Life Gets Busy and Busy is Good

Emotions are so fleeting. Yesterday morning I was bursting with pride and languidly planning to write a long essay about my success hand-writing a third trombone chart for my upcoming performance of El Cantante with Edgardo Cambon's band Candela. I still had that warm feeling of having accomplished something that I'd avoided for weeks, despite the fact that my husband was banging away, demolishing a closet in my son's room. He's been suffering along with all the carpenters we know -- no work. Instead, he's turning his energies into our house, as he has so often in the past. By the end of the day, plaster dust, screaming boys, a trip to Home Depot and a door-to-door home alarm salesman from Utah had sapped the last of my creative reserves.

Today, a failed bid for an extension on an article deadline means I'm scribbling as fast as I can to get it done by tonight. This morning, two requests for articles from former clients came in, plus details for another piece due this week. My songwriting partner Vince calls me to ask when we're going to finish this song we want to debut at a fundraising concert he will host next month. And the band leader I work with for the San Jose funk band messages me to ask if I'll be at rehearsal tonight -- in San Jose. I've skipped too many of those so I say yes.

It's good to be busy, because busy means money. Can I keep all these plates in the air?