Slept Away

Sunday September 26th, 2010 - Lake Villa, IL

   Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, so that’s what I did. I slept in, got up for a short while, then went right back to bed. I’ve been hitting it hard lately, and needed a day to lay around and do absolutely zilch. I didn’t watch any football, nothing. I slept the day away.

   I usually feel like I’ve wasted something when I do that, but today it felt good. I haven’t been exercising or eating particularly well or drinking enough water lately and I can feel it in my lack of endurance. I used to be able to plow through anything, now I feel exhausted.

   I was supposed to do a phone bit for my friend Steve Purcell’s internet radio show, but I slept right through the call. I never do that, but today I didn’t hear it ring. I felt bad when I woke up and discovered he’d called, but it was too late by then. I guess I needed the rest.

   When I did finally crawl out of the rack, I noticed my desk is piling up with paperwork. It seems like I just cleaned it up the last time. I need to write some checks, pay some bills, just keep things current. That stuff is getting harder and harder to maintain all the time.

   If it isn’t that, it’s laundry piling up. Or phone calls. Or emails. Or something to prepare for, like a comedy class or ‘Schlitz Happened!’ I’m a one man band trying to play a major symphony by myself, and I feel like I’m lost in the middle of a song. I’m overwhelmed.

   I’ve felt this way before, and I don’t enjoy it. It takes the fun out of all the things I have going, but what else can I do but try to keep plugging? I’m too far into everything to drop things off my schedule, but it sure would be nice to take a week or two off and just relax. That’s not an option right now though, and I have to find a way to make everything work.

   It’s a giant puzzle, and every day gets more complex. I plan on working on something I like, but then something else comes out of the blue and wipes it out and delays what I had going. It’s a momentum killer and puts me behind schedule. Then, I let my schedule lapse a bit or work on something else and before I know it everything is behind. It’s frustrating.

   I think the key is finding partnerships with everything I’m doing. Having others depend on me will make more deadlines, and that will in turn get more things done on my end as they’ll be depending on me rather than me just drifting between these projects randomly.

   This week it’s about focusing on the ‘Schlitz Happened!’ show at the Schauer Center in Hartford. I’ll be ready when the lights go up, but there’s a lot more to it than that. I have a lot of things to complete if it’s going to be an ongoing event, which I really think it can be for a long time. Thousands of people will enjoy this show, and I want everyone to see it.

   That will require finding a venue to do it on a consistent basis, creating a marketing and advertising plan to promote it, coming up with merchandise to sell and keeping the show itself up to the quality standard I set for myself, which is extremely high. That’s not going to be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is. I’ve had my day of sleep, now back to work.

Posted via email from Dobie Maxwell's "Dented Can" Diary