2003-04-07

Feh.

I had a nice surprise in the mail on Friday: a copy of my undergraduate writing mentor's new book, along with a nice letter which, as has always been the case in terms of our communications with each other, both flattered and upbraided me: "What are you doing up there besides that fund coordinating thing? Are you writing? Work is a hindrance. I miss you. I mention work is a hindrance? Get more corporate all the damn time."

I had to admit to him that, other than my online journal (which I think will, frankly, irritate him; this is a man who has a sign posted on his office door: "Luddite curmudgeon in residence," a guy who only has an email address "because the damn suits here made me get one."), I haven't been doing much in that regard.

This whole weekend I've been reading Mark's book, and thinking hard about what I've been doing since I graduated. I have a Master's degree, and three-and-a-half years' worth of posts in this damn thing, and I'm sure there's something there, but I'm having an enormous amount of difficulty just getting off my ass and filtering through it all.

I definitely wasted a good chunk of time drinking and "waiting for something to happen" to me, but I've also expended vast amounts of energy playing music. And I think that something has to give here, one way or the other.

I am technically proficient at this whole music thing, having played guitar for years (lessons beginning at age eleven and continuing up through college) and � in more recent years � playing drums, but there's nothing particularly amazing about my ability to actually play either of these things. As much fun as it is, I'm not particularly passionate about it, and I do think that this shows.

In some ways (and I know how horrible this must sound to my musician friends who happen to read this), I honestly feel that the amount of time I've spent in bands has been, subconsciously, my way of putting off the responsibility of writing, which (as stupid and gratuitously "romantic" as it sounds) is pretty much what I've known I was meant to do for as long as I can remember. I also just happen to still think it's "cooler" to tell people I play in a band rather than going into the vagaries of explaining "I'm a writer," when asked about my interests outside of the cube farm in which I work.

I'm treading water. I haven't had a drink in almost 10 months now, but in some ways I'm still putting things off, still "waiting" for something to happen rather than taking the initiative. Paula rides my ass every couple of weeks about the writing thing, too, but somehow I can't seem to get the lead outta my ass and do something.

I'm not really sure where this is leading. I'm not about to quit my band, but I think my priorities need to change. Another friend of mine from college recently asked me if I was at all interested in writing a "memoir," and it's just like, feh. No. No fucking way. I couldn't think of anything more ass-achingly dull to read than another goddamn "recovery" memoir.

And even as I sit here and try to explain/justify things, I can hear Mark cutting me off: "Bullshit. Bull. Shit." He's never been one to sugarcoat things, or let me off the hook for even a nanosecond, and he's got a real low threshold for psychobabble.

I just got some thinking to do.

Mark wrote this. It's real good.

lisamcc at 11:32 a.m.

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