Today I have been struggling to keep myself on track with anything. I have tweaked my websites a bit, but I haven’t stuck to anything in particular. My guitar is calling to me, but I haven’t picked it up yet. I wasted a bunch of time just checking out Facebook, giving me a false sense of sociability. Really, I haven’t gotten anything done today.

I need to bear in mind my core professional concerns when dividing up my attention for the day. Let me list a few things I need to take care of over the course of a week.

  • Get a job: This is really the most important thing I should be doing. I need to be applying for academic jobs, for sure, but I also need to get some sort of temporary job so I can pay my bills. Depression has left me with no income, and no reason to get out of bed in the morning. I need money, first and foremost among my priorities, and this is no joke.
  • Write: I need to write some every day, and not just the freewriting I do with this blog - I need to be working on my book manuscript regularly. Let me find the book I have on revising a dissertation into a book MS and get working on a book proposal.
  • Practice the guitar: Guitar is the basis of my broader musicianship, and I need to get better at it. The arrangements I have been learning are really helping me quite a bit in terms of my harmonic and melodic vocabulary on the instrument - just keep on keeping on. It doesn’t need to be a big deal, just a few hours a day, but I need to keep my hands on the instrument. I often think of Kenny Werner’s observation that the instrument looks best to me from about 20 feet away - get closer and the anxiety starts.
    • Practicing other aspects of music - ear training, piano, composition - are important as well, but not as pressing as playing the guitar. When it all comes down to it, if I can’t play the fucking instrument I shouldn’t be able to call myself a musician.
    • That being said, when I am more financially stable I would like to take some piano lessons. Piano is another one of those necessary instruments for developing a larger sense of musicianship. I know enough of the instrument to learn to play it by myself, but I just don’t have the motivation to do it regularly.
  • Get some help: I need a therapist. I really need someone to help me work through the things I am stuck on in my life: divorce, joblessness, etc. Without addressing these issues I have no hope of moving forward. Forward is the direction I need in my sights, but particularly with the divorce, I keep looking backward. VJ has moved on, and so should I.