January 10, 2006
Woke up at 2:30 with the usual Oh-my-God-what-am-I-going-to-do! thoughts. Swinging wide with multiple deadlines looming like a flying anvil. That would be a flying anvil of doo-doo. Wait, that's not heavy enough. Whatever. Too much on my plate.

Managed to go back to sleep at about three. Amazing. One of the advantages of being sixty is that unlike being thirty, I have been around the horn so many more times that I have a pretty realistic idea about what will happen, in spite of my fears:

• I will panic, imagining that everything I've done is Crap (done. check that off).

• Just before the actual deadline I will knuckle down and re-double my efforts (that's next week).

• Two days past the deadline I will wish I had another two weeks because I'm in the Zone!

• Two weeks past that deadline I will hand in the project thereby attracting much animosity from those near me (Kathy, Buddy, Peaches, Robert Ray, Meghan Saar, Paul Andrew Hutton, Bob Brink, Trish Brink, J.D. and middle management at HBO).

• When the project is published I will be depressed and convinced it is the worst thing I've ever done in my life.

• Several subsequent reviews will confirm that opinion.

• Many years later, someone will come up to me in a Circle K and tell me it is the best thing I've ever done and why can't I do more (they don't really like my current stuff).

• Several years after that I will go back and look at the project with an objective eye and realize it was good enough and wish I had known that at the time so I could have enjoyed the process.

• Finally, when I'm mature enough to appreciate the process, nobody will want my work anymore.

Or, at least that's how it looks from this ancient vantage point.

Onion Headline de Jour
Every Time Area Man Drops By, Friend Is Watching The Big Lebowski

"Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul."
—Henery Van Dyke