When I was in Boston with Erika she told me she likes to read CK when it is about my personal misadventures, rather than static ruminations or recaps of rocking Arcati Crisis shows.
That was two weeks ago today, on my birthday, although I just now typed “a week ago,” because I’ve definitely misplaced some of the intervening days. I’m not sure where they went – I haven’t been making many plans or playing much music – but they are gone.
Apparently spending days at a rapid rate just makes the passing of them easier – just like I’ve easily written more than 12,000 words today and now I can’t seem to stop writing.
Last Tuesday is the last day I can get a distinct fix on without referring to old emails or a calendar. I know I spent the day at work, plus another six hours working remotely because I felt like “tidying,” and that I subsequently spent three hours copy-editing my mother’s 536-word college paper. Not that it involved much copy-editing. Moreso, it was that I wrote her a ridiculous 1300-word rumination on her assignment and how she could marginally improve it, as it was already awesome.
(She claims that I did not get writing from her, but she is one of the most natural writers I know. She writes exactly how she speaks. It’s uncanny.)
On Wednesday Elise and I collected our pal Anna and crashed the auditions for our acapella alma mater, The TrebleMakers. Well, we didn’t crash, really. It was more like we were uninvited, creepy, old guests with valid, non-binding input on the audition process. I was wearing one of my larger suits and sporting some facial hair, the combination of which I’m sure projected the impression of a rumpled old man who just rolled out of bed in his pajamas.
(Think about this for a minute, my friends: the girls who are auditioning for TMs as freshmen were born after the release of “Like a Prayer.”)
As per usual, any encounter between us and acappella results in unparalleled excitement and lust for our harmony-singin’ glory days (which actually only ended in 2006). It also results huge laundry lists of songs we’d like to arrange – this time headed by “That’s What You Get” by Paramore and “Breakin’ Up” by Rilo Kiley.
Whereas usually such larks are promptly forgotten, on Thursday I fell ill completely out of the blue and spent the day home from work, during which I arranged like the unstoppable 2004-me that had a hand in a fourth of the arrangements on the TM’s last CD.
(Then there is my heavily documented debate coverage, followed by a frantic 24-hours of strategic planning between E & I that has not yet yielded our first (non-political) freelance website but might still, soon.)
Our weekend was consumed by more arranging and kitten-mania. Yes, the kittens from earlier this summer are back in our yard, and have been for at least a week – sleeping in flower pots and causing all manner of mischief in our box planters.
Having spent a childhood raptly absorbing The Price Is Right, I decided it was my personal calling from Bob Barker to have the kittens spayed or neutered, and hopefully adopted. All weekend I colluded with Elise to capture them, at one point setting up a complex Fudd-esque “kitten blind” behind our back door.
Elise finally caught the trio of them in a complex gambit involving a pet carrier and… well, mostly just the pet carrier. Subsequently, in my infinitesimal wisdom I elected to release all three of them into our powder room without calling to see if shelters had room available, or researching what is entailed in fostering a feral cat.
Yes, feral. Feral, and raised on the mean streets of South Philadelphia.
They don’t seem very feral in the “scary & rabid” sense. They mostly just huddle under our sink and stare dolefully when I stop by to feed them. However, they certainly are feral in the “not digging on humans” sense, which is going to make it hard to get them out from under said sink to fulfill the mission set out for me plainly after every Showcase Showdown.
I spent the majority of last night placing said calls and undertaking said research, to generally no avail. As for today, I worked my typical no-lunch-break-and-extra-hours day, fielded a few unhelpful calls from pet shelters, and then headed home for an unlikely duet of kitten wrangling and drafting various Lyndzapalooza promotional strategies (at least a dozen, last time I counted).
Which brings us to this unlikely hour, and my belabored point.
In the past week I have worked extra hours, proofread and critiqued, crashed and input, arranged and recapped, strategized and arranged some more, caught and herded, called and researched, and wrangled and drafted.
All of that, and yet I have not contacted anywhere about tuxedos for our wedding, submitted two months of transit receipts for reimbursement, or scheduled a much-needed dermatologist appointment to combat the disconcerting red splotches that have overtaken each of my laugh lines.
Was I procrastinating on all three of those tasks before my whirlwind week overtook me? Sure, at least a little. But, in the past week I really wanted to do all three. I tried! I gathered papers and picked phones off their cradles. I just never found a window open enough to accommodate the completion of any one of the tasks, let alone three.
A week later I have plenty to show for my continued procrastination, but not much of what I’m showing does anything to help me.
Am I spending my time selflessly because I am so good at procrastinating? Or, do I find myself procrastinating because I am committed to spending my time selflessly.
Excuse me while I sleep on it.