.

I haven’t given up video games in the way that I gave up television, but they do make me wary … mostly because I spent a year and a half of my life doing nothing but playing City of Heroes. Sure, there are a handful of site updates and new songs to prove I was alive, and also I was apparently maintaining a relationship at the time, but I was also putting in 40+ hour weeks in at work and on the game.

Well, after our little party I decided that owning a video game system wouldn’t be the end of the world. It wouldn’t be connected to the internet, so it couldn’t suck me in the same degree as City of Heroes. And, much in the way we selectively view TVDs of good shows to replace our lack of television, I would only buy and play games that were compelling. It would be a social and intellectual pursuit.

Right. And then I bought We Love Katamari and a month of my life disappeared.

It’s not that I played video games for the entire month, so much as that video games were emblematic of my lack of energy for creative pursuits. Not lack of inspiration, mind you, but lack of energy.

Merrily, I was right – a non-networked PlayStation doesn’t have the kind of grip on my immortal soul as an internet world full of unique superheroes. This iteration of gaming in my life is merely a distraction, not an addiction.

But then I think – how much blogging could I have done while I was thumbing a joystick? How many songs could I have recorded? Et cetera, et cetera?

Who knows. Life doesn’t work like a metric conversion scale. Could I have recorded an awesome album, or did I simply not have anything to say creatively?

A retrospective answer is meaningless; it’s a question you and I need to ask ourselves each time we pick up a remote or a controller.

This week my answer is “you have plenty to say – start talking.”

Resolving to be more resolved actually made me more resolute.

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I’m not a big fan of New Year’s resolutions, mostly because I’m only average at keeping promises to myself the rest of the year.

Or, at least, I used to be average. In 2004 I graduated to “decent” when I made three very broad resolutions – to be aware of my money, my diet, and my time. They didn’t mean I had to pinch pennies every day, avoid eating junk, and be productive 24/7 – they just meant I had to be conscious about when I wasn’t doing those things.

Three years to the day and these general promises to self are still in place and thriving, and I’m a much happier person for the effort. Why? Because even if I went on a bender of money or time wasting, or food devouring, at least I knew it was just a bender. At least I knew where I was coming from, and where I would be where I wound up.

In 2006 I think I might have eeked up the scale from “decent” to almost “good,” because, in 2006 I finally figured out how to do stuff. I saved for a new guitar. I traveled. I performed. I got a new job. I look back on a year full of milestones and accomplishments rather than a lump of time that just passed me by.

Part of the way I did that is by taking my general resolutions and making them macro. I resolved to achieve things in tiny bursts – two months of hanging out with my friends more often, or a season of blogging more. The more specific the goal – like jogging three-to-five times a week – the more prone I was to miss it.

As such, I don’t have any big resolutions for 2007. I do have a few general goals. I hope you do to.

…in bed

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Several years ago i acted in a show about morals (in both senses of the word), and at the end we handed out fortune cookies to audience members as they filed their way out of the theatre.

It was a lightly attended show, and we wound up with a huge box of uneaten cookies. The cast and crew took it upon themselves to dispose of said box at the cast party, resulting in each of us eating several dozen fortune cookies.

Of course, the most exciting part of eating fortune cookies is the fortune, which is why we were so disappointed to realize that our box of cookies had a finite amount – maybe ten or fifteen – of fortunes. Perhaps I had seen a duplicate fortune once or twice before in my life, but learning just how slim the fortune options were in a given crate of cookies was depressing.

Ever since then i have hated eating fortune cookies, but i have persevered in my hunt for unique and original fortunes. Or, at least ones that aren’t so general as to apply to anyone.

Idleness is the holiday of fools.

For a few years now that has been my favorite fortune. I got it one day when i was out to lunch with my old boss. We both appreciated it equally, so i brought it back with me to pin up at my desk.

Even after three subsequent desk (and boss) moves the fortune still sits pinned directly above my phone, where it frowns down upon me if am ever tempted to twiddle thumbs or sharpen pencils in order to put-off or altogether-avoid something i ought to be doing.

It is highly effective. I would say that approximately 30% of my productivity is the result of that tiny strip of paper. If i ever lost it I would print a new one.

The only downside of “Idleness is the holiday of fools,” is that it isn’t much of a fortune (unless, of course, it was assuming i am an idle fool). It’s really more of a proclamation.

However, last week out to lunch with co-worker Elib i received my new favorite fortune, because this one enforced something i often doubt. It read:

You will always get what you want through your charm and personality.

At first this might seem a little at odds with “Idleness” – it seems to be indicating i can be as idle as i want, so long as idle with charm.

I choose to see it more as a reminder that an absence of idleness alone does not equal success. To find true success i need to be engaged and happy, and that happiness needs to be an almost tangible force to each person i encounter.

As for “in bed,” i remain in favor of the first.

What’s the best fortune you ever received (in bed)?