5.04.2009

Another fine weekend.

Uploading photos from card-to-comp is passive productive. It leaves me time to be theoretically productive.

Words.

I'm trying to get back to them. Flirting with pictures has been fun, and I'm getting back to the nearly-acceptable skill level I once possessed, but that should only be regarded as the gravy to the meat, which frankly has grown quite dry over the past three years.

After rereading much of my Volante output, spending the past three years being introduced to people as a writer (tough on me when the new person then asks me what I write), and realizing how many friends I have working in the (newspaper) industry, I need to do something serious.

The booze blogs, while fun, haven't really done anything to either preserve of further my former talent, so I need to cut those out.

Actually, the real big thing was getting to have a good, serious bull session with John Hult. Other than a five-minute chat on a smoke run way back at Austin's graduation party, I haven't had a chance to really converse with him in a not-literally-but-contextually-appropriate forever.

Every minute of it was absolutely worthy and delightful, but there was one thing he said that keeps gnawing at the back of my mind in a pleasant but intimidating way.

He mentioned that when he hired me on to the Vo-Vo way back when, I was just another unreliable-but useful-when-motivated Verve part-time scribe that projected no real interest. He looked away for a couple years, and wham-o-la! Something lit a fire under my ass and I had taken things seriously, putting on a couple editorial hats, writing prodigiously and proficiently, covering anything away from news (kill it! kill it with fire!) and sports (I was entirely uncomfortable with the concept of trading in my cliches for sports cliches).

He had been surprised that I had suddenly (to his persepctive) leapt from half-asser to tryer, with little to no warning.

That sat with me for awhile. He was still talking to me, and I was still responding to him, but the greater portion of the appropriate brain parts were playing with that Slinky of a notion he'd given me.

I had no idea what I wanted out of life when he asked me to write a David Bowie review nearly ten years ago. I was pleasantly drifting along, enjoying most things but not terribly committed to anything. Writing was a lark, giving me something to do that I had some innate talent for, and given the subject materials, an interest in.

It may be the first time in my life I tried hard at something before it became truly satisfying. At first, just seeing my name in a place where everyone could see it was fulfilling. That naturally faded, but I had committed to it, at least a little bit, so I had to keep at it. The only way to find fulfillment was to get better and broader.

All I know is I still don't know exactly what I want out of life, but some things have come into focus. I'm still pleasantly drifting along, enjoying most things and happily committed to a few things. Writing is still a lark, but given certain lethargies (spending eight a day at a keyboard for other people being one of them) seems a luxury.

But luxuries ought to be satisfying, and given that immediate satisfaction is something I've committed a fair amount of my life to attaining, that ought to tell me something.

I'm in roughly the same place I was, having made significant process in some areas of my life, but still searching for effort-related fulfillment.

Obviously, this calls for another abrupt lurch into trying.

Also, I saw Dan Deacon this weekend and it was both Maureen's 26th birthday and Wyatt's celebration of his own. It was awesome. It was busy.

I need to keep busy.

I need to keep thinking I need to keep busy, lest it fade and become another vain trapping of hobbies past.

j.

1 comment:

b said...

Not productive? This is entirely productive. It's the opposite of "not writing something." True, it may be half-assed, not incredibly thought out, and the antithesis of "good writing", but dammit, it keeps me semi-connected to you, boy. I don't like calling and asking about your life. That's just awkward. I'd much rather be a voyeur and bring up things in person that I read on your blog and realize how awkward that is when you give me the "Wait, how did you know that again...oh yeah. That fucking blog. God I really should stop writing that thing." Glad we had this talk.