Martha and Mary Chapel in Sudbury, Mass., where I will take my folks to a wedding later today.
Hello, Podcast Mountain!
It’s going to be a brisk climb to complete today’s show, because I need to drive my parents to a wedding in Sudbury this afternoon. That means I will eschew Twitter and other distractions as best I can. Please, Lord. Let me turn immediately to writing the script in Evernote, moving my MacBook Air and microphone into the quilting supply room for the recording, and posting the audio and show notes before I leave for Sudbury in less than six hours.
Which brings me to the mystery of procrastination.
You’d think a creature as highly evolved as our species would be able to wake up in the morning, see a goal, lock onto it and organize time and motion to achieve it. I doubt there will be a hurricane or earthquake here in Cambridge today or other natural disaster to interfere with my humble work. It’s at least 90 percent within my grasp whether I get the show completed in six hours or not. So what gets in the way?
Here’s a theory: After 428 episodes of a weekly podcast, my lizard brain follows an embedded timetable, never mind the frontal lobe’s plan for an early finish. The lizard expects that I will finish the episode right around midnight. The interplay between lizard brain and podcaster brain gets complicated in today’s case, because I will probably return home from the wedding by around 7 p.m., five hours before I usually reach the summit of Podcast Mountain. So I actually have 11 hours of available time, not six.
So what’s the rush, Podcast Man? Don’t you want to see if anyone has retweeted the snarky 140 characters you posted at 3 am about Trump at the Al Smith Dinner? And how about Cozmo, your new robot toy? Don’t you want to teach him to recognize your face now that the light’s better than it was last night when he arrived?
Rather than trying to ignore my italicized friend, I hereby acknowledge its voice and will try to make a deal. I could easily waste another 15 minutes coming up with a clever name for my adversary — strike that — my creative partner. Keep going. I’ll go with Bud.
“Hi Bud. Good to see you again here on Podcast Mountain. I’d love it if we can stay off Twitter, Facebook, HuffPo, and the rest until the show is up. Otherwise Mom and Dad are going to be on edge, afraid they’ve kept me from my work just to drive them to Bridgie’s wedding. When I pick them up, I want to be able to say, ‘Good news! The show is done!’ And BTW, when we get back home let’s plan on binge-watching Game of Thrones and Goliath. Nonstop till midnight. Tweeting at the same time and strumming the guitar, learning that Travis pick for Landslide. Total distraction, maybe with a bag of Cheetos. Deal?”
You’re dreaming, Podcast Man. And with your amusing post here I just snookered you out of an hour when you could have been starting the script. But you know what? I’m kinda touched that you’d reach out and even try to get me to cooperate. So we’ll see. Get going.
I’ll let you know how it turns out. One way or another, you’ll have my interview with ace Kindle blogger Bufo Calvin to listen to by tomorrow morning. And much more.
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