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Friday, February 11, 2011

day 39: 30 Rock, distractions, and-OOOO look at the puppy!

Blog is tough competition for 30 Rock. Tina Fey is speaking to me through a charismatic, calamity creating, comedy conduit! Also, she's a fox. Alec Baldwin too. If they ever get together on the show I'm going to be jealous of both of them. I'm not gay but I'm told it's not that complicated to switch.

   Speaking of distractions, I've been noticing lately how full my life is with them. Especially at home. I get all A.D.D. up in here on a regular basis and it's bad news (I won't say 'bad news bears' because Billy Bob Thornton ruined it for everyone). I get home and check my email. Then turn on my iTunes while I write my replies and then hear a song I like. I crank the volume and go to the drums, jam along with the next few tunes that come on. Get a phone call and start walking around, end up on the bed. Conversation ends and I think, my, reclining is nice, so I turn on the TV (free cable, what what! Take that Rogers!). After flipping back and forth between the comedy network and teletoon for 20 minutes I turn on the Xbox and run around in Assassin's Creed just startin' shit for no reason. Shoot a couple citizens with a crossbow. Parachute off the top of the colosseum and try and land on a horse, mess it up and spend 5 minutes climbing back to the top of the colosseum to try again (turns out you can't do it). Get bored and remember I wanted to clean the floors. Vacuum the living room until I find a bill I was supposed to pay, run to the computer to online bankify it. Reward myself with a few more episodes of 30 Rock while making a peanut butter sandwich, check my email again. Jump to editing a project in pro tools, realize I want to record an overdub, setup the amp and guitar for a quick track, do the overdub and realize I had intended to call the chiropractor. Check my email again. Check my email again. Check my email again.

   Don't get me wrong, I've got long stretches of good headspace and focus (you should see me in rehearsals, I'm johnny-on-the-shutthehellupanddoitagain), but everyone's had these days where you just can't settle. While I'm sure attacking the root of this problem would be handy (day 38, ahoy there!), this is a case where I worry the problem could be endemic to the symptoms. My house is simply full of too many options! Especially since the computer alone is 10,000 things to do. I've created an environment that doesn't just sustain my more distractive tendencies, it exacerbates them.

   I need to find a way to shut it down once in a while. I think I've come up with a good way to start. I get home from work every day at 1:30pm (I also have 7 locks and a pit bull, fuck off Hamburgler). Even though I'm on a computer all day at work, I still have a neurotic tendency to check my computer upon my arrival home for new messages. I also check before work (how lame is that? *sigh*). BUT, I can program my computer to turn off at night (which I already do at 1am in case I forget to shut it off) and have it not turn itself back on again until 4pm. That's a minimum of 2 hours a day I spend at home with no computer. So no music library, no online games, no email checking, no anything in my digital window. That's a first step. A first step in trying to quiet down my home experience once in a while. Any other suggestions? I'll give free cold pizza to the best ideas! Also, doritos!

   I may have one-upped the year to savour concept. This is better than appreciating what you have, it's trying to appreciate having even less! James FTW!

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