You Is Where You Is

Monday morning. Listening to "Day By Day" by Brett Dennen. Itunes his ass and download whatever you can.

Just landed from a 36 hour hour trip to Boston. It was warm there. Warmer than Los Angeles. The leaves are starting to change back East. It gets confusing. The New England air is as familiar to my senses as a Billy Joel song. And so is California. Where are you supposed to be? Wherever you are, right? Do you ever want to split yourself in two? Be in two places at once? You are celebrating the journey with people over here and "missing out" on the journey with those over there?

I have always had a problem with the notion of Missing Out. To the point, where as a kid, I would rather be in the center of the action than go to the bathroom. So if I had to go, I'd hold it in. Visual: 6 year old squeezing his legs while family laughed in the family room. And the Missing Out has followed me. Now, I realize, there may not be Missing Out. If you refer to the"Wherever you go you are" quote, you are in exactly what you should be. You are there.

So, the quick, red-eye turnaround from West to East and back again has informed my choice to start being where I am, being in what I am.

And it applies, so well I think, to work. Often, I begin writing a script and another story with new characters starts to chat in me head. Then I am writing 2 scripts. This can, often, explode into a symphony of stories and before I know it I am penning 5 things at once. I want to focus and finish the one. Tell the others to shut the fuck up for a minute. And although I am a good finisher (nothing is more satisfying than completing the first draft) I want to be better and complete the first, second and third draft, sell, make and move on.

I think this applies to any business. A dentist can't really have one hand in your mouth and simultaneously fiddle another with his other hand. Well, I suppose he could, but that would not be terribly efficient.