Routine

God, I hate my commute. An hour. A goddam hour to get to that seething X-marks-the-spot for neon, advertising, over-priced lousy-quality, factory processed food and souvenirs... (oh, and musical theater) called Times Square.

God, I hate Times Square, especially Times Square in the summer, hordes of tourists, International and Midwestern families that all start to look the same, and sound the same, and don't tip tour guides just the same, and then there's the cars. Traffic and exhaust, buses that make the streets even hotter and the air less breathable to dive and dodge and run out of the way of, seeing how street-signs in Times Square are like crossing guards during a Safari stampede. I ca't believe my "office" my base of operations for work all summer long is Times Goddam Sonovabitch Square.

But the distance to get there is what kills me. I start my day the same way every day- trying to find a way to justfy not going to work. I get over it by the time I'm standing do a couple of quarter-assed yoga stretches and get dressed. I don't shower before work. I need it after, not before.

By the time I'm done, it's all I can do to rush to the train station to get myself home and wash the stench of NYC streets off of myself and then? Well, who's got the gusto to go back out again?

I could, I could find the energy, augment it with a red bull or coffee, get a little more exercise it, but I don't why? It's the routine.

And each time I break the routine and do something I want to do, I think that's the start of something bigger. I go to a fiction reading and say that I'll start going every week, start reading soon, get noticed, get published, etc. etc. Then I miss next weeks reading. The end.

Or not. Routine is just habit, a friend and co-creativist I hadn't seen in a while reminds me. Why not just create new habits? Ones I like better?

It used to be habit to go the Bowery Poetry maybe twice a week. And I loved it, why not again? Would it be worth it to put off my post-work shower long enough to stay in the city and do something I really wanted to do? Well, I may not get laid afterwards, but I'm not getting laid now anyway, so no loss, no gain.

It'd be one thing if i started from nothing and nowhere to go, but I didn't. I just lost my momentum, and got lost in the work. It just takes one step in the right direction. And then a second step. And then a third. It's all in follow-through. Same in golf, same in life (to quote Cate Blanchett as Katherine Hepburn. If that a'int a pair of inspirations, what are?)

So that's that. I'm at the Bowery. I'm writing my blog. And it's not so horribly hot out anymore. I'm not so sweaty. The shower can wait.