Great Moments in Procrastination

So I'm in the middle of pitching an hour-long drama, and am waiting for my deal to close for a half-hour comedy I sold last week as a spec (totally out of the blue -- I just wrote it as a staffing sample). I also heard there might be a problem with one of the actor deals for my movie. Ooh, and I'll mention it here because I'm sure this will be my last chance to, as it'll amount to nothing: but I'm currently being read by the Exec. Producer of The Office to write on that show. All of this adds up to me having an unusually difficult time hunkering down and working lately. I find myself spending most of my day drinking coffee and chasing the cats. Or drinking coffee and surfing the net. Or drinking coffee and watching Mad About You on Oxygen (shut up, it's a really good show -- perhaps the best romantic comedy sitcom ever, despite Helen Hunt being so pinchy). Or going to the gym and wishing I hadn't drunk so much coffee.

I'm really really boring right now. No, like really boring. My wife is working 14 hour days, so I have all the freedom in the world to do, watch, eat, hang out with, whatever and whoever I want (heh, that sentence makes it sound like I get to eat whoever I want. That, I cannot do.) Here's the thing: I don't do good with freedom. I tend to make bad choices. I forget to shop and end up eating peanut butter on year old saltines for lunch. I go out drinking with people who chain smoke and I end up chain smoking too. Then I buy a pack because I feel guilty for bumming all night, and then suddenly I'm smoking. Or I'll watch the movie Prime. (Just don't.)

And to top it all off, I stopped drinking.

It's stupid. Really stupid. I read an article about how this fitness trainer guy would challenge his clients not to drink alcohol for one month to see if it made them sharper, feel better, sleep more soundly, etc. And the article went on to say that most of his clients had a really hard time and gave up after 2 weeks. I cockily decided that I could totally do it. So I did it. I'm doing it.

The fantastic thing about it, the thing that would make it a good B-story in a sitcom script, is that not one person in my life thought it was a good idea. Not one. Indeed, I announced to everyone my intention, just so I couldn't chicken out. And as a result, I spent a good deal of February with people telling me how pointless and what an obsessive and dumb idea it was. What a fantastic bunch of enablers I have as friends! Warms the cockles.

Now I know not drinking for one month isn't a big deal. It's not. But I love drinking. No, I love it. I love alcohol. I love beer. I love the taste. I love being old enough to buy it. I love the variety. I love the bubbles. I love holding it between my second and third finger and taking a manly swig. And I love wine. I love the giant goofy glasses. I love the sound of the cork popping out of the bottle. I love the deep red color. I love staring over the rim of the glass at my wife as I take a sip. And I love scotch. Ooh, scotch. Scotch is from Scotland and nowhere else. Scotch goes down warm and stays warm. There's no other time that you really feel your internal organs in a positive way as when you take a sip of scotch. And I love bars. I love bars with a passion. I would shuck everything and buy a bar if I hadn't already found something I like to do more than sit in bars.

Oh my God, and I love when you finish a bottle of gin and you realize you've been crying for half an hour, and also you don't know why you're being arrested. And who the hell do they think they are?! You know? And then you smash the bottle and swear you will "cut every last motherfucker!" And it's not really the bottle you're brandishing but your shirt which you're somehow not wearing any more and the police are laughing and what the hell are you doing in Reno?

Anyway, it's been 2 weeks and I'm bored. It's not been very hard. Not really. Going to bars sucks, but you get used to it. And I find N/A beer is not the worst thing I've ever had. It's just sort of a rip-off. Like candy cigarettes. Or when whores make you wear a rubber. Just sort of an empty experience like that.

But do I feel a sudden burst of creative and physical energy? No. If anything I'm more tired. I would quit quitting, but I don't want to be a quitter.

So the lesson here: Not drinking is pointless. Unless you want to lose 3 pounds quickly and save some money. Those two things I accomplished. Nothing else.

Well, I've procrastinated in writing what the titular great moment in procrastination is. It's this:

I found that with my hoodie hood on, I can pluck at the drawstring like a bass, controlling the pitch by pulling the drawstring tighter and looser at various interval. So I spent the last 4 minutes not writing, but playing along with the bass part from Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Have You Ever Seen The Rain?" from 1971's Pendulum album, as it played on the classic rock station on Adelphia digital cable. I sounded pretty fucking good, too.


By the way, during my big Hoodie Bass debut, I learned that Creedence Clearwater Revival's Stu Cook was born April 25, 1945 in Oakland, CA. Exactly 27 years after me to the day, in the same city as I was born! Also, Creedence Clearwater Revival's Tom Fogerty was born Nov 9, 1941 in Berkeley, CA. My hometown.

See, and who said Adelphia was only good for embezzling, stealing pensions, and driving the company into bankruptcy? Someone dumb, probably.