the procrastinating girl

Fate Accompli

Yesterday morning I was still inexplicably drawn to my unending spring cleaning projects.  The weather was glorious.  The kids were cooperating.  It had the makings of a perfect Sunday.  Yet those boxes, untouched for the previous 106 weeks that we've lived in this house, needed attention.  So I knelt before them, almost in prayer, to see what they held.  I felt they owed me something.  An Egyptian staff encrusted with jewels?  A yellowed photograph depicting a relative steeped in scandal?  A missing earring?  Well, here's what I got.  The box for my running watch.  A long piece of shoelace.  Unidentifiable electrical cords.  As I sifted through the wreckage dejectedly, the phone rang.  It was Nancy asking if we wanted to go to the city for the afternoon.  Always happy to move on from work, I left my bedroom floor covered in bits and pieces of my own stupid mess.  But I felt no guilt.  No pain.  The park was filled people.  Energy.  Blossoms.  And about an hour into our visit, an old man walked right next to us while holding the hands of two much younger women.  As if I needed further proof that the decision to abandon ship on my cleaning project was a good one, this would have been perfect evidence that there is some such higher being.  My first Woody Allen sighting came on a perfect Spring day.

Teeing Off

For the last couple of days, I have been glued to coverage about Tiger's win at the US Open.  It's not that I love watching golf.  I love watching him win.  I love the sheer catharsis of the fist pump, the caddy bear hug, the whole thing.  And I would love to have a job where it was socially acceptable to go bananas with emotion if the situation called for it.  Of course, my situation doesn't exactly have a sudden death 19th hole.  Today in the car on the way to camp, Zoe ate three string cheeses and learned all the words to I Kissed a Girl by Katy Perry.  Not exactly my Cuba Gooding Jr. moment.  But it's so in me.  Two nights ago, I was sitting on my couch eating Breyer's Cherry Vanilla completely undone by yet another rerun of Jennifer Hudson's show-stopping scene in the middle of Dreamgirls.  Never mind the first time around in the theater.  Hooting.  Hollering.  Yes, that's me down in front.  So, realistically, I am not winning an Oscar or lifting the Wimbledon trophy over my head, but maybe the same rules can apply to my little disorganized corner of the world.  This afternoon, I stood up to a pushy, bald salesman and got all my money back for a pair of overpriced tennis sneakers that I had to return by today or I would be stuck with store credit.  And it was raining.  Come on, where is the roar of the crowd??

My Side of the Mountain

Yesterday I woke up with the weirdest feeling.  I actually wanted to put things away.  I didn't have to look very far.  The wall closest to my bed is lined with crap mostly still untouched from our move over a year ago.  Want the laundry list?  Boxes of clothes I no longer need or like.  Stacks of hangable photos and artwork.  A nearly empty Verizon Wireless bag.  New artwork yielded by this year's nursery school program.  A quilting project I started in 2002.  A Hefty bag of garbage, not banana peels and old Band-Aids, but some papers, old pens, that kind of thing.  Books.  Pictures from a trip to Peru that I would really like to forget.  It's a melting pot.  And for some unexplained reason, I was ready to take it on.  I was actually kind of excited!  Hold on.  The phone is ringing... It's Natasha.  She wants to go to the early show of Sex and the City.  And I have to leave right now?   Um, melting pot meet backburner.  NOW I'm excited!

Signori Vignelli

Out of nowhere, Italian graphic designer Massimo Vignelli has loomed largely in my life this week.  Ok, first, I was at the library recently during an awful stretch without home web access, when I saw that the original NYC subway map was being rereleased in limited edition and signed by the artist.  And some of the proceeds were going to charity.  I can be impulsive when the time and occasion calls for it (I think Diane Chambers said that), so I jumped.   It may seem an ironic purchase.  I loathe the subway with every fiber of my five foot and (if I stand very, very straight) one inch being.  The stench.  The varsity sport of rat hunting.  Theproximitytoallmankind.  But I just love the simplicity of Vignelli's map.  And that blessed font Helvetica (Vignelli was interviewed for Helvetica the documentary.  Fascinating.  I swear.).  Anyway, yesterday, a gigantic tube containing the map arrived at my door.  Yes, I have to frame it, then find the perfect spot for it on my empty walls.  Multi-step processes are always my downfall.  But I am excited.  Please stay tuned for Vignelli part deux...

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...