Bedtime

This is going to be a tough challenge for me... I'm trying to improve my health. After the demise of my cover band in November, I was trying to decide what I was going to do with my creative life. By the time January rolled around I had decided to take advantage of some dance music contacts, and pursue writing dance music again. My goal was to write 100 songs in 2005. I got an early start, i.e., by the end of December I had 2 songs written. And I needed to keep up 2 songs a week. The challenge was that I can’t write with distractions. That usually meant I didn’t get started until 10:00 or 11:00 p.m. after Sheila went to bed when I wrote until 1:00 a.m. That was fine for a couple of weeks. I got 4 songs done. But by the end of January I realized my contacts weren’t going to pan out. So I quit that project.

I wanted to do more personal music anyway, so I went back to writing the rock/pop I’ve written for the most of my writing career. Not knowing exactly which direction to choose, since I had about 10 in mind, what surfaced was finding the songs at the center and doing them all. When I finished my list there was about 30 songs. I started to dilligently write on the train to and from work every day. In a few weeks I had a total of 40 songs. But again, the only time I could pick up my guitar and finish the songs was at 10:00 p.m. at night.

It just wasn’t working. Along with all the wedding plans, I wasn’t getting enough sleep. And from the stress of my last job, which I was unhappy with, I was having physical ailments that shouldn’t be happening. Pain in strange places for no reason.

I got a check up, actually many checks from a primary and specialist doctor, and got a clean bill of health. My Doc even said he was bored because he didn’t have anything to write down on my chart. But I’m still getting strange pains.

The other part is that I’m continually working and running late. I’m always trying to squeeze one last thing in. And also doing too much unproductive surfing at night to “relax and unwind”.

It ends up that any time we’re going somewhere, Sheila can get herself and Genny ready while I am still trying to get myself ready. She’s taking care of the baby all of the time, while I’m trying to squeeze in another item off of my “to do” list, making us all late.

These things I’m doing, when I step back and look at them, are really not that important. They are not any of the big issues in life that we’re talking about here.

So maybe “improving my health” is only part of the picture. The other part being improving my focus(?)… prioritization(?)…

Whatever it is… I’m going to try the “Early to be, early to rise”, and see if it works out for me. I’m hoping for more energy through the day, more focus on the work I’m doing, more decision in my prioritization, and more health overall.

Unfortunately, this blog has put me past my bed time of 10:30 p.m. I guess I’ll go right now and start tomorrow. :(