Not Enough Hours in the Day

Inspirational song: Dirty Life and Times (Warren Zevon)

I have too much to do today. I was having too much fun with my writing, observing, playing, and I put off packing and cleaning before my trip. Yes, I'm one of "those" women, the kind who can live in a little bit of disarray, but when I leave town, I absolutely have to have a clean house. What if I were to die in a plane crash, and someone came in and found dirty laundry scattered in my bedroom, or sticky residue on the kitchen counter? What would they think of me? (Okay, really, the more pressing issue is that the people I beg to come in and feed my cats might be disgusted with mess, even though they are always friends who have seen my place at its worst already.)

So with everything I have to do, I came home drunk last night from the best night with the club girls that I've had in ages. (Not perfect, but I was able to relax and have fun, and there was tequila so I wasn't going to say no!) I stayed up late watching recorded television, and woke hung over and unmotivated. I didn't want to get out of bed, but after an hour of facebooking, the previously-mentioned rabble-rousing cat eventually had it with my inertia and vaulted a pile of his pride mates and punched me in the stomach, as he is wont to do. If I am to complete everything I need to do today, he is going to have to follow me around, repeating that process.

Twice in the last week, I have found myself the second-hand recipient of the most amazing advice to aspiring artists. First, my favorite painter of all time told me that when he was in college, studying under Pete Lafon, he asked about the direction his art should take. Lafon said, "go do 100 paintings, and when you're done, come back and we'll talk about your direction." Then this morning, as I lay abed, I listened to similar advice posted by my daughter on Facebook, a recording of Neil Gaimon giving a commencement address last year to a school for the arts, the way to become a writer is to Go Write. He was much more eloquent than that, but the message boiled down to do it. All the time. Do it when you think you'll get paid, when you think you won't, when you think people will like it, and when you think they won't notice. 10-4. Message received.

Now, time to dive into house cleaning, so I can go get advice from the best voice of all time. This may be the most artistically inspiring week of my life.