the procrastinating girl

Press Pause

It seems like a millennium ago that I was staring at my ceiling absolutely petrified of giving birth.  I thought I was going to die.  Not really.  But I was scared.  Scared shitless.  My husband usually produced a calming rational counterpoint about how if the women confined to huts in the Afghan desert could do it, I would survive in a cush Westchester hospital with an anesthesiologist wearing an electric shock collar who magically appeared with drugs whenever I pushed a button.  Whatever.  Scared shitless.  So I saw a therapist and she helped me work through some of my fears.  Voila.  Two daughters later, each requiring 2.5 hours of pushing, my fear of doctors was improved, but not cured.  So now when I must see my OB/GYN (actually, nix the OB part as this shop is closed), I still need some prodding.  And there's even less incentive when the appointment must be scheduled light years in advance.  My doctor is booking for the summer.  What will I be doing this July 6th at 10am?  I don't know, maybe I'll hop in my hovercraft over to the Mount Kisco Medical Group.  But I did feel a little fire when I saw that my GYN was just listed in Westchester Magazine's best doctors issue.  Of course I also saw that her specialty is menopause issues.  For that, I can wait.

A Gray (Lady) Day

One of the monumental pleasures of my life is the Sunday New York Times.  Even after we canceled our daily subscription, thereby hypocritically contributing to the failure of the modern-day print industry (I read the Times every morning online), we kept our weekend delivery intact.  It's nothing less than ritual.  But today when I pulled down the blue plastic banana peel-esque covering, the first thing I noticed was a printed white piece of paper.  It appeared like the note Deep Throat would hide in Bob Woodward's Times when they were scheduling their clandestine meetings in a Virginia underground garage.  But this is my life.  Apparently, the Times production schedule is behind and I am still owed one section.  Which section?  It was checked off with a big black X.  My eyes quickly scanned the list.  Please let it be Automotive.  Please let it be Automotive.  The X landed on Arts & Leisure.  My favorite.  I am sympathetic about running behind, but The Times owes me huge.

Holiday Time?

I just noticed two things.  One, I got 86 catalogs in yesterday's mail.  Two, this morning we had frost on the ground.  It doesn't take my favorite Belgian detective to deduce that the holidays are indeed coming.  Which is so fascinating considering my kids' Halloween costumes are still in a ball on my kitchen floor.  As usual, I am already behind.  What's worse, I don't even know how behind I am.  With Christmas, you are furnished with a set date.  There's no mystery.  No motion in the ocean.  The Jews like to keep it interesting.  When is the first night of Chanukah?  No idea.  I think it's like mid-ish-second-week-pre-teen-ish of December.  If that's clear.  So while the majority of the world is casually logging on Amazon.com and comfortably clicking on standard shipping, I still need to Google "Jewish holiday calendar 2009."  And see what my fate holds.  If it is one of those unfortunate years when the first candle overlaps with the night we carve the turkey, my kids may be unwrapping leftover KitKat bars as present number one.

The Late Show

I was just wondering if procrastinating is a weird form of being late to the party.  Given my psychotic compulsion with time, I am never physically late to anything, but, metaphorically, it's another story.  My birthday doesn't arrive for another three weeks (or rather, seventeen days, three hours and twenty-six minutes), so, as the November baby, I had the baked in pleasure of being the last to qualify for my driver's license.  And then I failed my road test.  Twice.  Other late-comings didn't leave quite the same mark.  I waited until I was a 20-something to allow peanut butter into my world and that took very nicely.  The hot dog I tried back then?  Not so much.  And there's a party to which I was already very late.  It's the tale of the Guess jeans, the ones I was sure my mom bought me for Chanukah circa 1983.  So sure I saved the unopened box until night eight, the grand finale, when I confidently ripped off the blue and silver paper to find, wait, a dictionary.  A dictionary, I should say, that I still own and use.  So I'm laughing as I type this post while stationed at my favorite post.  It's a place with one very small and unabiding lamp, but tonight I'm using this contraption called, um, a booklight?  Zoe has one in hot pink.  Late as always, but tomorrow for the doctor I will be right on time.