Don't you wish you could be in your bathrobe at noon?

This morning, the brand new used coffee maker I bought yesterday at Goodwill kicked off at 7am. T’s alarm started going off soon after, every five minutes. At 9am, the jackhammer started. I think the universe was trying to tell me something.

Yesterday I spent all day feeling guilty that I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing. I’m not good at getting things done when I don’t have that much to do and I’m working with vague deadlines. I need pressure, a deadline, fear of God or something like that to get things done.

I ended up torturing myself most of the day until the afternoon, when I said to myself. Self, if you’re not going to do it, just don’t do it. Why do you gotta be a martyr about it? Why don’t you just do whatever you want all the time?

Whatever I want all the time is my prime motivation in life. When I grow up, I want to be able to do that. Flow easily through most things, have sparkles come out of my fingertips and leave a trail of pretty flowers and magic blooming in my wake, like in Fern Gully when the forest starts healing itself or some shit.

I think the only thing that’s really blocking me is my thoughts. My thoughts tell me I have to be really awesome and amazing and smart and beautiful to do anything. It says I can’t to anything I want until I do all the things I have to do, like becoming really awesome and amazing and smart and beautiful.

But I have found a solution! Shut those thoughts down! Just stop thinking them. Just think… I’m thinking evil thoughts.. don’t think about that anymore! Think about what’s for dinner and what delicious cocktails you will make and listen to some music and dance around.

Yesterday, after I killed those thoughts, I went to the farmer’s market, got a coffee maker, found some cheese, made some delicious dinner that was lit by candlelight, made some muffins, and listened to music. It was fuckin’ bad ass. Life is more fun if you’re not berating yourself in your head and feeling guilty all the time.

And I’m starting to realize that if I just shut up those thoughts in my head pressuring me to be really cool and awesome (and successful and rich and popular), I can finally have the breathing room to be really cool and awesome, because that’s what I am naturally. COOL AND AWESOME. And hot. Yeah.

Also, I’m starting a salon (not like hair, like intellectuals and booze), because I want to feel like I’m in France all the time. ALL THE TIME. If you miss living in Europe you may know what I’m talking about: late nights, consuming things that are bad for you, long walks, and philosophical conversations over 3-6 hour drinking and eating sessions. It’s going to be fun and you wish you could be part of it.

Since moving to the city, I’ve been working on cultivating possibilities. I feel like the more seeds I plant, the more chances stuff will happen. In the last couple weeks I have joined a ton of event mailing lists, found tons of calendars with things to do, researched the cheapest happy hours in the city, and thought of a ton of ways (read: art projects) to make new friends in this place. I might get a job with the census, I’m working on buttering up this bakery I really want to work at, I’ve applied to volunteer at the botanical gardens, and figured out when the collective bookstore has their monthly meetings to introduce new volunteers. I’ve even figured out what permits to get to become a street artist and started experimenting with making things to sell out of my supply stash. I also found a baking and pastry program at the community college that’s free. Though my next few months are still veiled in mystery, it’s nice to think about all the things that could happen as a result of all the seeds I’m planting. I hope something sprouts.

In addition to the now future, I’ve also been thinking about the future down the road. I try to remember what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be a talent agent, a torch singer, an artist. I wanted to travel around the country, sit in the sun, find swimming holes, make forts, and live like an indian. Nothing has changed much. I envision myself learning to play the ukelele and sing on the street corner for passersby. Sometimes when things get tough I imagine just running away, walking out of town and just trying to keep going and see what happens. I went to a show for the first time in a long while on Friday, and listening to the music reminded me of how much pleasure music-making gives me. I thought about being at house shows in Seattle, and letting visions of art and sculpture float through my head inspired by the sounds going on around me. I want to sing loud, without fear, my own words with a strong voice.

Sometimes I dream of moving to the country, into a big wooden house in a meadow not far from the forest. I’d plant a garden, learn how to keep goats, make cheese, bake bread, build a greenhouse, and find somewhere good to go swimming in fresh water. At night we’d light a fire outside and sing and play music and look at the stars and hear the crickets. I would cook, make art, read and write. I’d invite people over to make things, eat, drink, dance, and make music. I’d take long walks and bring home wild flowers. I’d have special places to go for picnics, make forts, and hang birdhouses in the forest.

I am trying to get there. Guide my life in the direction that will lead me to this place, this time. Sometime the path seems invisible, blocked by lack of money and obstacles in my way. Sometimes I feel like I have to be able to trick society in some way to get this. Sometimes I just want to run away because that’s the only way I will get to where I want to be. Sometimes I feel like I need to sacrifice something to get to this place, but I’m not sure what it is.

Sometimes I wish there was a set, known path I was on. Where I could just follow the directions and go along the conveyor belt, not having to thing about how I spend each day, each hour. Just doing what they tell me and not having to think about it outside the hours of 9-5pm, and be able to have money to pay my bills and buy my groceries and go out and have a good time.

So I’m figuring out how to ignore the obstacles. How to think of what I want to do and just do it. How to stop waiting around for the right time or the right resources and just go for it. Get some failures under my belt. Learn. Be active. Stop feeling anxious or scared. Dance, sing, be good to those people around me. And maybe one day I’ll look up and realize that I’m already on the right path.

With the New Year coming fast, and my honey away working all day, I thought today would be the perfect day to get all my laying around and lolling about out of the way. When those New Years Resolutions kick in, there will at least a two week period where procrastinating will feel extra guilty, so I gotta party while it’s still 2009.

Procrastination is a serious art form. It is different from just being lazy. It is distracting yourself from all the things you feel you should be doing by doing other things completely unrelated. The trick is to make yourself productive enough to self-righteously goof off when you’re getting dangerously close to running out of distraction activities that keep you from doing anything you’re procrastinating. I have been mastering the art of procrastination for years, and I think today is a shining example of my skill.

8:00am – Kick T out of bed, pick out an outfit for him and make him a lavish breakfast (cereal with banana!). Put in first load of laundry. (Doing laundry is an excellent distraction activity. You have something productive to do every hour or so that makes you feel okay about spending the hour in between watching Bewitched re-runs and finding things to eat or draw.) Poke around on the internets. Think about sending New Years cards to anyone who responds to a tweet saying “Send me your address, I’m makin’ New Years Cards.” Look for best friend’s address in Tokyo. Realize he’s moved. Give up.

10:30am – Think about working out. Paint.

11:30am – Make noodles. Think about how much time you should wait after eating noodles before you can work out.

11:45am – Feel guilty about not working out and eating noodles instead and decide to clean. Time to turn over the laundry again!

12:30pm – Send love texts to T while you clean. Feel like a 50s housewife because you’ve been watching Bewitched all morning. Fantasize about zapping yourself to Paris on a whim, or being an ad exec. Wonder how they used to make billboards without all the fancy printing and graphics software of today. Switch to Househusbands of Hollywood.

1pm – Decide your going to make awesome collages in your sketchbook. Make really terrible ones. Search for something sweet to eat. Wonder how long you should wait before you can work out after eating sweet things.

1:30pm – Think about productive things you can be doing and how you really don’t want to. Imagine a cat being put into a bath. Look on craigslist and think about how most of the ads are a scam. Get depressed about never having a job ever. Relate to the Househusbands of Hollywood.

2pm – Get really cold and crawl under deliciously clean and fluffy covers in bed. Just for a minute

4pm – Wake up and decide it’s too late to do anything productive. Change laundry. Contemplate dinner options. Feel happy and free of guilt and obligation. Open bottle wine.