I am fully aware that I need to be awake by 4:30am in order to have a shower, look decent for work, and arrive on time. This doesn’t change the fact that, 9 times out of 10, when my alarm clock starts blasting, I will reach over and beat it like Ike beat Tina. Like a teenage boy after he gets his first look at a naked woman. Like a convict...
What I mean to say is – I will pound it quite vigorously and with apparent relish, effectively putting it out of commission and, consequently, I am often late. My alarm clock has now taken so many beatings that the volume won’t stay at one level and the radio stations skip around on their own, likely seeking to dodge the next blow.
Obviously work is my biggest issue since I’m about the furthest thing from a morning person you will find. I sleep like the dead and when woken suddenly, tend to swing first and ask questions later. But my violent tendencies aside (unless you’re into that sort of thing...’sup.), I have issues with time in general.
My boss is in a constant tizzy over my lack of time management skills. “You have got to get here on time”, she says at least once a week. It’s only thanks to her leniency and my apparent charm that I’m able to continue trucking along at a snail’s pace, popping in, breathless and disheveled, with the next excuse on the tip of my tongue.
I like the idea of a schedule; it’s the execution that eludes me. See, I’ve been a top notch procrastinator since I was a child (though I can’t remember a time that I ever willingly missed a meal...). It was generally the mundane, everyday tasks that were neglected – like homework and chores. As an adult its mostly important paperwork, phone calls, making dinner, and other household related things.
It was all well and good when I was putting off the boring tasks that had to be done, but I’ve now started putting off the stuff I enjoy doing. In the past, when there was something I was really looking forward to, I’d jump up and go through all the preparations to get me to my goal as quickly as possible - including vaulting out of bed when the alarm went off. However, my procrastinating has reached an all time high. It is no longer selective.
Take last night for example.
I was texting my would-have-been date from this past weekend. (For those that don’t follow my every move on Twitter, he had to cancel because he and his child came down with strep throat.) We were discussing having dinner together tonight. It was decided that we would catch up this afternoon and if we’re both still available we’ll go, and I will stay in the city at The Grandmother’s house so I don’t have to drive all the way home so late on a work night.
A seemingly simple plan, yes? No! There is a part two that the man has no idea about. Preparations, people! And as soon as we ended our conversation I began laying it all out in my head:
“Ok. Since it’s highly likely that this is going to happen tomorrow night, I need to get moving and get some shit done. Let’s see....laundry! I need those black lace boy shorts. Just in case, it’s not like I plan on removing them or anything, but what if the wind blows my dress up? He should know that even though I have no intention of sleeping with him on the first date, I’m wearing the underwear that says ‘could if I wanted too bitch, HA’!
Um, I need to pack options...clothes to change into after work. I’ll get ready at The Grandmother’s. I’ll already have my hair and makeup done so that won’t take long. Let’s see, feel the legs...wow! That’s shameful. I won’t have time to do it in the morning so as soon as Glee is over it’s time to shower and shave those bad boys. And should I maybe make sure the rest looks good? No. No, if I do that I’ll probably sleep with him. I mean, yes! I should...just in case there’s a freak accident and we end up in the same hospital room and the nurse doesn’t cover my bits. That is a completely valid excuse.
So let’s put it all together now, tick it off on the fingers: Glee, laundry, shower, shave, exfoliate, pack, go to sleep and wake up thirty minutes early in order to have time to do my makeup extra well. Go to work, go to TG’s, model three or four clothing options while TG frowns disapprovingly and asks questions about his religious background, meet him for dinner, go to the bathroom at some point to check nose for boogers, teeth for food, and Tweet about how drunk I’m getting on wine.
Should I write all of this down? Nah...Totally got it.”
However things didn’t exactly happen that way. As soon as Glee was over, I launched into full procrastination mode.
“I’ll just finish this one episode of Mad Men that I was watching before Glee came on. I won’t watch the other two that are on this disk. Just the one.”
A little over two hours later:
“Fucking fuck – its 11:15! Sigh. Oh well, I’ll just set my alarm for 4am. I’ll have plenty of time to do everything in the morning.”
4:30am this morning:
“SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! SLAM! Fuck you, Tina!”
6:15am this morning:
“SHIT! 15 minutes! SLAM! This is all your fault!”
And that, my friends, is how it is done.
That means that its 11am and I’ve done none of the preparations on my list, other than throwing all of my outfit choices, makeup, and toiletries in a bag and running out the door. On the plus side, I was only four minutes late for work this morning. Unfortunately, I’m now going to TG’s to shower on my lunch break so my hair will look decent by this evening, then going back after work to finish the process. You know, if I was a dude and I didn’t have to go through all of this grooming stuff, I probably wouldn’t be such a procrastinator. Maybe. It’s so tiring!
Anyway, my mother says that there is something mentally wrong with me, that no one can knowingly put off things that are really important without having a screw loose. “You just sit there with your damn book! Get up! Get up! What are you looking at? There’s nothing there! Did you pay that bill? Did you get the clothes out of the dryer? Did you call and make that appointment? Well, did you?!”
“Er...no.”
“WHY NOT?”
“I dunno. I was...hey! Listen to this! Do you hear that? ‘Dun nuh! Dun nuh, dun nuh, dun nuh! I want it with whipped cream on it baby gimmie gimmie gimmie your loooooove!’ OMG, Ma, I love this song!”
“I’m going to kill you.”
Apparently, shocker of shockers, my mother is actually right. Not about killing me, I don’t think she has the stomach for that. But behold this sentence from Wikipedia: “Chronic procrastination may be a sign of an underlying psychological disorder.” Sigh. Of course, I’m forced to believe it because Wikipedia is the internet Bible for gangstas. Wicky wicky.
Unfortunately, though I searched for quite some time, I was unable to find a website that claims procrastination is hereditary. In fact, several of them shockingly claim that there is no possible way it could be. This was most disheartening and I’d all but given up on my plans to print out an article on the subject and share it with my mother. Until I read this sentence:
“Procrastinators often have great difficulty in seeking help, or finding an understanding source of support, due to the stigma and profound misunderstanding surrounding extreme forms of procrastination.”
In your FACE ma! All you had to do was be an understanding source of support, instead of nagging me all the fucking time.
“Why haven’t you found a new therapist? Why can’t you make a stinking appointment with a therapist? Huh, huh, why!”
It’s simple! I can’t, it’s too difficult to seek help! I am doomed to circle the drain of task aversion (including, but not limited to, the task of finding a new therapist) until I’m eventually sucked down into the rusty pipes of underachievement and overwhelming failure. Whereupon I will be committed, someone will finally have done it all for me, and I can blame it all on my father in the therapy sessions they haul me to three times a day in a straight jacket. I win.
Sweet! Lunch time!
Showing posts with label in your face. Show all posts
Showing posts with label in your face. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
If I call this "Highway to Hell" would that be too obvious?
Everyone is on their own road to discovery and enlightenment.
Some roads are smooth and black with perfectly straight yellow lines. Some roads have a pot hole or two, a few curves, and maybe the lines are a bit faded. Some are never ending dirt roads under a canopy of trees, the light never quite penetrating through. Some are four lane freeways crisscrossed with bridges, but with plenty of signs to point the way.
I’m going to hazard a guess that my metaphorical road looks a bit like this:
It’s scenic. Around every turn there’s something beautiful. The view from that road is so spectacular that I can’t imagine choosing another route.
Until, that is, those bastard ass rocks start falling from above and smashing around my car that has one too many miles on it, a bumper that doesn’t match, and a fuel tank that’s always hovering close to empty. Oh, and sometimes the gas pedal gets stuck and I go careening around those deadly curves, desperately trying to keep things in line so that I don’t go plummeting off the side of this scenic mountain.
So basically what I’m saying is my road to discovery and enlightenment is trying to kill me. Let’s look at the evidence, shall we? Just this past weekend will do.
*Note: If you don’t want to read about my vagina. Stop. Reading. Now.
Friday night I was in the shower. Naked, because that’s how I roll.
I was shaving my legs and my bizness (for you newbies, that means vagina) because Cosmo says it’s the way to a man’swallet heart...and also I may have let things run a little rampant lately. I mean, it’s not like anyone has been down there checking out the accommodations recently! Don’t give me any shit. Anyway, so I was shaving and I thought to myself, “Self, why not try something a little new and sassy. You can always go back to bald if you don’t like it. Let’s make it PRETTY! OOWA OOWA! Raise the roof!”
Like you don’t dance in the shower and talk to yourself in your head? Psssh, whatever.
“Design, design...what kind of design?”
Animals were out, because I’m not that talented. A circle would be weird, like a button, and that might distract from the real, more important button. Also, it made me think of that phrase “button, button, who’s got the button” and I’d likely giggle at in inopportune time and they’d think I was laughing at them and get all offended, like men do.
That left me with two options: heart or lightening bolt. Both of those are SO done, but I don’t have the dexterity to do a skull and crossbones. With the lightening bolt I could take my pants off and be all “SHAZAM!” With the heart...aw, fuck it. I did the heart because it was the simplest. Nothing says love like a heart made of hair.
I started shaving the damn heart into my bizness and I was really concentrating. I had one leg propped on the side of the tub and the shower curtain open a bit for more light. Things were trucking along smoothly for a minute. Then, with one side down and one side to go, disaster struck.
WHAM! The door flew open and smacked into the wall, followed by the unmistakable sound of my sister in a rage.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t really concentrate on her distress as I was too busy with my own. When the door flew open and she started yelling like a banshee, it scared the living daylights out of me. I jumped and my hand jerked up at the same time, causing me to slice my bizness like a Christmas ham. I SLICED my BIZNESS.
On a pain scale of 1-10, I’d give it an 11 ½. Coming in right after the discontinuation of my make up at a solid 9 ½.
Had I known there were people behind her in the hallway I never would have screamed those sailor inspired obscenities, nor would I have opened up the curtain all the way and thrown the razor at her head. Maybe.
The cut was bad, but not nearly as bad as the bloody half heart. Symbolic maybe?
It was a good thing that I didn’t hook up with that guy later on that night. How does one explain a bandaged vagina?
Then there was Saturday.
My sister and I were supposed to leave early that morning and go shopping, but I was so hungover that I couldn’t leave my bed until almost noon. Of course that meant by the time we got downtown it was a madhouse.
The first place we went to was a toy store. There was barely enough room to move. Screaming kids and angry parents crammed the aisles, shoving each other and ripping off limbs when necessary.
I’m a fast shopper. I go in with a list, I get what’s on it, and I get the fuck out. So while my disinterested sister pushed the most busted ass shopping cart known to man behind me (seriously, it sounded like someone was shooting bee bees at a tin can every time the wheels went round and it had a “limp”), I plowed through the people and grabbed.
I was looking at a display of toy guns, you know, the kind that shoots foam dart thingies? I squatted down and found the one I was looking for on the bottom shelf. I reached for it at the same time as this kid, who I thought was after something else. He couldn’t have been more than 14 or 15 with shaggy black hair and he had a spiky belt to cut himself on if his pocket knife ever got dull.
We glared at each other. I yanked, he yanked, and we glared some more. I was too hungover to hang on much longer, all that yanking was making my head hurt. So I did the only thing I could. I accidentally on purpose tripped and stomped on his toes, causing him to yell and let go of the gun.
“Go Lee”, I yelled and took off around the corner. My poor sister tried to keep up with the busted buggy, leaving a trail of noise for him to follow. “Clang, pop, clang, pop, clang, pop.” He came after us, shouting and for no apparent reason other than being on the edge of sanity’s cliff; I turned around and pointed the toy gun at him, mouthed “motha fucka” while I did a little foot to foot dance, and left Lee to handle the damage.
Lee ignored him and he finally let her be. She found me a few minutes later and we finished up the rest of our shopping there without incident. Until we were at the checkout counter and the little shit decided to pop back in and cause a scene. I mean, really! Who does that?
There was a lot of pointing and his mother started yelling at me, saying I’d hit her son. The girl at the checkout looked confused and concerned, like she should turn me in or something. I’d already paid and they were bagging things up so I said, “Lady, I tripped and accidentally stepped on his toe. It’s a madhouse in here!” Then I took off before someone decided to investigate.
Unfortunately I ran into that kid and his mom all fucking day long. I think they were following me. I bought a hat just in case, but my sister refused to wear one because it would mess up her hair. Teenagers. All they care about is themselves.
Then there was the party on Saturday night that sucked ass. And more shopping on Sunday, this time with the mom, who has to scratch and sniff EVERYTHING, turning a two hour trip into a five hour trip. Etc, so forth and so on.
See what I mean? Beautiful scenery: nakedness in shower, lovely new merchandise and a full bank account, parties....etc.
Then BLAM!
Falling rocks and deadly curves: Sliced bizness, annoying teenagers, sucky entertainment and booze, psycho moms...etc.
I’ll bet you thought from the beginning that this post was going to be all mushy and “I’m happy and then people fuck it up by dying” or “Jesus rocks”.
Ha, well jokes on you. I’m not that deep.
Some roads are smooth and black with perfectly straight yellow lines. Some roads have a pot hole or two, a few curves, and maybe the lines are a bit faded. Some are never ending dirt roads under a canopy of trees, the light never quite penetrating through. Some are four lane freeways crisscrossed with bridges, but with plenty of signs to point the way.
I’m going to hazard a guess that my metaphorical road looks a bit like this:
It’s scenic. Around every turn there’s something beautiful. The view from that road is so spectacular that I can’t imagine choosing another route.
Until, that is, those bastard ass rocks start falling from above and smashing around my car that has one too many miles on it, a bumper that doesn’t match, and a fuel tank that’s always hovering close to empty. Oh, and sometimes the gas pedal gets stuck and I go careening around those deadly curves, desperately trying to keep things in line so that I don’t go plummeting off the side of this scenic mountain.
So basically what I’m saying is my road to discovery and enlightenment is trying to kill me. Let’s look at the evidence, shall we? Just this past weekend will do.
*Note: If you don’t want to read about my vagina. Stop. Reading. Now.
Friday night I was in the shower. Naked, because that’s how I roll.
I was shaving my legs and my bizness (for you newbies, that means vagina) because Cosmo says it’s the way to a man’s
Like you don’t dance in the shower and talk to yourself in your head? Psssh, whatever.
“Design, design...what kind of design?”
Animals were out, because I’m not that talented. A circle would be weird, like a button, and that might distract from the real, more important button. Also, it made me think of that phrase “button, button, who’s got the button” and I’d likely giggle at in inopportune time and they’d think I was laughing at them and get all offended, like men do.
That left me with two options: heart or lightening bolt. Both of those are SO done, but I don’t have the dexterity to do a skull and crossbones. With the lightening bolt I could take my pants off and be all “SHAZAM!” With the heart...aw, fuck it. I did the heart because it was the simplest. Nothing says love like a heart made of hair.
I started shaving the damn heart into my bizness and I was really concentrating. I had one leg propped on the side of the tub and the shower curtain open a bit for more light. Things were trucking along smoothly for a minute. Then, with one side down and one side to go, disaster struck.
WHAM! The door flew open and smacked into the wall, followed by the unmistakable sound of my sister in a rage.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t really concentrate on her distress as I was too busy with my own. When the door flew open and she started yelling like a banshee, it scared the living daylights out of me. I jumped and my hand jerked up at the same time, causing me to slice my bizness like a Christmas ham. I SLICED my BIZNESS.
On a pain scale of 1-10, I’d give it an 11 ½. Coming in right after the discontinuation of my make up at a solid 9 ½.
Had I known there were people behind her in the hallway I never would have screamed those sailor inspired obscenities, nor would I have opened up the curtain all the way and thrown the razor at her head. Maybe.
The cut was bad, but not nearly as bad as the bloody half heart. Symbolic maybe?
It was a good thing that I didn’t hook up with that guy later on that night. How does one explain a bandaged vagina?
Then there was Saturday.
My sister and I were supposed to leave early that morning and go shopping, but I was so hungover that I couldn’t leave my bed until almost noon. Of course that meant by the time we got downtown it was a madhouse.
The first place we went to was a toy store. There was barely enough room to move. Screaming kids and angry parents crammed the aisles, shoving each other and ripping off limbs when necessary.
I’m a fast shopper. I go in with a list, I get what’s on it, and I get the fuck out. So while my disinterested sister pushed the most busted ass shopping cart known to man behind me (seriously, it sounded like someone was shooting bee bees at a tin can every time the wheels went round and it had a “limp”), I plowed through the people and grabbed.
I was looking at a display of toy guns, you know, the kind that shoots foam dart thingies? I squatted down and found the one I was looking for on the bottom shelf. I reached for it at the same time as this kid, who I thought was after something else. He couldn’t have been more than 14 or 15 with shaggy black hair and he had a spiky belt to cut himself on if his pocket knife ever got dull.
We glared at each other. I yanked, he yanked, and we glared some more. I was too hungover to hang on much longer, all that yanking was making my head hurt. So I did the only thing I could. I accidentally on purpose tripped and stomped on his toes, causing him to yell and let go of the gun.
“Go Lee”, I yelled and took off around the corner. My poor sister tried to keep up with the busted buggy, leaving a trail of noise for him to follow. “Clang, pop, clang, pop, clang, pop.” He came after us, shouting and for no apparent reason other than being on the edge of sanity’s cliff; I turned around and pointed the toy gun at him, mouthed “motha fucka” while I did a little foot to foot dance, and left Lee to handle the damage.
Lee ignored him and he finally let her be. She found me a few minutes later and we finished up the rest of our shopping there without incident. Until we were at the checkout counter and the little shit decided to pop back in and cause a scene. I mean, really! Who does that?
There was a lot of pointing and his mother started yelling at me, saying I’d hit her son. The girl at the checkout looked confused and concerned, like she should turn me in or something. I’d already paid and they were bagging things up so I said, “Lady, I tripped and accidentally stepped on his toe. It’s a madhouse in here!” Then I took off before someone decided to investigate.
Unfortunately I ran into that kid and his mom all fucking day long. I think they were following me. I bought a hat just in case, but my sister refused to wear one because it would mess up her hair. Teenagers. All they care about is themselves.
Then there was the party on Saturday night that sucked ass. And more shopping on Sunday, this time with the mom, who has to scratch and sniff EVERYTHING, turning a two hour trip into a five hour trip. Etc, so forth and so on.
See what I mean? Beautiful scenery: nakedness in shower, lovely new merchandise and a full bank account, parties....etc.
Then BLAM!
Falling rocks and deadly curves: Sliced bizness, annoying teenagers, sucky entertainment and booze, psycho moms...etc.
I’ll bet you thought from the beginning that this post was going to be all mushy and “I’m happy and then people fuck it up by dying” or “Jesus rocks”.
Ha, well jokes on you. I’m not that deep.
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