The Way Things Are



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Monday mad! Mad!
2004-07-26, 1:05 p.m.

What did I accomplish this weekend? I sanded a few cabinet doors, sorted some dusty stacks of paper, washed, dried and folded several loads of laundry, stained some beaded board, napped on a stack of 2X10s, drank a glass of wine and five beers, and got lost in my thoughts too many times to count. Not that I could count it, because I was lost, right?

What have I accomplished at work? Nothing. And this puzzles me. My job is largely administrative � the handling of paper. I open it, sort it, act upon it, and file it. Admin is my favorite kind of work, so I don�t understand why I procrastinate to the point of rendering some of this paper a lost, fucked deal. I like paper. I like to dispose of it, whether by handling the situation, filing the paper, throwing it away, or delegating the shit the paper demands of me, like �Please send us a copy of something important that we need.� What it is, is this. I like handling other people�s paper, but not my own. If I were my own secretary or admin assistant, I would relish this job. I�d be handling and disposing of and executing paper left and right, like nobody�s business. Since it is my own paper, it all seems very hopeless and depressing and pointless. I feel like I have two options: either hire a person to handle my paper, or find a new job where the paper I handle is somebody else�s. Not mine. Option 1 scares me because I might not have anything else to do if my paper-handling responsibilities were delegated. I mean, that might be all I have. Option 2 scares me because it would entail getting a new job, mostly, and because I�ve become pretty accustomed to being my own boss.

Arg. Ok, fine. Option 3. Do my damn job. Handle the effing paper. Stop letting my stupid emotional state interfere. And who knows? I might actually snap out of the depressed hopeless state I�m in IF I ACTUALLY ACCOMPLISHED SOMETHING ON MY JOB. Whoa. What a concept, she said, as she sucked mightily upon the joint of evil weed. So let�s see.

Pull head out of ass. Check.

Make a to-do list. Check.

Work toward checking off the items on the to-do list. What?

Stop looking at a perfected to-do list as the end, and treat it as the means to an end. WHAT?

You mean�the to-do list, perfected, is not the final product? It�s a tool?

So on my �relish the to-do list to-do list� my first order of the day is to, let me see if I can get this right, ahem, �work toward checking off the items on the to-do list�. That would mean actually accomplishing those items, and not letting them die through attrition, right? Not letting them linger there until they are no longer relevant and just dry up and blow away. �I can relate�, she said, as she huffed again the sweet smoke of the doob.

Wow. I wrote �woof� or something like it before writing �wow� and I wish I�d left it there. Woof.

Oh, something funny from this weekend. I was busily reading Mimi�s journal because I wanted to read the entry in which Nora�s arrival was first discussed. I read and I read and I read, and DW asked me what I was reading. I told him �Somebody�s online journal.� He was astounded. Why, in the name of all that is good and holy, would somebody POST their JOURNAL�ONLINE�for all to read? And how much was I paying for that? I answered the easy part (it's free) without once saying the word "doofus" out loud, and I tried to explain the rest to him, and had as much success and patience as when I tried to explain to him why sometimes women date and marry men who treat them like shit, and why some women are so particular about their hair. He tries to figure too much out, that one, my sweet little DishWasher, more than is good for him. So of course, the irony is me reporting this in my online journal.

I have nothing else funny to report although my days and sometimes the nights are infused with snippets that read like journal entries. They are informative, telling, entertaining, offbeat and funny, and damn girl! if I can�t remember a one of them. Maybe one of those nerdy hand-held digital recorders would help. Or I could leave myself voicemail constantly, witty one-liners to retrieve later.

Oh, wait, what was I doing? Accomplishing and crossing off the items on the to-do list. Right.

Oh, one thing I have learned from obsessively reading Mimi's archives? I am woefully poorly read. I need to read. I need to hie me to the library. Hie! Hi!

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