Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Socks and Proscrastination


I'm working on a book.  The story is that there's a woman and a man who were best friends and bandmates back in the 90s.  But they drifted apart and now she's a Mommy blogger with four kids and a husband who does the kind of work I actually do and he's a guy who got to the verge of making it as a rock and roller but didn't quite and is now sleeping on his sister's couch.  They reconnect in their mid-40s and figure out that they're not, in fact, failures.  It's done in POV - like she talks and then he talks and then sometimes the husband talks.

And, you know what, you guys? I would read the shit out of this book.  What I've written thus far is a damn entertaining read.

But oh my god writing is a DRAG!  I keep putting off accomplishing anything and doing things like writing on this blog or making Spotify playlists.

I made a Spotify playlist of 90s music which I listen to when I write (or goof around on Facebook and not write).  The song "Lightning Crashes" by Live just came on and I remembered buying that CD when I was like 24 and listening to it while sorting laundry and reassessing my failure to be a writer.  Inspired by warm laundry and the band's weirdly specific lyrics about childbirth,  I  dumped a whole bunch of unmated socks onto the floor and ignored them in favor of writing an essay called "Too Many Socks."

I don't know what happened to it.

These days I am manifestly more organized and responsible than I was when I was 24.  I was mostly drunk when I was 24, living in squalor and prone to making really terrible romantic and sexual choices.   Nowadays, I am mostly sober, I pick my socks up off the floor and only have romance and sex with the guy I'm married to (who, it is worth mentioning, does not pick his socks up off the floor, but whatever).

I still have too many socks, though. They float around in a basket (not even a drawer), unmated and unworn.  I am a sloppy sock person. I am a sock wastral. I own socks that have not seen a foot in fifteen years. I may still own some of the socks I dumped out onto my bedroom floor in 1993.

(The socks are a metaphor, people!  Keep up.)

There are people out there that always have their socks perfectly mated; people who always have an even number of socks in the dryer.  This is not a matter of faith for me. I am related to a person whom I would bet dollars to donuts has a sock drawer that would make me weep from the beauty of its organization (hi, my brother).

But, alas, I'm a person who has likely never pulled an even number of socks out of the dryer.  I have a basket by the laundry that is teeming with unmated socks.  And I can't help but think if I could get my sock shit together, I'd be up to the task of mastering the drag that is writing this book.

I can't help but think if I could get my sock shit together, I'd be less prone to straining metaphors like this.

I guess I should go work on my book.  I don't wanna.  What would Kim Kardashian do?


I like the way you think, Kim!