— I have what amounts to two full-time jobs right now. It is good, money-wise, and requires me to be super-organized (not really my strong suit). I bought a dry-erase calendar, and use it religiously. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to catch on to its brilliance (although we used one all the time at the Today Show – it helped because we had these long deadlines, sometimes staggered, so of course it’s helpful to see it all up there on the wall. And boy it feels good to erase shit when it’s DUNZO.)
— Speaking of The Today Show, they have a new set (discussed in the clip below), and Lydia Marks, married to my cousin Liam, is part of the design team. You can see her in the video, discussing gathering fabrics. I’m really proud of her, she started as a set decorator, and has gotten some pretty huge movie jobs, and also has her own design business now.
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— And speaking of my cousin Liam, whom long-time readers of my site (I’m talking LONG time), will remember his two guest posts on The Kinks: He is a brilliant songwriter, and has a band, Dr. Mars, and their album is so great. My brother Brendan reviewed it, in his typically beautiful fashion, capturing the feel and power of those songs. My cousin Liam has always been talented (I remember a Thanksgiving a million years ago, when we were all teenagers, and he had his guitar with him and sang a song he had written called “Anorexia”. He debuted it at Uncle Terry and Aunt Diane’s house in Quincy.) I remember going to see him at music clubs in Boston, while I lived there. Please check out Dr. Mars!
— It’s finally fall. The air has that crisp clarity that breathes life back into the day, into my spirit. The humidity this summer was pretty brutal, and we had a week where the temperature never went below the mid-90s. I would wake up at 7 a.m. and the temperature was 86 degrees. Definitely not as bad as other summers, but Fall is my favorite season. I cannot bear summer. To quote my brilliant friend Kate, “There’s no irony in the summer.” I thrive on irony. The true kind, not the Alanis version.
— Fall is also a time to re-commit to projects which have, for other reasons, been placed on the back burner.
— It took a while for the doctors to convince me that sleeping more hours a night would actually INCREASE my productivity. I was like, “Oh please.” That was literally my response at first. But they’re used to resistance, I guess. I always assumed (for decades) that productivity was related to time. As in minutes, hours, etc. I wish there were more hours in the day, etc. I had to be scared into getting more sleep. 5 more hours a night? Is that even possible, first of all? Also: I NEED that TIME, my fearful mind thought. How would I ever make it up? But post-Memphis-trip this past Dec/Jan, I was scared enough to just do what they said. And whaddya know, the experts were right. I may have less hours to my day, but the hours I am awake I am more productive, due to being more rested. A whole paradigm shift. I am still experimenting with it, and it has changed my life in all kinds of ways. There are things I can’t do anymore. But health is the most important thing. I am still a bit amazed that I was able to actually do this. I look back on my time in Memphis as the demarcation line (kind of funny, in an awful way, the mental hospital GPS snafu in Memphis. Prophetic). I couldn’t do any of it without a lot of help. In other words, I accepted help. Another paradigm shift. So it’s weird to sleep as much as I am right now, and I still resist sometimes, because I have that “go go go go go” drive, which I now recognize as part of the problem. Even writing about it feels precarious, because it is a work in process, and I need to keep it up. I can’t take a couple of days (nights) off. Or if I do, I have to make sure I make it up the following day. It requires rigor. So I’m not at all used to it, but I see the benefits.
— It’s been a while since I’ve seen my friends. We’re all so busy. I had dinner last week with three friends, Brooke, Liz, and Sheila, and it was so awesome to catch up. Seeing Allison this weekend which I am so looking forward to. It’s been way too long!
