It Only Takes a Minute, Dude (to change your ways, to change your ways)

Happy Spring.

Here in NY they’ve got a new radio station, “The Mix,” 102.7 FM. Been listening to it. They play dance hits “through the decades.” They bring out a lot of the stuff I came out to back in ’83. Weird to hear that shit on a NY radio station these days…

One of the oldies they love to play again and again is “It Only Takes a Minute, Babe” (to fall in love/to fall in love). It wasn’t the chorus that caught my attention as I heard the tune last week whilst getting ready to go out, or something. It was one of the first verses. They talk of some girl who’s “spending time in the unemployment line...” Then there’s a line, “Winter’s gonna turn to spring, and still you haven’t done a thing.”

OUCH.

What all that has to do with falling in love, I’ll never know. But the line stings just the same, ‘cuz it’s hitting home right now. Here at 92 Moore St., while love isn’t high on my present list of priorities, finding steady income and getting my artistic ass in gear once again are at the top of it. And at the beginning of winter I had a chance to start, but winter has turned to spring, and – well, you can see where this is heading…

This feels like one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I have to rise up from the over-partied inertia I’ve fallen into over the past three months. 90 days, in business terms. Which wouldn’t be that bad, if I can put an end to it now. That’s the hard part. I can see what I have to do, but I’m resisting doing it. Guess that’s the nature of inertia.

I finally made a schedule the other day, for the rest of March. It says I should be getting up at 10:00 to walk the dog, then journaling at 11:00. Today, the first day of the new schedule, I got up at 10:00; I pissed, and then immediately went back to bed until my regularly-scheduled wake-up time of noon. So now I’m journaling at 1:00 instead of 11:00.

Y’know what? I’m not gonna beat myself up. At least I’m journaling. After this, I’m supposed to shit-shower-shave and then go to the gym. And again, y’know what? That’s exactly what I’m going to do, unless the phone rings with massage biz.

Winter has turned to spring, and yeah, it feels like I haven’t done a thing. But I’m sure if I analyzed it well enough or even resorted to rationalization, I’d find something to claim to have accomplished during the bleak winter of ‘04/’05. Let me put it this way: When I think of what I went through beginning May, ’03 and running up through November, ’04 – I can’t believe I didn’t have a breakdown of some sort. I ran on sheer will that entire time. I made a transcontinental move on a budget of $3,000 plus another $3,000 in the form of a fully-drained, taxable-at-40% IRA. I came here with just a suitcase, surfing friends’ couches until I landed a (and I can’t believe I did this at this point in my life, after living alone and loving it for close to 10 years) roommate situation. Then I landed another 9-5 job, which I hated from the get-go and which would have been viewed as high-pressure and stupid by any sensibility, let alone my artistic one. I slaved away for egomaniacal bourgeois fools for close to a year and a half, after having already done that (and vowing never to do it again) for two years in LA. And while I performed said slavery, I also managed to find an apartment of my own (no easy feat in NY when one is new to town, has bad credit and has a dog), and renovate it to a manageable status via doing construction and painting every weekend for six months. In other words, with the exception of one or two weekends “off,” I worked 7 days a week for over six months. If I wasn’t donning the white collar and tie Monday through Friday, I was donning the overalls Saturday and Sunday. I never stopped. Like I said, I was running on sheer will.

First came me, with a suitcase. Then came the roommate scenario. Then, six months later came the dog (I had left him with my ex until I could get him to NY). Then came an apartment of my own. Then came the renovations. Then came the furniture that I had been storing in LA. Then came my 40th birthday party, complete with folks from the west coast. It was the move that took a year and a half.

And then, mercifully, came the end of the fucking job.

So when I got the opportunity of living off Unemployment for six months, I shut down. What a surprise. It was the holidays, after all, and I had to go to MA anyway (another set of emotional circumstances – also draining), so I argued: why not celebrate? And celebrate I did. All through December and January, and then into February and even into the beginning of March, it was party-party-party. I fell into a party vortex that I am now having some difficulty separating myself from.

Despite my inner critic’s desire to be hard on myself and wish I’d “hit the ground running” in some sort of manner that would have contributed to artistic pursuits or self-employment opportunities, I feel like I’m right on track. Sure, other people might have gotten right to something. And then again, still other people would never have left the bed. I have been processing NY in my own way, which is the only way I have, Goddammit. I needed time in the party realm to learn about the nightlife, which is a big part of my genre and milieu. I still have much to explore. I still have much to do.

During the last days of the fucking job, as we call it, whenever people would ask me what I planned to do next, my retort was: “Well, first I’m going to escape to my own thoughts for a while.” I meant it. And this is how I went about it.

NEXT.