In Praise of Momentum

I'm sure you've heard the phrase, "If you want something done, give it to a busy person." A few years ago, that little gem made me roll my eyes so. very. hard. For two reasons.

One, I assumed these mythical uber-competent, busy people were, I don't know, telepathically plugged in to some universal personal assistant who kept all their obligations straight and running smoothly. You know, somehow super-human. 

This was proved by point two: I was a busy person--multiple jobs plus freelance busy, stupidly busy, busy to the point of a mental breakdown. If you tried to give me one more thing to do, not only would it NOT get done, I would likely break down crying or lunge at you. Possibly both in rapid succession.

It was a dark time.

Anyway, then I lost my job. And for the first time in my adult life, I experienced stillness. Absence of obligations. Non-busy-ness.

And you know what? That made me pretty miserable, too.

After days of being at one with my couch and six seasons of Supernatural on Netflix, the idea of doing something as small as going to the grocery or visiting a friend's baby seemed so. terribly. hard.

And eventually, I figured out that this was because I was trying to do everything from a cold standing start. I lacked momentum. 

But what about back in the dark days? How was I killing my momentum then? I would finish one arduous task and collapse, feeling like I'd earned the downtime, earned the break. But then the next thing to be done (and, oh my children, if there is one constant in my life, it is that there is ALWAYS a "next thing to be done") would rear it's head, and I'd drag myself, sullenly, resentfully off to do it. 

Deadlines were blown, work was subpar, and I was freaking miserable.

And then I thought back to the days when I felt pretty damn good about my life. I was productive. I was engaged in what I was doing. I had a lot to do, but I enjoyed it.

I had momentum.

Let me be clear - I'm in no way praising busyness for busyness' sake. But I am talking about grouping tasks and projects and rest periods in a way that makes sense, that makes all of it rewarding, instead of dividing life up into stolen moments of laziness and unwelcome chores.

Yesterday, the Songwriter had an early-morning dentist appointment. After I dropped him off, I ran a whole slew of errands and was sitting on the balcony, snuggling a cat, drinking coffee and reading a comic book when he came home. 

There wasn't room to get the coffee mug in the picture.

It felt amazing. Like a proper Saturday should.

Thanks, momentum. Let's do this more often.

On Asking For Favors

So as some of you may have heard, the Songwriter has a new solo album, Secular Jukebox, coming out this summer.

Speaking of the record, you can listen and comment here, 

or sample and buy your very own copy from Amazon, iTunes, or CD Baby. 

It is an amazing album. And every purchase helps keep the kitties in food. 

Don't buy it because I said so. Buy it because my cats are cute. 

Or, you know, because you love good music. That's nice too.

It won't make us rich, but we try to break even so we can keep making more art. It's like a little cottage industry, really. He writes, plays and records the thing. We both pitch in to do promo work. And then he plays the gigs and hawks the record there, too. Here in the House of DIY, we do it all. And what we can't do, we have to ask for as a favor.

Now, I'm not so awesome at asking for help. This is because I secretly believe I am a missing X-Man whose mutant superpower is being able to do every single solitary thing that crosses my path and do it perfectly or nearly so, without a smidgen of help from anyone ever. I help them, you see, not the other way around.

This belief has not been so beneficial to me, as you might imagine.

So I have had to try and teach myself to ask for favors, and I've come up with some internal guidelines that might be useful to other folks, possibly those afflicted with similar X-Men style delusions.

1. Be relaxed and cultivate an atmosphere where it is okay for your friend to say no. Better to get a 'no' and stay friends and move on than to get a 'yes' that colors your relationship with resentment and obligation.
2. When someone does say yes, experience and express sincere gratitude. This is good for both of you.
3. Never ask somebody to do for free what they do for a living unless its a very good cause, it also benefits them in some way, or they owe you one.

You've probably noticed that these are all about drawing boundaries. There's a reason for that. Boundaries help. I'm not saying boundaries are always awesome and made of ice cream and butterscotch and should never be challenged. But they should always be clear, so if you are going to break them, you have a pretty strong idea why. They make everybody more secure and more comfortable. Good fences, good neighbors, etc. And good friends and neighbors are the kind that might be willing to do you a favor.

Stand up, and tell us a little about yourself

Hello everyone - my name is Angelle (Hi, Angelle!) and I am a . . . well, a lot of things, many of them not very pretty in the light of day. A book-aholic. An information junkie. A serial apologizer. An outrage addict. A recovering Catholic. I have admitted that I am powerless over shiny new boots and turned my credit cards over to a higher power.

My friend Val says it's passe to riff on 12-step programs and she's probably right. But it's also a useful cultural shorthand to indicate a project of personal recovery and growth. Which is what this is meant to be. So forgive my use of it here, just this one time. I promise not to do it again. Much.

Welcome to the Good Soap blog!

I started Use the Good Soap to help me think/work through a lot of the ideas I have about guilt, self-worth, and why even if we CAN have nice things, we often feel too shitty to enjoy them.

This little corner of the internet is my laboratory, a place for me to throw lots of ideas at the Web, and see what sticks. If you happen by, I hope you'll stick around and join the discussion. The concept is shamelessly borrowed from Chris Anderson and his Long Tail blog, because I believe in always stealing from people smarter than I am.

My plan is to talk about about big ideas and nitty-gritty specifics, with personal anecdotes and probably some content on books and music and movies thrown in because, well, it's my blog and those are things that matter to me.

Oh, and pictures of my cats. Because if there's one thing the internet needs, it's more cats.