Some Days Are Dancing Days

After publishing the last post, about determinedly sticking to my deadline for Sylvestus, I promptly finished the very first stage nearly two full days ahead of schedule and felt Very Good About It. Then I had a bit of a setback with exam revision, and then I caught up with that exam revision at 11pm in the library. Rollercoasters.

Most of my uni work is done, honestly, between 7-11pm in the library. I've gotten there at 9am before and not left until 3pm, and in that time procrastinated and dawdled and gone for lunch and sat on my phone and wandered the shelves picking out books at random and wondering why I didn't pick an Ancient History degree if I'm finding this book on Roman military equipment so fascinating (and then wondering why I didn't pick Psychology because I know I just find it interesting because it's not what I'm supposed to be studying, and so on). And then I've been exhausted and had too much coffee and gone home and been sad for the rest of the day.

Case in point, on Monday I went to the library at 11am and revised two and a half lectures in four hours before deciding that throwing myself out of a window would be a better option than trying to carry on. Sadly I was in the basement, so I just went home instead. At home, I watched some Dexter and some Star trek and made Mexican bean pot and thought about how fucked my revision schedule was already... On day one.

On Tuesday, I went to the library at 7pm, after watching some Dexter and some Star Trek and making pasta. I stayed until nearly 11pm. I did six lectures' worth of revision. I finished the entire topic, actually. And then I went home, and slept like an animal who through both innate characteristics and learning processes has selected an ideal territory in which it has formed a by-product mutualism relationship with its neighbours for assured protection (the topic was animal behaviour).

People who are Daytime People or Morning People find this idea horrific. They think of evenings as the time to chill, to see friends, to watch TV and read a book; mornings and afternoons are for revision and work. If I'm working in the evening I must be stressed and unproductive; if I chill all day I'm obviously wasting time.

For me, it doesn't work like that. And I think Daytime People genuinely don't understand it. They tell me to "keep trying" to adjust my schedule, as if I'll somehow be more productive if I keep wasting eight hours a day feeling frustrated and bored for long enough.

I also know my attention span. When I'm in the library, even when I'm super-motivated and working really hard (see Tuesday), I have to take a lot of breaks. I know that I can't work for more than three hours without a break that lasts a few more hours, but I also can't work for more than about twenty minutes without some kind of break. I have to take my earphones out, stand up, go for a wander around the shelves or go to the toilet or fill up my water bottle. Other people around me work for three hours solid, and I wonder if they find my constant breaks distracting, whether I should be able to work as solidly as they do and if there's something wrong with me.

No; it's taken me a while to realise, but I'm pretty sure it's just how my brain works.

Maybe it's how your brain works, too.

We're made to think that people who can wake up at 6.30am are The Most Productive, that if you haven't done everything you need to by 3pm there's no point even trying, that successful people are the ones who put in A Solid Eight Hours during the day, and then know how to relax from 6pm onwards.

If I try to do that, I feel like an intermediate-brightness male lazuli bunting, rejected by both my dullest and brightest competitors as they ally their forces against me (see? 7-11pm revision, man. Does the trick). And most importantly, nothing gets done. Actually, no, that's not most important. That's just a fact. The important part is that I also feel shit about it.

After my success with the literal first stage of the many-layered Sylvestus deadline, I took a two-day break. Focus on revision, no need to rush yet when you're still ahead of schedule.

This morning, I decided to start work again. Sure, I could've gone to the library, skipped lunch, slogged through for a few hours with coffee and agony in the overheated basement study room. But experience has told me how that will work out, and from my experience, 10am to 1pm can be peak writing time. In fact, my day could work perfectly: write morning to early afternoon, chill for a bit, chores mid-afternoon, revision evening.

The headphones were put on and the cherry juice was poured. Sta.sh, MyNoise, and Spotify were opened. The Sylvestus inspiration playlist was selected.

And then, apparent disaster: first track, a new addition inspired by a friend's suggestion, Sweet Dreams.

Oh, man...

I had to dance.

Out of the chair, volume up, and within three seconds of that first beat I was 80s slow-dancing to that sweet, sweet jam.

"Why is Sweet Dreams such a #jam honestly you're in so much trouble for this" I texted to the culprit once it had finished. And I was pretty sure that was that: most of the playlist is much less danceable-to, tending to be more of the Halsey and Hozier variety, and I could settle down now with a playlist I have literally been listening to when I write for over a year with no problems.

Then, though, that drumbeat and trumpet combo of Which Witch (Florence + the Machine) - and I was a gonner. Sure, it's a fair banger, and I have been known to pause a paragraph to victoriously beat out that final chorus on the desk - but scarcely has it affected me like this before. Today, though, with deadlines and revision and productivity in my head and sunshine in the window, those wild, defiant lyrics just caught me.

There's only one song that has always had me dancing in the past, and that's Lone Digger, by - of all things - a French synth/electro/pop/jazz/?? band, Caravan Palace. At first I used it sparingly, afraid that one day I would be in the wrong mood and wouldn't dance, and then the whole thing would be ruined. Eventually, I realised that as long as I wanted to dance when I heard it, I would. Alone in the kitchen or taking over the playlist at a party or on a crowded bus, carefully deaf to the muffled giggles of strangers as I sway it out in my seat, eyes closed, grinning maniacally.

So, on the advice of the wise (if musically-dangerous) friend and my own desperate heart, I just danced that shit out. Even songs that shouldn't possibly produce the kind of rhythmless, enthusiastic shoulder-swinging, hip-circling, arm-beating monstrosity that I call dancing managed to bring about that reaction.

And why fight it? Very rarely do I want to dance so bad. Very rarely are the conditions just right. I've always been like that, though: foul moods, numbness, can be so pervasive, that I'll take a good feeling when it comes.

Who knows; maybe tonight I'll have burned through all my serotonin and end up wrapped under three blankets on my bed not even able to enjoy the mild flirtation of Spock and Kirk. But I figure that might happen whether I dance now or not.

So yes, I stopped trying to write and I listened through most of the playlist just dancing with headphones on in my room, in front of the window which faces the road most of the students walk up and down and can look into, and I enjoyed every second. And when I felt it fade - when I was tired and thirsty and a little embarrassed - I put on Lone Digger.

"Because some stories end, but old stories go on, and you gotta' dance to the music if you want to stay ahead."

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, Terry Pratchett