When the grooves get clogged

Am swamped with work this week and feeling a bit overwhelmed, trying to meet some crushing deadlines.

Deadlines cause swamps of
     dead
          lines

i.e., words backed up in a queue, waiting to tumble out, but they can't, 'cause the fingers that would normally type the stacked up poems-to-be and stories-in-formation mode are busy inputting data--endless lists of lists plugged into charts of little cordoned boxes to be extracted and disbursed. The eyes blurr, the fingers cramp, and just when I think it's finished, another batch arrives with a: "Can you get these done by noon, please?"

It's not just a question of time management. There are only so many hours in a day.  What happens when you allot X number of hours to do Task Y and it ends up taking 3 hours longer than you'd anticipated. Tasks X2, X3 and X4 must then be bumped and squeezed and rescheduled, cutting into the time of already scheduled projects.

Am feeling like the curious creature in this drawing on loan from my refrigerator door:

Time for a break. If we don't brake occasionally, we will break.

My way of breaking is to stop and close my eyes and listen to music. This relaxes me and is restful.  I sit back and  wax nostalgic with Vivaldi, enter realms of  pleasurable awayness with Yo Yo Ma on his cello, reach heaven with Mozart.   But there are times I need a little shot of adreneline, to keep going. And for such times, I simply get up and dance. Sometimes it's reggae, sometimes a Greek zeibekiko, sometimes a heart-pumping Bulgarian or Croatian kolo, sometimes the twist or a waltz. (You don't need a human partner to dance the waltz, by the way. Not in your own kitchen, anyhow.)

Well today I feel like an eagle. I want to fly out of this pile of urgencies and breathe a little. And so I've chosen:



One of my favorite mellow-out-the-cramped-up-muscles tunes. (Click and enjoy!)

I actually prefer red wine to tequila. That reminds me--here's another favorite get-the-limbs-loosened-ready-to-start-groovin'-again tunes: Red Red Wine. (Although ... music, not wine, is my drug of choice.)

P.S.  Thanks to Bob Arnold over at the Longhouse birdhouse for introducing me to grooveshark.

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Artwork by Isaiah, my 7-year old grandson.