Electrolicious

I spent the first half of unplugged night having dinner with my old friend Hott Scaapala Scott Haapala, and we spoke of cyborgs and corporate costumes and didn’t glance at our cell phones once.

After we said our goodbyes, I made a cup of tea and sat down on the couch with Sassafras. I had a magazine to read, but didn’t want to. I rubbed Sassafras’ belly and just sat quietly.

Andreas came home a while later, and walked into the living room.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

I looked at him. “Just sitting here,” I said.

And I smiled.

Unplugged Night was awesome again! I spent the evening brainstorming and drawing and idea-making with my friend Joriel, who was knitting. Andreas, meanwhile, had a bad day and needed to veg, so he hid in the bedroom watching movies and drinking all night. (Poor thing!)

I was also mulling over the nature of distraction, and why it’s almost a comfort to me. In some ways, I almost feel most comfortable if I’m multi-tasking, like there’s a reassurance that I’m busy and productive and doing my thang, even if in actuality I’m spending more time toggling between the things I’m doing than actually getting anything done. This lack of focus results in a weird sense of floating anxiety … that sensation that there’s always something more to do, but I’m not quite sure what it is because I’m too lazy to figure it out. I’d rather just toggle between whatever pops into my mind at the time. I think this is called Continuous Partial Attention. (Thanks to Leif for the link!)

I got a comment that made me realize I should clarify my rules for Unplugged Night.
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Ooh, it’s another unplugged night! I’m excited for it this week and not feeling that impending sense of urgency and dread I had last week. I have lots of brainstorming I need to do on my new book project and am planning on using large felt tip pens and perhaps some interpretive dance to loosen up the idea juices. I’m trying to pick a question to consider each week and this week’s is going to be Why is distraction so delicious?

Oh, and related to Unplugged Night: have I mentioned that I’m going to NYC in a couple weeks? Remember that Today Show thing? Turns out they want to fly me out to do a follow-up interview about how 52 Nights Unplugged is progressing. Perhaps I will do an interpretive dance to show them.

If you’re unplugging tonight, I hope it’s an inspiring, awesome time!

Against the Machine (thx, Terra!)

I’ve been getting emails all morning from folks wanting to know how Unplugged Night went, so here you go! This project is an invaluable exercise for me. Last night’s timing couldn’t have been worse, really: I spent most of the day yesterday at work counting down to launching a big project I’ve been working on for weeks, and at a certain point I realized it wasn’t going to happen before 5:30 … ie, the time I was getting home and unplugging. My last half-hour of connectivity was filled with this sense of crazed desperation — OMG! BUT HOW! I CAN’T! THIS IS INSANE!

But I took a deep breath and reminded myself that it could all wait. Launching at 9am Thursday vs. 7pm Wednesday was not going to make a drop of difference to anyone except for me. It was a self-set deadline with absolutely nothing relying on it. It’s funny how much I convince myself of the INCREDIBLE URGENCY of the most ridiculous things.

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What I did last night:
1. Checked email and RSS feeds 500 times
2. Took bath
3. Watched musical numbers from Hairspray and an episode of Buffy

What I want to do tonight:
1. Write letter to Megan
2. Re-pot 2 houseplants
3. Finish downstairs foyer redecorating
4. Play cribbage with Andreas
5. Mending
6. Write in paper journal
7. Stretch
8. Leave all screens in house OFF!

WHO’S WITH ME!?