This will be some serious word barf. My mind is running around - not even in circles, because even that has some sort of organization to it. It's just bouncing around. The wine didn't (or doesn't - I'm still drinking it) help. I keep thinking about 2019 Ann vs. 2021 Ann. A lot of me is still me. A lot of me is different. For one - I do drink more. Not to excess - mostly wine, and rarely more than two glasses a day. But frequently. It keeps me from stressing over Things Not Done.
But before I start - I have a Thing To Do. Yesterday I built a separate section to the chicken scratch yard, because the new chicks I got last March are ready to be introduced into my older flock, and you don't just dump new chickens in with old unless you want to pick up some pieces and have a couple of chicken funerals. Chickens are cute but they have a nasty side. I don't leave chickens in the scratch yard at night because although I've tried to raccoon-proof it as much as possible the little masked bastards can sometimes get in. So I put the new ones out during the day - and now that it's dark my slightly wine-addled self has to go catch them and bring them back to their old home on the back deck.
OK - chicken wrangling done. Where was I? One - why am I doing this. It's so that in six months or a year from now I can look back and see where I was. June 2019 - writing about pink fuzzy baby vultures. June 2020 - writing about grief. Quite the change there.
Actually, I've been wanting to write about time management, and my lack thereof. There's this part of me that thinks I should be Doing Something. I mean - currently, I seem to have what so many people lack, and that is Plenty Of Time. I just don't seem to be able to grab hold of it, or know what do do with it. Recently I spent a week or so in the evening transcribing a novel. It was one I wrote in 1985, and my Egyptian friend (yes, I seem to have an Egyptian friend - will write about internet connections in a later post) wanted to read it, and all I had was a hard copy. I loved transcribing it. It took me back to remembering happy times. I had taken an individual study on Gothic Literature - it was the last term before I graduated, and the retirement term for the professor, and we just wallowed in "junk" literature and had a marvelous time. And rather than just write critical essays, he had me write my own novel.
Looking back, I wonder How the Hell Did I Do That?? I would have been about 33 years old (finishing up an abandoned bachelor's degree). I was working full time. I had what is now called a side hustle of being a belly dancer for the Singing Tallygram Company. I was taking another class in folklore, which, among other things, had a final project of finding a group of some sort and collecting their cultural folklore. I was still active in the Society for Creative Anachronism group. And then this study with Dr. Goodman, where I read 9 (or was it 10?) novels *and* wrote a bloody book.
These days I'm lucky if I put away a load of laundry.
Honestly, I'm doing OK. I have my head more-or-less screwed on straight. But 2021 is almost halfway over and I don't know what I've done with it. Some days I look at the kitchen sink and realize that there are two day's worth of dishes and cat food cans sitting in it.
Years ago I saw a phrase somewhere - "He who does as he lists, becomes listless." Part of my problem is a complete lack of accountability. Thank God for my two days a week at the Museum - it does give some sort of shape to my existence. Otherwise my only motivation is my own. The house can get cleaned - or not. Same for maintaining the yard. Heck - I could skip showering or changing underwear for 5 days a week and it wouldn't matter to anyone, because I don't have any physical human contact.
Maybe a bit too much freedom?
Quite often I go to bed at night with the feeling that I've left something undone. I still sort of panic realizing that I haven't brought the cats in. I have to remind myself that I no longer have cats that go outside (BTW - Hamish is doing fine).
Deep breath. I was going to talk about time management. It gets away from me. I'm putzing around and realize that it's 2:00 or 3:00 and maybe I should eat some lunch. Then suddenly it's 6. Or 11. [And I just interrupted this ramble because I got an itch on my forehead and realized I had an effing tick embedded in it. Went to find tweezers to yank that out, and on the way found that one of the cats had the runs on the carpet and cleaned that up. I'm back now]. I know that people that are trying to get a track on how much they're eating or spending are told just to keep a log of everything they eat or spend. I thought I'd try that on how I'm spending my days, to find out where the time sinks are. That lasted one day because I felt like I was nagging myself - and besides, I know where they are. Big one - Facebook. I check it a dozen times a day. Because I really miss just everyday chit chat. I can go days without talking to anyone. So I look at FB - what the puppet makers are making, what the spinners are spinning (I scroll past anything political or annoying), what the Ramin Karmiloo fan pages are fanning about (the guy has about three projects going at any given time so there's a lot to fan about). Just chit chat. Background noise. Keeps me from feeling too lonely. Next is playing simple computer games - Suduko or solitaire. Sort of mindless. Third is lying down. Once or twice a day I just give up and go lie down. I cuddle a pillow (talk about a throwback to adolescent years) and remember what it was like to have been held and loved. That's not as sad as it sounds - it really does make me feel better.
And that's it for tonight. If I was going anywhere with this, I've lost track of it. As I said a couple of posts ago, I'm going to be doing some word barf to clear out my brain. Garbage data dump.
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