Recipe for anxiety

It's been an extremely busy few weeks here at Wave Generator's Inner Space pad. In addition to getting lost in my ongoing, everchanging line-up of musical obsessions (this week's guest stars: Brian Wilson/The Beach Boys and Robert Pollard/Guided By Voices), doing preproduction work with The CoStars for our first CD and the usual responsibilities of my "stay at home dad" day job, I've put together my first book proposal for a really cool small press series on influential albums and got slammed with a missed due date at one of my regular writing gigs, Ugly Things. Fortunately, the missed due date happened through no fault of mine - somehow I got left out of the mass e-mail notifying staff of the deadline - but I had to cram reviews for 12 books over three weeks. Needless to say, my eyes hurt at the end of that mad period, and I swore off books for an indefinite period - which turned out to be three hours. Ain't addiction fun?

Still, staying so busy kept my mind off the anxiety of waiting for the editor's response to my book proposal. I found out Sunday that the editor - notice I'm not using any names here, probably to protect my ego from public humiliation if I don't get the gig - had begun sending rejection letters for proposals he passed on. Talk about a recipe for anxiety. I thought I would be all cool when things got to this stage, but I'm a blithering wreck. I can't concentrate on anything for more than 10 minutes at a time - with that review deadline and now my week of high level anxiety, my chances of finishing the new Thomas Pynchon novel, Against the Day, have been slowly shot to shit. I'm jittery, cranky and I obsessively check my e-mail every hour. Initially I checked everytime I walked by the computer, but then I started feeling attached umbilically to the Mac. Had to set some limits.

The true horror of my situation hit when I tried to pick a day where I felt it would be safe to freely shed my anxiety. Would Thursday be enough time for them to get all the rejections out? Friday? The more I thought about it, I realized I wouldn't be free from these stomach churning jitters until a)I got a rejection e-mail, which would launch me into a completely different hell cycle, or b) I get an e-mail saying my proposal has been accepted. So better do something instead. Listening to and playing music, writing songs, playing with my kids, cooking, and watching season 3 of Seinfeld helps. The pot of coffee I have every morning probably doesn't.

In between rounds of e-mail checking this morning, I came across a fascinating article on Ultragrrrl (Sarah Lewitinn) in the Village Voice. Apparently, Ultragrrrl has stirred up quite a bit of controversy in the New York music scene for being passionate about bands she loves, daring to speak her mind on the subject in her blog, and being incredibly lucky in maximizing her career opportunities in the music business. Her success draws the kind of ire that should be reserved for mass murderers, child molesters and politicians - she's inspired message board threads with titles like "I Want to Shoot Ultragrrrl in the Face." Kee-rist people, she's not Dubya. She's not even Gina Arnold, whose narrow minded music reviews in the East Bay Express frequently reduced me to conniption fits. For the record, I never wanted to shoot, much less slap, Gina Arnold in the face, even at the height of what I thought to be folly. She's entitled to her opinions. If I disagree, I don't have to read them. In Arnold's defense, she's also a passionate champion of music she likes, and in Wave Generator's current incarnation, I'd probably defend her. And I did enjoy her book Route 666: On the Road to Nirvana.

In a rare display of unabated, and possibly unenlighted, testosterone, I can't help but drool over Ultragrrrl's hot photo (both literally and figuratively) at the top of the article. Maybe I just have a weakness for opinionated, well-endowed women. Anyway, read it and make up your own mind.