Thru my own contributions

So, to catch you up on the caffeine reduction experiment, it’s still going, and going rather well – the one cup of regular, followed by as much decaf and black tea as necessary. Which haven’t been hugely necessary – but I’m still in the throes of the equalizing. There have been a few (like 2 or 3) days of 2 or 3 cups, which I think are prolonging the experiment, but overall, I haven’t felt like I miss it. Although, I’m still rather pooped in the mornings. I think this is more to do with my bed time than my start time though. With the experiment, I think I need to allow myself to be in bed earlier, and for a few days, I was, even a week or so, I was pretty diligent about it – but I’ve fallen off.

It’s time to get back on schedule though. Yesterday, I was up and out, semi-early, but not my normal early, to do some last minute errands with the car before I returned it – G-d bless Enterprise car rental. (They allow you to rent a car w/ a debit card, and the rates really aren’t that bad – granted, I split the whole cost with my friend from NJ.) But after my bout of exertion, I spent the rest of the day on my couch doing much of nothing – which I spent a lot of this morning’s pages lamenting about – but, I can’t drink yesterday’s orange juice today (as they say – as in, I can’t get double nutrients, or activity, etc, today, in order to make up for yesterday – each day is set new) – so there’s no use, really, in bemoaning my vegetative state!

What is wonderful to notice though, is that because I’ve been using this tool of a daily schedule, planning in the morning when I’ll do my R+D (i.e. income generating actions) and when I’ll do homework, or art, or walk, or … nap, it’ll be much easier for me to get back onto track. Especially with the end of school creeping up like a midnight stalker.

Thesis is due on Friday, signed, sealed, and delivered. I’m getting the last copy of my manuscript that’s out there to friends back this morning, and then today, spend time editing it all together. In the meantime, I’m also supposed to be writing this new script for the performance class, and I feel so far away from it – though, again, I was writing some about it this morning, and think it’s doable and interesting and fun. But, thinking about it, and doing it are two different things.

I bought this book recently called “Steal like an Artist.” My friend and I were in the millionth Bay Area bookstore this weekend – though surprisingly, not bored by them – and I saw this book on the counter. I picked it up, read the first little bit, and thought, I’d love to underline and highlight this sucker. So Many Gems. So, I bought it. As you may know, I’m not a book buyer. I am a library fanatic – as outstanding debts to several libraries have informed me over the years. (I actually didn’t receive a diploma the day I graduated and “walked” for my undergrad – inside the fancy black folder all embossed and engraved with the school emblem … was a note that said, you owe the library $45 – please submit to release your diploma. … Ha. Funny part is, I still had the books, knew precisely where they were, I just hadn’t returned them, for no particular reason. … a “quality to let go,” one may say, which I still need to let go.)

In any case, this book was not something I’d read and shelve, never to see again, this was a reference book, in many ways. I’m enjoying reading it, and getting a lot of great info from it – I recommend – go buy ;)

One thing I will say it mentioned was an economic theory that if you average your 5 best friends’ incomes, yours will be somewhere around there. So, I began to think about my 5 best friends. The one on unemployment, the one living on student loans, and the few others who are earning income, but I realized that, yeah, my income is certainly somewhere between nada and something modest. It’s not a judgment of my best friends – moreso, it tells me something about myself – and the truth that I know it’s time for me to make changes.

I am making them. Slowly. I met with a few folks on Sunday to talk about income strategies, finance stuff – and a very interesting fact of clarity came out of the conversation. As I’m working on this Creativity & Spirituality workshop – one for free at school this month, and one for fee in SF next month – we calculated that if I fill the workshop in May, as in completely full (20 people) at the rate we agreed was adequate (balancing my modest skill level with the value of my work and time), I’d earn nearly my entire expense costs for a month. This, is really good news. But also brings up fear of the future – does that mean I have to do the workshop monthly – can I? How do you garner enough interest to make it sustainable? Won’t I continually be marketing to the same people? How do I branch out?

And then, I bring it back into the day. Today, I just need to focus on what’s in front of me. I do have to focus quite a bit, I realize, on the marketing of the workshop in May, but that’s it right now. I have some great pointers, and I’m rather good at that stuff, and I know a crap load of people, and I have a crap load of resources to call on. Further, I won’t just be hitting up the people I know – as, duh, yes, that would be annoying to them, and that’s not a sustainable resource – but I will also be expanding my reach to new venues, and new networks – as people have told me they’d love to spread the word in circles I’d never have access to ordinarily.

So, it is all the more important that I recover my bit of structure with my daily schedule, as I had been, and that I get to sleep on time so that I’m present enough to sow the seeds of self-support.