Stress-Filled Ramblings at 1:00 AM

I can't sleep.

I have been staring at my computer for about an hour, bouncing between Facebook, Twitter, job listings, and various news outlets. I have this feeling that I should be doing something. Something important. Something productive. Something that might, some day, be worth money. And I could be doing that. "I have projects and plans in my head." That's a line in a play I'm in right now. One of my lines, in fact.

I recently made a list of due dates for myself. They are somewhat arbitrary, these dates. Nobody has told me that such-and-such thing must be done by such-and-such date. I just wanted to set some goals for myself. The first of those dates is today, Friday, August 17th. I was going to finish the first draft of a play by today.

I am not going to finish the first draft of a play today. At least, it is highly unlikely. The play in question is well on its way to having a completed draft. I have been working, believe me. But while I'm pleased with the progress I've made in the last few days, I don't see me cranking out the final thirty or so pages needed to finish this thing. But it's okay, because, like I said, it's my deadline. If I miss it, nobody is really going to notice except me.

Of course, one of the reasons I picked this date to finish this particular project is because I wanted to finish it before I moved on to the next project. This is a different draft of a different play. This deadline is a little more serious, because this play is really officially happening, and at some point in the nearish future people need to read this thing, and I need to get another draft done before that happens. So that means Project #1 has to go on the back burner until Project #2 gets sorted. Which is okay by me, except what does that mean for the deadlines I set for Projects #3, 4, and 5?

And then there's #6 and #7, for which I haven't even set dates yet. Because that would be crazy.

So I'm awake at 1am and I'm bored and I'm worried that I'm wasting my time and I'm wasting my time worrying because I'm awake and bored at 1am. It has been a long year and I'm waiting for things to start going right again, and I'm wondering if there's something specific I've forgotten, something I was supposed to do to make that happen. I've put on fifteen pounds this year. Can you believe that? How did I find room for it?

But I'm a fairly positive sort of guy, and there are some things that have gone right this year, and I'm going to try and think about those for a little while. And I'm going to stare out the window a little, because I have a great view of downtown, and it is a very clear night.

Good night.