So, to start this I am going to have to assume that we've all got our weaknesses and that we can all admit to them. Ok? So, if you're reading this and think to yourself, "Hmm, I'm not sure what she's getting at, because I am perfect in all ways and have no faults to speak of" then go ahead and grab the mouse, slowly pull the arrow to the top corner of your screen, and hit that X. Go ahead! I'll wait.
All right. Now the rest of us are flawed individuals, yes? Here we go: I am a lazy, lazy girl. If completely left to my own devices, I would probably move just enough to assure the most faithful observer that I wasn't actually dead. I might sleep 14 hours a day. I might not leave the house for weeks at a time. Seriously. I just don't require a lot of....hmmm. Stimulation? Activity? I don't easily bore, that's for sure. In fact, I can hardly imagine a time in life when I have been genuinely bored. Usually if I find myself in a situation where I don't absolutely have to use brain power, I'm asleep. And if I didn't make it abundantly clear in this post, I really, really like to sleep and have never, to date, found it to be boring. Maybe I was bored once when I had to watch a really long training video for Applebee's, when I was training as a waitress there in 1999. That's really one of the more boring things I have on tap in my memory. But even then, I think I was probably just happy to be sitting in a dark room, not having to talk to anyone for a while.
I've spent lots of time trying to explain this strange character flaw propensity of mine to others. Because seriously, you don't have to entertain me. You don't even have to talk to me at all! You can sit me in a corner and hand me an old Reader's Digest from 1987 and I'll sit there, giggling to myself, for hours. And then I'll probably go to sleep, curled in a little ball on the floor. No need for a bed! I'll just stretch out right here, thanks a lot. In fact, the more activities you have scheduled, the less happy I'll be. Just give me long, extended periods of time that stretch out before me with nary a thing to do and I'll be as content as anyone you've ever met.
Unfortunately, I have not figured out a "career" where I can fully utilize these talents. If any of you know of one, please leave your suggestions in the comments. Or send me an email! I can check email for hours. Never boring.
Since I keep finding myself stuck in careers that DON'T make the best use of my abilities, I find myself constantly having to do things. Sometimes I have to talk to people all day long, sometimes I have to sit down and work out spreadsheets of invoices and due dates, and sometimes I have to spend hours returning what seems like hundreds of missed phone calls. Other times I have to schlep myself all over the country for markets, where I have to haggle with either incredibly snobby or non-English-speaking individuals about the prices and quantities I may or may not want of their merchandise. And then I have to schlep myself back home! And, get this. Keep working.
It's relentless! It never ends, the working. And so sometimes I find myself engaging in this incredibly unhealthy and unhelpful thing where I sort of just don't do anything. Which would be ok, I guess, if all the things that I needed to do sort of stopped coming, but they're never so gracious. They keep right on piling up, and the more I ignore them, the more they demand attention. So. Rude.
Then I find myself stuck in this awful cycle, where I know when I do address the ever-present Work, I will feel quite overwhelmed by the sheer mass of it all. And so then I reason with myself to ignore it for just one more day, because one day isn't that big of a deal anyway, right? And then I spend the entire day with the weight of the Piles of Work on my shoulders, and I don't have any fun because I can't relax because Oh My Goodness I Have So Much To Do But Really It's SO Much That I Can't Deal With Doing It So I Just Won't But Wow, There's Really A Lot Of Work! That I'm Not Doing!
And I berate myself in such a way that an entire day can pass where on paper, I have completed exactly nothing, but in my mind, I have gone through the wringer about seventeen times.
So! I either need to stop with my cycle of procrastination (which has occurred to me, lest you think I am completely stupid, but sadly falls under the category of easier said than done) or I need to come up with a career where I truly can do nothing. At the House of Blues the other night in Dallas, one of the lines in a song from the opening band went something like "Every year there's one morning I wake up and tell myself that next year, well next year, I'll get it all together".
I think that might be my problem. Because see, I've always been more of the type who looks at the clock, sees that it's 5:45pm, and tells myself that tomorrow I'll get it all together. And all the while, there are people out there giving themselves a year to get things squared away! I have obviously set my standards too high. Tomorrow, pshaw. No wonder my tomorrows always end up looking eerily similar to my todays.
Ohhhh....very familiar. Very familiar indeed. I had one of those days today, and again the day before yesterday. As a consequence, I am going to spend all night working and freaking out. Or, more likely, I will work and freak out for another two hours, and then I will eat some chips and watch television and swear tomorrow will be different.
You should totally come visit me sometime, now that I know you are easily entertained.
Posted by: Alexa | July 18, 2007 at 07:55 PM
I don't know how to break this to you, but... we're twins. Cousins. Sisters? Definitely related and possibly the Very Same Person.
Now I've worn myself out and I'm going back to only using the mouse to navigate the big bad internet.
And then I think I'll nap.
Posted by: Violet | July 18, 2007 at 08:04 PM
I'm new to your blog and thus your life, but it seems like maybe you need an assistant. Assistants are wonderful! I can heartily recommend them. And I'm with you on the sloth, I mean sleep and relaxation. I love it, too.
Posted by: EDW | July 19, 2007 at 10:05 AM
Clearly, we are soul mates.
It's mildly relieving to know that you can do something in the morning. It takes the pressure off of the current day. Until the morning, when you don't have enough time or energy and don't want to do it and wish it had been done before and either don't do it and suffer the consequences or do a half-assed job and hate yourself for both procrastinating and underperforming.
Do you look back at years gone by and remember thinking that you would eventually get your shit together and that in the future everything would be easier as a result, telling yourself that the mess you were in wasn't a reflection of a way you really are but rather a reflection of the circumstances that you were in?
Because I look back that way, and then realize that this is the future, and that I haven't improved my method of doing things, and that this really is the way I am. And it's depressing.
Let's go get a cup of coffee.
Posted by: Caustic Cupcake | July 19, 2007 at 05:20 PM
Oy. If only I could find a job that would pay me to do nothing. Even just a part-time nothing job! I've actually thought about trying to get myself into some of those drug research studies where you sleep for three days and they pay you $3,000, but then I get busy with all the WORK and instead of getting paid the $3,000 for taking experimental drugs, I get paid $300 for being a company bitch.
Posted by: Katy | July 20, 2007 at 12:56 AM
Sounds like me and the conversations I have with myself regarding the need to eat better and get in shape! I'll just start TOMORROW!!
Posted by: Chaos Control | July 20, 2007 at 04:07 PM
I had a neighbour who was like you once and I am like you and we had the BEST visits, both pregnant with our first babies, married to husbands in the Army who were always away we would get together in each others homes ( actually mine because she was really good at the doing nothing thing and her house? Ewwwwww) so we'd get together and not talk and then we'd watch Tv and fall asleep and then she'd wake up and go home. Can you imagine? Heaven. No need to entertain yet having a bit of company. Bliss I tell you.
I live my life longing for the day when I have the time to be bored. I love doing nothing, I love afternoon naps and not talking.
Posted by: Helen | July 21, 2007 at 04:04 PM
I so could have written this (if I was half as talented and witty, of course). I am so freaking lazy. I love to put off til tomorrow what I could do today. Etc.
We need to go into business together, whenever you find the right business for us, k?
Posted by: janet | July 22, 2007 at 12:19 PM
I love! the possibility that long extended periods of time with nary to do produce. The sheer ideas! of what I COULD be doing make me excited, and then, well, most of the time I sit there and let the possibilities pass, unrealized. But they are there! by gum, and someday, someday.
Posted by: kerrianne | July 23, 2007 at 11:45 PM
Are we twins who were separated at birth?
Posted by: wordgirl | July 25, 2007 at 01:41 PM
Woohoo! Just got your comment on my blog. It's so nice to find a fellow supporter of good health! I tell ya, I get so much flack from my friends. For years, my brother used to mock my husband and I whenever we'd bring up "hydrogenated oils". That was back in 1999. Now that trans fats are becoming more well known, my brother has changed his stance and doesn't tease us anymore.
Thanks for your comment! I'm looking forward to reading your blog, too. :)
Posted by: Chiada | July 27, 2007 at 01:30 PM