I’m a girl who likes a deadline. I’ve no doubt that’s what brought me into the world of publishing&journalism (well, that and some sort of paycheck for getting a chance to write). Weirdly though, I chose an area of journalism that is notorious for blown deadlines and complete disregard for schedules: music … the modern version inclusive of rock’n’roll and rap 90’s style. It’s a weird combo for me as someone who seems clinically unable to be late for anything. Anything. I’m the one sitting in the dentist’s office a full half-hour before my appointment. Why? well, many a therapy session has explored my issues around control (the needing to master it kind), and what better attempt at that than trying to harness time? Attempting to overcome any obstacle that may try and keep me from being there and/or completing an assigned task.

This, my friends, is like herding cats into a bag, holding onto a double rainbow, having a butterfly for a pet. All to say: impossible and probably wrong-headed. At Rolling Stone, I was a copy editor, which meant I was at the tail-end of deadlines since we received the article after all the editors had wrestled the thing into being. Our job: make it sing a bit more, then get it shipped out the door. Hunter S. Thompson was the only person who could get away with blowing a Rolling Stone deadline, at least during my time there. He would show up and rewrite his piece right before it went to the printer. And we’d all ride that wave accordingly. At the time it felt exciting because it was Hunter effin-S-effin Thompson. When I got to SPIN, I took on a full editor role, meaning I assigned stories, set their deadlines, then worked with the writer to shape them up so they could go through the process of being readied for the issue. After about a couple of months and more than a few eenie-to-massive panic moments when writers missed their deadlines, I learned to move the dates waaayyyy early. Seemed to make sense except that somehow a few of my regular writers caught on and followed the old schedule. Or rather, followed no schedule.

Because I’m very crap-ass at confrontation (hello, more therapy sessions), I would mostly suffer in silence as my writers ignored my calls and generally followed their own time muse. Occasionally there would be a valid reason. Jail was one place a regular contributor to SPIN ended up quite often. Honestly, I’m not even sure why, but I was able to reassign him to another editor who somehow took this state of affairs in stride. Throughout it all I perfected the inner fume. I couldn’t understand why people were unable to follow the rules and be professional and turn things in when they were due. This in a business that thrived on thumbing its collective nose at rules and guardrails. Guns n’ Roses shows were notorious for starting hours&hours late. A colleague once had an interview with Prince that lasted five days because Mr.Glyph wouldn’t come out of his wing of the house except in the middle of the night, when he would then have his assistant knock on said writer’s door to invite him into a darkened studio for twenty minutes at a time and he wasn’t allowed to use a recording device or pen&paper. (This was about control, naturally.) I once waited for three hours in a restaurant for a hair-metal band who I didn’t care about at all, yet had an assignment to interview, so goddamn-it, I would wait. That they showed up drunk was no surprise. That I too may have been a bit lit by then was also not surprising. In the end, the story never ran and that too made me crazy even though, frankly, the piece sucked but given I like sticking to schedules of all sorts whether time or publication it still frustrated me.

So, you see, I find myself in a funny pickle lately as currently deadlines in&around life are wiggly. Actually, deadlines is the wrong word. A more apt usage is perhaps expectations. Penning this blog every weekend is good for me as a writer. Keeps my creative brain elastic. I’ve gotten very wedded to the idea of publishing it on Saturdays. This is a totally self-imposed schedule yet I also appreciate there are some people out there reading this who may be in the habit of seeing it on any given Saturday. If I follow that train of thought, then I feel guilty if I don’t get it done. Here’s the funny thing happening during the acknowledgment of the aforementioned pickle: I’m attempting to let these pricks in my brain go and be fine with saying, meh, this is gonna be late, maybe even absent altogether. I’m working on that outlook anyway… Today I’m thoroughly happy writing right here&now, and that’s the point. To appreciate it.

I remember the adrenaline rush in the way-back day of getting stories written/edited just under the wire as a magazine was going out the door to the printing press, hurtling forward like some Hildy Johnson in His Girl Friday maybe even getting to yell the best and scariest line of all time: Stop the press. But this girl can’t live on that kind of epinephrine alone. I like a bit more stability. So, why, you ask again—or maybe how—did I end up in the music biz? (I’m also a morning person….) Well I’m clearly split down the middle as most of us are. Someone who can’t put cats in bags, hold onto double rainbows or ever ever ever be interested in a butterfly for a pet.

And life is currently following its own deadline which finds me swinging from moment to moment happy to be here.