I have a lot of work ahead of me.

My friends and I have been bub­bling with talk of a move to New York City. Not imme­di­ately or any­thing, but the prospect excites me greatly. I’ve always had this self-defeating atti­tude that I was not good enough for New York City, but I’m try­ing to shed my self-imposed lim­i­ta­tions and level up, to bor­row an RPG term. As the song goes, if you can make it New York you can make it any­where, and I’d like to see if I’m made of that stuff. I think there could be a lot for me there.

But I still am feel­ing the old frus­tra­tions, the old strug­gles, the old weak­nesses that peck away at my poten­tial. There’s all these things I feel I could be truly great at, the things I feel I have inside me that I can’t get out — I could be a great piano player, I could be a great designer, I could be a great ________. What stops me?

Me.

And so, I’m on big self-improvement kick again.

ONE: I’m going back to school, and I’m really excited about it. I have a great sched­ule — just Tues­days and Thurs­days. I’m tak­ing Lit­er­a­ture Based Research (again, because I’m lazy and a ter­ri­bly non-prolific writer), Cul­tural Anthro­pol­ogy (awe­some), and Music The­ory I (4 credit hours, easy A.) I may yet be able to add a 1 credit Yoga.

TWO: Music has to be a big­ger part of my life. I’m play­ing semi-seriously with a friend of mine, Elias, and we’ve had some killer song­writ­ing col­lab­o­ra­tions. First time in a long time I’ve felt like I really had a great musi­cal part­ner­ship that wasn’t a student-teacher thing.

THREE: Read­ing. I’ve been read­ing a great deal more lately. I ran into Malaprop’s I bought an awe­some called Osman’s Dream, a start to fin­ish his­tory of the Ottoman Empire. But before I start that mon­ster (660 pages!) I have to fin­ish the Steven Pinker book that Laura bought me months ago, The Stuff of Thought by Sep­tem­ber 8 because the author will be at Malaprop’s that night. For as much of a nerd I am, I have never been to an author event at a book­store, and I’m look­ing for­ward to it. I should develop a good ques­tion for him.

FOUR: I must write. I’m feel­ing flush with words and prose and have been re-reading some of my old mate­r­ial and I have to say I don’t know why I gave it up.

SUMMARY: Apol­lon­ian inter­ests must tri­umph for this next phase in my life. The end­less Bac­cha­nals that have gripped my life and lifestyle must be brought into line with my larger goals. I’m on the verge of some­thing, and I aim to vault myself over the edge.