"Stinkin' Thinkin'"

Heard a fellow the other day talking about how thinking always got him into trouble. I took it he meant he could think himself into doing anything, the way you can talk someone -- someone weak -- into doing something (the way some self-centered customers will try to talk and talk and complain until you give them what they want.. or else they'll go "shopping for answers"; keep asking different supervisors and managers until they get one to give in.)

I can relate. I get a broom handle up my ass when someone else starts to try to persuade me, cajole, manipulate, or guilt me into doing something. I get more and more rigid (except, of course, my son seems to have, in a clumsy way, a high percentage success rate with me, i.e., I'm wrapped around his little finger.)

But internally, I listen to my selftalk with slackjaw obediance. What a rube I am.

Sure, I'm a sceptic about most things; God, romance, government, business, politics, labor, art, celebrity, style -- including those that react against against all these thing, too... "Question Authority" is my byline.

But inside my own head, I am a true blue sucker. I can sell myself on just about anything.

If it wasn't for my rigidity, my inflexibility on the few things I do strongly believe in -- those things I've somehow been able to draw a line in the sand that I will not step over -- well, I fear to imagine what chaos would my life would be, what kind of hell I would put my son into.

I think that's why I like to work under pressure, why I like being a floor manager, rather than having time to try to think about what I should be doing. I like a deadline (as much as I hate the pressure), trying to figure an efficient way to beat the clock, see just how much I can get done...

But if I have time to work on my own projects I will think them to death. I get stuck writing stories when I get to a crossroads in the story where not two roads divide, but ten, twenty, a hundred roads divide! My ripe imagination overflows and burns on the stove. Big mess.

Just look at my sentence structure. My parenthetical remarks. Commas, hyphens, parentheses, colons, finally running dry not with definitive punctuation but elipses...

A couple months ago, walking home from work, I was blindsided by a drunk on Powell Street. I didn't see him stumbling towards me until the last moment. He kicked me in the shine, hard, but before I could think a thought I had already hooked my foot under his and sent him to the pavement. Hard. My arms didn't leave my sides, I didn't have time. I didn't even stop walking, just looked back to see that he was obviously fucked up.

If I had had time to think about it I would have been frozen in a swarm of possible outcomes and consequences. I didn't want to hurt the guy. By the time I got to the MUNI station, I looked around for a cop to let someone in authority know what had happened, to take responsibility. (OK, maybe to brag a little in how fast and easy I had sent this dufus to the pavement, too, but now I have this blog to do that!)

But now let's take my "Heavens!" cartoon idea. I stumble across Wittenburg Door, a Christian humor magazine I respect, and realize it would be a great market for my cartoons. That was over a month ago. I have their address, I have 14 cartoons finished, done, ready to submit, but then I think...

Maybe I should try to syndicate these, maybe I should try a better know magazine, maybe I should try to sell them as a book, greeting cards, calender...

Thinks to much...