Top Priority of the Summer
January 2023
I went to high school in the 1990’s so naturally I’ve seen Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused 1347 times give or take. It basically loops as a low-volume track of my inner monologue at all times. This month, a particular line kept blasting through in certain moments. I started to pay attention. The line is: “Top priority of the summer.”
To refresh: at the top of the movie, we see Jason London’s character, Randall “Pink” Floyd, grappling with a pledge his football coaches have asked him to sign, promising he won’t do drugs or drink throughout the summer to keep in fine form for the coming season. Pink gives attitude and old Coach Conrad lectures him, insults his friends, tells him, “You better get your priorities straight.”
At the end of the movie, Pink, still awake after a night of weed, beer, and philosophizing, informs Coach Conrad that while he may play ball, he will never sign the pledge. And then he says: “Me and my loser friends, you know, we gotta go get Aerosmith tickets. Top priority of the summer.”
He hops in the car, Slow Ride plays, they start to drive, and you think how fully weird it is that this nineties movie about the seventies is now cool to people who think the nineties are cool like you thought the seventies were cool back in the nineties and time is just a bizarre mind fuck and unless you are in extremely hardy mental health I do not recommend googling “where is Jason London now?” nor his twin brother, Jeremy; instead — should you wish to cos-play late-blooming 14-year-old me — watch the video for Aerosmith’s “Amazing" from 1993 and feel queasy and uneasy and simply on fire with your burgeoning, bewildering lust in equal measure for “nerd” Jason London, “hot” Jason London, barefooted Steven Tyler screeching (and looking?) like a tropical bird, and obviously Alicia Silverstone, such a cool, empowered, sky-surfing slut throughout her full trilogy of Aerosmith vids. Hoo.
Writing:
Where was I? Top priority of the summer. Right. As I’ve mentioned, I have a part-time administrative job at the University of Toronto. I currently also still have some grant money and my guidance counsellor partner willingly pays more rent, vet bills, etc. than me out of an inexplicable belief in what I do. Which means that at the moment I have about 3.5 hours every morning to do work that I don’t have to monetize. Of course this is a blessed life, of course I’m well aware of that.
When I was 38 I was diagnosed with ADHD, so at least now I understand why directing myself can be so fucking hard — the gas tank of that part of my brain is only ever a quarter full. Meds help, but choosing what to do next or what’s most important or will give me the most bang for my buck are decisions that sometimes still make me spin out for hours during which I get nothing done at all. When that happens, it’s a huge bummer, so I try to stick to a system of lists and project planning and prioritization so I’m actually doing what it is I care about most. Still, I don’t always know exactly what that is.
At the beginning of January, tireder than usual due to the onslaught of December and the weeks-long dearth of sun, I really didn’t know what exactly that might be. Everything I had on the go felt vital and pressing when I was in a good mood, and utterly pointless when not. As I reviewed my projects and tried to discern what I wanted from 2023, I noticed that “Top priority of the summer,” rang out whenever I considered my novel. It didn't just happen once. At first, my conscious mind tried to argue — shouldn’t I capitalize on last year’s small run of food writing success? Shouldn’t I develop more recipes for the newsletter? Shouldn’t I shoot more godforsaken reels and keep that engagement up? Or write some new short stories, get more publications under my belt! Or maybe try to do something, anything, that might directly impact the never-ending horrors of the world? All of these things are also important to me. But my inner Linklater was telling the truth — the novel is the priority project this year. Which means some other stuff won’t get done, or not as fast. And that has to be okay. Top priority of the summer.
Though I’m not a teenaged hippie male, and I’m no longer a huge Aerosmith fan, I think Randall “Pink” Floyd and I have more in common than it might at first appear. Yes, I too love weed, beer, and philosophizing, but more importantly when Pink defines driving to get Aerosmith tickets as his top priority of the summer, he’s choosing what he actually values, even though playing by Coach Conrad’s rules and embracing his star-player status would be the path of least resistance and would guarantee glory. Exploring who he truly is is harder and more nebulous for Pink. But it’s important for him to try.
Sometimes when I work on my novel, the actual things I’m doing seem and feel like the laziest, most decadent, completely useless wastes of a life. Having what I call a “thinky nap,” or going for my depressed little walks trying to figure out what happens next, or getting so fucking pissed at a section I’ve wrestled with for hours only to realize it needs to be cut, or scribbling into my notebook paragraphs upon paragraphs of which only one or two will make it into the book. And yet, it’s my top priority of the summer. Why?
To be honest, it remains something of a mystery to me, too. I still waste scads of time trying to figure it out when I should just be like my friend Fiona who recently said to me, curtly, in response to my incessant confusion: “It’s a perfectly reasonable way to spend a life!”
When I’m not so sure it’s reasonable, I remind myself how vital and sustaining the existence of art has always been to me. I remind myself of when my therapist said, “You artists take all the risk so we can have the meaning and pleasure, and I really appreciate that.” I remind myself that when it’s going well, writing creatively is the only thing that feels as good as doing drugs, without being bad for my health (save for my posture, RIP). I could spend my time a million different ways, but for whatever reason I feel most drawn to the hardest (for me), noodliest, most confounding thing I do. In some ways it feels like a crime to not focus on my creative work during this window when I actually can. This may all seem very obvious to those of you born with executive function, but I’m so easily waylaid.
The Coach Conrad of my mind hassles me that I should work harder on “platform building,” to make sure this book has an audience when it’s born; he thinks I should invest more in my food writing career so that I can bring in more money; Conrad surprisingly even nags that spreading the word about veganism has higher “social value” than some weird-ass voice-driven autofiction/fantasy about the ocean with no discernible “meaning” so far.
Look, Coach Conrad’s not all bad. I bet he taught Randall “Pink” Floyd a thing or two about quarterbacking in his time; there may be some truth to his words. But what Pink’s words helped me figure out was that just as it was essential at that time to his identity and well-being to get Aerosmith tickets with his stoner friends, it’s presently essential to my identity and well-being to totally noodle out for a minimum of 120 minutes a day, six days a week. I can and will do some of everything else, too, in ways that I have time for, as energy allows. But doing the slow, repetitive, uncertain, loser things I need to do to get the novel done? Top priority of the summer.
Reading:
George Saunders’ Liberation Day: IMO not as consistent as “Tenth of December,” but I loved a lot of these stories. I am still feeling sick to my stomach in a good way about “Ghoul,” absolutely worth the price of admission.
Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House: Still processing, but I think it’s really great.
Most of Miranda Popkey’s Topics of Conversation for the second time: Eyebrow-singeing. Rachel Cusk 2.0, a little bit warmer.
Halfway through Dimitri Nasrallah’s Hotline: So far a lovely story of immigration, loss, and finding one’s way against all odds in 1980’s Montreal. It would be moving to anyone, but Dimitri and I were close friends in grad school, I know some of the stories of his childhood he’s drawing on, and it’s beautiful to me to see his intense early years reimagined in this way. Plus it’s a run-away success! Giller Longlist, Canada Reads, let’s go!
Eating:
I made this awesome vegan chicken out of beancurd skins from Hannah Che’s incredible book The Vegan Chinese Kitchen, and then got on my high horse about mock meats on Instagram. Maybe I’ll write a little more about those here one day soon. But I’ll only do that if there’s time and energy left after the Aerosmith tickets have been bought.
Thank you for reading, it means the world to me!