the procrastinating girl

Back to the Future

If I step back, I realize how incredible my town is.  I can get to the Upper West Side in under an hour, but live in what looks like a snapshot of Vermont.  But life with two commuting parents is difficult.  That leaves this question hanging in the air between many of us around town:  What did you used to do?  My used to do sounds decent enough.  I was a freelance writer.  But as I raised my daughters, my used to do evaporated before my eyes, as the magazines I wrote for ceased publication and the whole industry tanked.  Now I used to do it with a whole lot of people.  For years, it was easy to just say no to magazines even as the shock and awe set in.  House & Garden!  Gourmet!?  But as my kids just started school and an iPad entered our house, I felt myself turn a corner.  It's time to open my eyes again to the world that I was used to, even if it's all different now.  So my first act was to go to the library (in the neighboring town) and rip all the little subscription cards out from recent issues on the wall.  I did so as an old man sat in a beat-up leather chair right next to me.  Each time he coughed, out a new one came.  HACKKK (The New Yorker)!  SNNORT (Pyschology Today)!  It was pure cacaphony.  Soon, I was loaded up.  I wasn't proud to defile the library's collection, but inching back toward what I used to be felt long overdue. 

Home Base

Just a few days ago, I first heard the term 'staycation,' the trend of people spending their days off at home since they can't afford a real getaway.  As often happens, now it's everywhere I turn.  Even the cover of the Sunday Styles section of the Times ran a piece on it last week.  So I've been thinking.  If I had a free week in my house, what could I do? 

• Watch borrowed DVD box set of first season of Arrested Development.

• Work on novel.

• Draw to-scale floor plan of house so I can plan what furniture to buy.  One day.

• Update address book so it would no longer read:  Grandma, Silver Spring, Maryland.

• Remove remaining 2-year-old clothes from almost 4-year-old Zoe's closet.

• Work on novel.

• Scrape encrusted art-project glitter off floor mats of car.

• Acknowledge existence of cookbooks.

• Work on novel.

So, tell me, what would you do???

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.

Paper Trail

My heart is racing.  Up until two minutes ago, I thought I lost a very important piece of paper.  I'm sorry to be vague.  But I need to protect the negligent party involved (me).  I have a long, sordid history of such behavior dating back to my six replacement college IDs.  The trouble is I pride myself on being one of those wonderfully carefree souls who has absolutely no system for filing, yet can access any piece of information on cue.  It usually works.  Usually.  When I was working as a production assistant at Nickelodeon, my first real job, the perks were great (seat filler at the MTV Music Awards!), but I spent every day dodging bullets like, "You submitted my bagazillion dollar expense form, right?"  Right.  And that envelope with all those receipts was... where?  I became an expert in my own damage control.  Now, 15 years later, I will bask in the glow of my found paperwork.  I know it shouldn't have been a struggle.  But at least it's not, "Amy, where's a copy of my itinerary?"  Um, give me just a second...