You know what's really hard? Conceiving and writing an award-winning, world-shaking, hilarious blog post under the pressure of having to get showered and dressed and out the door with J- and both kids well before noon (check the time stamp-- I bet we're late!). What's that? You don't think that sounds so hard? Well, what if the kids decide to sleep in a bit for once? Also, don't forget to factor in my general slowness in doing most anything without a clear time structure.
And what about all the other stuff I like to do to get warmed up? Like reading and commenting at other blogs, responding to all your comments, or touching all the door knobs in the house five times, checking my skin for cancerous moles, counting every paperback book in the house, and making sure I didn't leave the gas running on the stove?*
That doesn't leave much time for writing, which is I guess one of my principle problems in life-- time management with things that don't come with actual pre-set time limits (as opposed to artificial ones that I or helpful people pretend to impose on me). The search for self-imposed structure is why I've been posting each day since February-- if I introduce wiggle room, the machine might just start flying apart. We'll see if I can manage to not post one of these days.
Meanwhile, time is winding down as we speak, I have no idea what to blog about, and before long, the voice of my conscience will come out here fully showered and fully dressed and demand to know why I'm still sitting here in my underwear sweating in the humidity (compounded by the occasionally appreciated warmth of an extremely overworked laptop) instead of being ready to jump into the shower so we can get out the door and not be 10 minutes late like always.
Have I said too much?
Maybe I'll just publish this.
* I wouldn't put it past me to actually go through all that if nothing sprung to mind to write about. It's not like normal people can just sit down and focus on something, right? Right?
12 June 2008
A window into The Process
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13 comments:
Oh, so you won't read this right now since you're on the way out the door. You might make it if you don't have to touch the door knobs again after losing count the first time. You never know. I hope whatever you decide to post today is awesome. Oh, wait, that was the post. Umm. Where do you get that inability to focus?
Your hands are clean, Rain Man. Really. The stove is off, the toaster unplugged, and yes, you locked the door. And checked it three times. :) Hope you weren't TOO late! And hey, sorry, no sympathy; when school is in, I have to make sure myself and four kids are all showered, reasonably well-dressed (i.e. no holes), and have all necessary items in hand all before 7:45 a.m. And I have only been late to work twice. Gotcha there! :)
are you sure you're a guy not a mom?
i think you pretty much got it all done. so what if you were late. time is relative. i have learned that living here. the first time we were invited to our next door neighbors' apartment we were ready early. they said to be there at 6pm. it is all of two steps from our door to theirs so we didn't have to worry about the travel time. 6 o'clock rolled around and we could hear their vacuum cleaner running. we decided to wait a bit. finally after waiting what we deemed an appropriate time after the vacuum cleaner had stopped we went over. it was 6:30; she had just finished mopping and all the floors were wet. i was mortified. her husband wasn't even home yet. he walked in the door about 30 minutes later and the other guests they invited showed up at 8 which seemed to be right on time. time hasn't been quite so important to me since then.
i guess i should say that my kids are at school on time, and we usually make it to church on time. things that have a definite start time are much easier for me than the other.
Thanks for posting everyday ... I used to, now I lost all sense of time ... can you believe it's 1:39 on a Thursday? I should have eaten something by now, I think ... anyway, I'm always pretty sure I can click your link and read something new and possible helpful. You can tell your sweet wife you're not just blogging, but giving hope or at least a smile to the downtrodden and sleep deprived. Thanks.
Wow, stream of consciousness much?
LOL. At least this is better than my random crap I wrote today.
At least your wife is not Insane. In our house we have two freakishly insane adults, and four demented children. Between us all...one of us always knows how to muck up everyone's day.
It's kind of sad but my husband used to ALWAYS be on time to EVERYTHING and he'd stress out if we were even 5 minutes late. I've got him trained now so that he doesn't even blink an eye when we're an hour or two behind anymore. No one ever expects us to show up on time - ha!
It's all about discipline, hard work and converting blood into wine every day. That's a problem for you?
Okay, I must be a real weirdo. I'm usually the one that is so early for things that I end up sitting for 15 minutes until preschool carpool begins. It's a real sickness...
I saw your link to Freerice and I thought you maybe interested in hearing about another great charity site called AIDtoCHILDREN.com. It donates money to children in need through World Vision.
Check it out at http://www.aidtochildren.com
I don't know if anyone else gets this comment all the time from this person, but s/he's making me want to take down the link to FreeRice, which would be too bad.
Mary: I probably knew where I got it from, but then I lost track of it.
Kori: No way can I count as well as Rain Man. And you definitely have got me there. But what's wrong with holes? I call that air conditioning.
Swirl Girl: Let me check... yep!
Natalie: I wish I lived in such a place. I feel like a slave to the clock whenever I have to thread a needle like showing up somewhere at a precise minute. It just can't be worth it in the end.
Though 2 hours is way past my kind of window for a time estimate, at least in our modern world of ubiquitous clocks (vs. the very olden days).
Mrs. B. Roth: I've had those kind of days-- "how many meals am I behind, now?"
I'm really glad you (and others) enjoy the blog so much-- it's what keeps me honest in showing up to post and to write every single day.
Mama Dawg: Oh, stream of consciousness VERY much. Crap is crap-- there's no scale of merit, right?
TentCamper: At least your insane wife gives everyone fair warning by including that word in her user name. And isn't that what families are for?
SherE1: Does he ever miss the old days? Or does he like taking a relaxed approach to time management?
Always Home and Uncool: Discipline? No way man. Hard work? Ugh. Blood into wine? How many glasses would you like?
MamaNeena: You're not a weirdo, you're just one of those poor saps who keeps the rest of us in check. However, feel free to jump ship and swim to our side any time.
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