For starters, I’m pretty sure that’s not a word. It is however an apt description for my upcoming weekend. I’m off to Athens, Georgia to see two shows as part of the Drive By Truckers annual HeAthens Homecoming. I’m stoked. I’ve also got an extra ticket for the shows on Friday night and Saturday night, if you can make it, let me know.
If you know me IRL you may already know I tend to over purchase because the eternal optimist in me tends to buy more than one ticket to concerts. I may have even written about it here before. I’ve gotten better about that since I moved down here, not having ready access to multiple concert-loving friends has helped. #LillyNO will be in the capable hands of my next door neighbor for the weekend, so other than a relatively short commute (I mean, in the last year I’ve driven to Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga for concerts, so Athens, GA is like going across town) I have an excellent weekend on my horizon.
And, before that my favorite sister is coming to visit for a couple days. I’m kidding about the “favorite” part. Mostly. I mean, she does read this stuff, so that counts for something, amirite? My other sister (and/or my brother) might read it though, so I’d better add the disclaimer that I, of course, have no favorite siblings. I won’t even mention the fact that only one of them has come to central North Carolina for a visit. Twice.
Moving right along…
I’ve truly been fortunate since I left the old DGFD as far as sampling tasty live music, and I plan on riding this wave as long as I can, you know?
I’m jumping back to the if you know me IRL part here. I was chatting with one of my neighbors yesterday and she dropped the phrase “functional procrastinator” during our conversation. I immediately told her I was stealing that line, since it applies almost perfectly to me. And I’m mentioning that because the first four paragraphs of this were written last week before I left for the concerts in Athens. I started it at the coffeehouse Tuesday, the day the Cheesehead members of my family were due to arrive. And promptly sat on it until today. Functional procrastination.
This is not a new phenomenon for me. I first became aware of my tendencies to put things off until the last minute in high school. Specifically the last part of my junior year. I started that year taking an Electronics course at the local vocational school. I soon learned Electronics were not my forte. Not by a long shot. I figuratively crashed and burned, but I’m pretty confident had I stayed in the class for the second semester that would have turned literal. At least the burn part. So I dropped the half-day class at the vocational center and instead filled my day with English classes, since they were plentiful then. One of the classes was, oddly enough, Creative Writing. Now my details may be a tad off since I went to high school a million years ago, but, as I recall, it was a half-semester class. The other half may have been Speech, but that’s not particularly germane to where I’m going here. What is relevant is that back then, progress reports were sent home at the six week mark, to let your parents know what a slacker you were. My teacher informed me on a Friday that if I didn’t turn in roughly 20 pages (hand written) worth of assignments on the following Monday, I’d be receiving one of those gems in the mail. So that weekend I cranked out the required page count. And got about four hours of sleep. I did really well though, my grades were all in the 90’s. Except for Haiku and Iambic Pentameter; two things I couldn’t wrap my 16 year old brain around. I took zeros on both.
Now, one would think that a lesson was learned here, right? Do the work as it’s required instead of working like a dope all weekend long and things will go much smoother. Not me. As the end of the grading period rapidly approached, my exasperated teacher once again advised me if I didn’t get my assignments (15 pages or so) in “on Monday” I would likely fail the class. Can I just add here that Mr. Perry was the absolute shit? I loved that guy. Anyway, I again wrote my ass off all weekend, and again scored in the 90’s on everything I turned in.
There are likely several other examples I could relate here, but I think I’ll hold off on them for now…
Peace
PS- because, well, you know… The concerts KICKED ASS! Jesus it was a good weekend! Met some cool people; a firefighter from north Alabama, a couple from outside Nashville and a guy that works at the public library in the Deeg, of all places. Small world, no? I went to an annual charity event the band helps out with on Saturday, to benefit Nuci’s Space and in a total fanboy move, took a selfie with Patterson Hood of the Truckers. That’s out of character for me, btw. But I told a friend I’d relay her greeting to Patterson and figured I’d get photographic proof of said encounter. He was very gracious, I must say, for having an elderly boob approach him as he was chatting with someone and ask for a picture.
