Procrastination and Spookyness: Things I Did While Trying to Come Up With Other Things, Partially In Order of Spookiness, Partially In Chronological Order, All of Which Really Just End Up Being A Documentation

So I don't know what the problem is but I thought that people giving me prompts to write about would actually give me focus, but everything always derails back into me talking about what I do when I procrastinate. I guess I vascillate (which I do not know how to spell) between very type A and very type B.

So I belong to this group called the Self-Publishers of Chicago (SPOC) and we do things together like publish zines, help each other with encoragement for problems we deal with in the world of independent publishing and culture, support each other in our creative endeavors, eat Clancy's Pretzels Rods from Aldi (only because there's an Aldi near my house, so Clancy's is sort of our unofficial sponsor), and and um, go out for margaritas, the latter of which sounds like we're on Sex and the City of something.

Anyway, so we did a Halloween zine, but my contribution is of course, in only a tiny way related to Halloween. Lucky for you, I have included it here. I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat. P.S. I'm reading at a release event of sorts for this zine thing on Tuesday at Uncharted Books. Won't you join me for some spooky Logan Square action? More info here.

Things I Did While Trying to Come Up With What I Would Write About For This Zine, Partially In Order of Spookiness, Partially In Chronological Order, All of Which Really Ended Up Being What the Piece I'm Writing For This Zine Is

by Liz "Spooky" Mason

-Listened to 36 of 90 tracks on the CD that accompanies the book EVP: Electronic Voice Phenomenon: Massachusetts Ghostly Voices and enjoyed the author's use of the terms "singularity" and "other dimension"

-carved pumpkin to look like Britney Spears at age sixteen, but with creepy missing eyes (see photo below)

-listened to obese black cat wheeze

-Discussed with roommate how far the radius of rabbinical prayer extends to qualify as effective in blessing food to make it kosher, and if the determinate radius could be measured in some way that is similar to radio frequency territory

-started reading pdf titled "Reducing Long-Term Catastrophic Risks from Artificial Intelligence" courtesy of the Singularity Institute, get totally derailed by the excitement of sudden inspiration for halloween costume which required google search for "Britney Spears Toxic video halloween costume"

-Ate leftover pita with tahini sauce

-made coffee

-watched major talking points of previous night's foreign policy election candidate debate

-made more coffee

-drank more coffee

-helped myself to an additional serving of coffee

-sweated

-Put on "A Little More Personal (RAW)" by Lindsey Lohan and thought "This is actually kind of a good album in a junior high girl kind of a way."

-Youtubed TRL live version of Lindsey Lohan's "Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father)" followed by the official music video and enjoyed that even though the video was from 2005 there was commentary from less than 24 hours ago, quote courtesy of political critic TrollMCTrollinMAKKY: "Why you endorse Mitt Romney? Do all drugged-up Hollywood actresses like you make poorly choice decisions?" Scrolled down further and enjoyed the Yoda-like quote from sage cultural critic krazyashlee101: "She wrote this song, so obvious it is."

-ate 2 (two) pieces of candy corn, proud of my caloric restraint in an attempt to lead healthy low fat lifestyle

-considered working out

-ate huge-ass ice cream sandwich

-Freaked out that I had to be at work in .02 minutes, annoyed with myself that I waited all fucking morning to get ready at the last possible minute and then, combined with the anxiety from consuming too much coffee, had a near heart attack and ironically, proceeded to pretty much have an entire workout what with the sweating and freaking out and getting to work on time

It's Britney-O-Lantern, Bitch