the procrastinating girl

Swann Dive

When it comes to reading for pleasure, I am a non-fiction girl.  I forgave Doris Kearns Goodwin.  And mourned David Halberstam.  And worshiped Woodward and Bernstein to the point that it was kinda odd.  In recent years, I have become increasingly preoccupied with philosophy, particularly existentialism.  I like the heft of a passage on life's true ambiguity at the end of a day consisting of two playdates and back-to-back swim lessons.  But still, I felt a true literary accomplishment was needed.  After all, philosophy is boundless.  Sure you may complete a book, but you are truly never finished.  Are you?  Can that question even be answered?   See?   Ok, so, enter my project of the summer.  Alright, before we get excited, I am not cleaning closets.  Nor putting together photo albums.  That would, in fact, be productive.  I am tackling Proust.  Yes, I'm a wee bit nuts.  But so far Mr. Swann and I are co-habitating just fine.  Of course right now I'm watching reruns of The Office. 

Surprise, Surprise

Apparently my debt to society was a little higher than expected.  Rather than the 13 and change I was preparing to fork over, once my name was called up in the computer system, it showed that my grand total in fees was $29.81.  Considering the charge is like ten cents a day per book, it takes a whole lot of negligence to reach that sum.  The good news is my slate is now wiped clean and I can come and go as I please with a free conscience.  Of course, given my new self-imposed ban, I can't take out any new books until 2014.

Addendum

Apparently the $13.94 is a fine I must pay in person.  At the library.  The library where the director is an old neighbor and friend.  Where her daughters are my babysitters.  Where I've spent my time volunteering and countless hours working on my, yes, still-unfinished novel.  Where, although my name is not Norm, everybody knows it.  Damn.  Time to waste more gas and drive to that mystical village of Katonah.  I'll call myself 'Angelique.'

Death Notice

Things have sunk to a new low here at TPG.  Yesterday I received a piece of mail from the Westchester LIbrary System.  It's more of a computer print-out than a true letter.  And it bears this statement, "The following materials are long overdue and assumed to be lost.  Your account has been billed."  Underneath it lists the names of two children's books that are totally unrecognizable to me and shows that I owe $13.94 to be paid immediately.  I guess I can't handle the responsibility of the library.  Others can.  These are the same people who always use paper towels as paper towels, napkins as napkins and toilet paper as toilet paper.  Well, in my house, it's a paper product free-for-all.  And I suppose it's time to acknowledge my shortcomings in a more public way.  I am banning myself from checking out any books for the next few months.  I don't want to visit the unintentionally donated Oringel Wing of the Bedford Village Library.

Book Fare

That was fast.  I got new tickets for temple first thing this morning.  You see, every now and then I feel like my experiment in this vast blogosphere is working.  And then, I am quickly jolted back to earth.  Today it took just sitting down at my desk, the surface of which hovers somewhere in between delightful disarray and 'bomb hit it' status.  Amid the irrelevant folders and papers and envelopes and forms sits a stack of books.  None are mine.  They have all been lent to me by friends who think I would enjoy their company.  What the lenders don't understand is that this act of kindness actually, for me, creates a stressful situation.  Not only am I reminded that reading is a pastime reserved for those not comatose by 7pm, but even worse, I have to return these books.  Granted, it's not the library, my ultimate nemesis, but I have to carefully monitor these prized possessions.  But, like most things in my house and life, the longer they stay within my orbit, the greater the chance that they will be sucked in to the black hole that is me.  So please, no more books.  But call anytime.  I'll be glad to see the movie.

Happy Happy New New Year Year!

No, you're not seeing double.  I just got finished celebrating the New Year.  Yes, in October.  If you're Jewish as I am, you get the pleasure of ringing in this holiday twice.  Once with the drunken masses in Times Square, and then again like today for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.  We eat apples and honey and hear the blowing of the ram's horn or shofar (always a crowd pleaser).  But what about the seedy underbelly of turning the page yet again?  Do I need a second set of resolutions too?  Oy.  If so, as of 3:56pm, they would look something like this:

- Return fascinating books to all friends who mistakenly thought I could read.

- Send in paperwork for two $70 rebates for new, unnecessary Blackberry phones.

- Keep steady flow of food in fridge beyond an old apple, mustard and weirdly-shaped ball of foil.

- Do summer/fall closet clothes swap before it's time to wear bathing suits again.

- Dispose of empty dishwasher detergent bottles under sink.

The Numbers Game

When I was working, I kept lists in my favorite little spiral notebooks from Ordning & Reda. They were made of brown natural paper and had black moose printed on the hard cover.  I'm a fan of most things Scandanavian: the design aesthetic, lox, ABBA. Except I'll take McEnroe over Borg absolutely every day. Anyway, after about three weeks, the moose typically began to disappear behind a sea of post-its. My method of message-taking was to write down the series on the pad I kept closest to the phone.  I would squeeze as many numbers as I could on those tiny yellow squares. And, of course, each seven or ten-digit string was not always accompanied by a corresponding name or any other label (i.e. Jennifer's boss; the guy over at MTV; someone who wants something).  Once the post-its ended up attached to the perimeter of my notebook, I was basically left with beheaded (or betailed?) moose.  I swear, when I carried it around the office, that notebook doubled as a fan. Now, I actually miss it. This morning alone, I found six unfamiliar and unlabeled phone numbers: two on the white board, three on a piece of paper in my bag and one by the phone. That last one had a 203 exchange, which I know is Connecticut. Well, that narrows it down.

Cruel Summer

Please don't judge me just because I am taking my latest life mantra from Bananarama.  I'm a little tortured by summer.  It's not just that I love all soups except gazpacho (it's basically just sauce, no?).  Or that I burn.  Quickly and badly.  It's my schedule.  Now with day camp in full swing, I finally have what has eluded me all year long, blocks of uninterrupted alone time.  Torture?  I know, cue the violins.  But I should be dedicating these hours to my as-yet-still-unfinished novel.  I've been working on it for (insert mumbled number here) months and, at one point, had a very good rhythm going.  In fact, I'm about two-thirds of the way through my first draft.  I was so confident with my progress early on, I committed the one sin that went against all my better judgment: I started telling people about it.  Friends.  Family.  The librarians (I work on my laptop at the same table in the same chair).  I need and want to finish.  But it's summer.  The back room of the library just doesn't have the same appeal as it does in, say, mid-March.  So, on behalf of my book and my vegetable garden, I'm asking you to pray for rain.

Road Trip

This past Sunday I celebrated my sixth Mother's Day. In the past I've been treated to alone time at spas, stores or once very early on, my car, when I just put on the radio and stared. Heaven. This year we drove up the Hudson Valley to the little town of Rhinebeck. There's a cute farmer's market, a bunch of great restaurants and according to Sydney, my older daughter, absolutely nothing else worth mentioning. I am really not much of a shopper, but I could kill hours in a fantastic paper goods store. And I found one called the Paper Trail. While wandering around this light, bright space, I stopped in front of a wall of calendars. My long, sordid love-hate relationship with datebooks (electronic, luddite, pocket-sized, home-based, etc.) is a post for another day. But here I noticed that mixed in with a display of professional-looking agendas was this adorable little notebook with a whimsical design and French writing that read "I Take My Time." (I was almost fluent at 18 and now can basically muster "Parlez lentement, s'il vous plait.") It was clearly misplaced, but I kind of felt like it was there just for me.

Look, I have a blog

Ok, so it's not the parting of the Red Sea... But since my blog is based on this life-long personality flaw, it's kind of a miracle that I exercised my limited follow-through skills to get it up and running. So here it is, or rather, will be, a chronicle of what I don't do... for no good reason other than my own inertia. I'm hoping maybe the public humiliation will force me into a new, more organized state of being. People say blogging is powerful. Can it undo 36 years of saving everything until the very last minute? We shall see...