IHS: "Little Things I Do"

5/4/2006

Coach Curia, the football coach at my high school used to say, “Procastination is like masturbation. You’re just f%$#ng yourself.” He was never one for tact, but there may be something to what he was saying. Since I’m in the process of writing a paper about this blog, and noticed how rare it is for me to just down to my computer and immediately starting writing, I’ve began to think about the significance of all the little things I do before I start writing. I don’t want to call them procrastination, because I think writing can be a cognitive thing. In fact, I’m sure that it is, because I write parts of my papers long before the act of sitting down and typing. At the same time, some of my activities might just be procrastination. Help me figure out which ones might be mental triggers, and which ones aren’t.

1. Sweeping: Since I write at my kitchen table, I get up and sweep my kitchen floor a lot. Something about the movement of sliding a straw broom over the tile floor centers me. I don’t know why, though. I’m not incessant about cleanliness.

2. Rearranging or removing the items on my table: Sometimes I can write in cluttered spaces. Other times I can’t. Today, I couldn’t, as evidenced by the boost of mental clarity I got when I took my bills and that bright yellow Clark and Halloran book off of my table. A sista could think then.

3. Listening to music: It never fails. Everytime I sit down to write a paper, I create an i-tunes playlist. I usually listen to gospel because I can get into that music best. Something about the music helps me channel a higher power to tap into that well of creative/analytical juice. Oddly though, I always end up writing the big portions of my papers sansmusic.

4. Reading Blogs/Email/Checking my blog comments: I am starting to get concerned about the ease that I have in breaking out of my writing – sometimes mid-sentence- to check my email/blog, or read a gossip blog. I swear I hope I’m not developing Adult ADD.

5. Googling: Since my version of Safari has a window near the url bar for Google searches, I’ve developed a compulsive habit of Googling everything. While this has been beneficial to my knowledge of bizarre and random things, I don’t know if it helps my writing.

It’s been a long time since I’ve written an in-class essay. I wonder how I’d do without all of these little things I do.

~I have spoken~

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Shouts, Blogs, and Snaps

This mash-up page contains some of my favorite posts from my blogging days over at "I Have Spoken" (IHS) on blogspot, and my "Begin Again" blog on Wordpress. There's also some shout outs, and snapshots here. To show history, I've kept some of the original dates from my blogposts although I did not carry over the original comments.

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