Dalliance 101

Love the idea of Thowback Thursday for so many reasons.  Dredging up some bit of foolishness from my blogging past is easier than making my brain think of something new to say.  And why go back three months when I can go back five years?  There is no real answer to that question.  It’s just what I did.  After putting it off for a bit of course.  It’s still Thursday, right?  So we’re good.

(From The Oatmeal on Facebook)

March 10, 2011
If you were a professor, what subject would you teach?

Dalliance 101: Mastering the Fine Art of Procrastination

This course is offered to all first year students and is once again open to all returning students who failed to complete it the first time around.  So basically everybody.  Space is generally unlimited.

Please note that this is not yet an accredited course, due in part to the fact that no final marks have ever been issued, and indeed in most cases have not yet even been determined, for any of the previous participants.  We will get around to that.

Class materials include any personal unfinished projects of any nature, but submission is not mandatory; last semester’s uncompleted works in progress are still available for study, and have proven themselves to be invaluable in the process of perfecting various techniques in such areas as dabbling, dawdling, indecisiveness and puttering. The great debate on the merits of shilly- shallying vs. dilly-dallying will continue, unless other random stalling topics should arise. If time permits – fumbling, faltering, lingering, loafing and time frittering will be touched upon, along with brief forays into the fascinating realms of hemming and hawing, and in depth discussion of the almighty pursuit of serious down time.

Extra credit will be given to those students who demonstrate perpetual tardiness, and bonus marks are awarded to students who do not show up at all.

Textbooks for this course are optional and completely up to the discretion of the individual pupil as we truly believe that it is

(to be continued…..)?

(Editor’s Note: We regret that a full course description was not available at time of publication.  Class times, days, and locations will perhaps be announced at a future, as yet unspecified, date.  Or not. If you are okay with waiting, you do not really need to take this course.)

Thanks Helen and Sue

Not Quite Right

 

Hey! It’s the Christmas Witch Doctor!

If I am boring myself enough with all my health related thoughts that I can’t stay awake to write them down, then there isn’t much chance that anyone else will find them gripping.  Or helpful.  Thus my procrastination when it comes to ending this blog-neglect thing I have going on.

But I seriously have NOTHING much else happening in my life just now.

Except maybe for Facebook where I read this little story about a nurse who was bathing her patient when he asked her, “Are my testicles black?”   So she checked them out for him and reassured him that everything looked just fine down there.

“Well, that’s great,” he said, “But what I asked you was ARE MY TEST RESULTS BACK?”

This is a perfect example of how I hear things, all mangled up and misconstrued and just not quite on the money.  W requested the other day from another room that I put play dough on the grocery shopping list.  That’s what I heard.  I think it could have been bagels or maybe Leggo.  I don’t know.

And when I went for more needle biopsies on my neck last week (follow-up from a year ago in case there are changes) the doctor told me when he was finished to keep the band-aid on for fifty hours.  That sounded odd, so I wondered if maybe he meant fifteen hours, but that seemed a strange time frame too.  A few hours??  Then he went on to talk about pain killers and results and another visit and I had to pay attention to all that so I forgot to ask for clarification on the band-aid issue.  I took it off when it started to itch.  I am still alive.

Whenever I ask W to repeat himself he gets annoyed and on my case about getting a hearing aid.  But I don’t want one yet.  And here are some of the reasons why I’m being stubborn about it.

1.  I have inherited my dads intolerance for noise.  He didn’t like the television or the radio blaring away either.  Or people who shouted when they talked.  Or a lot of different types of racket going on at once.  He liked peace and quiet.  Me too.
2. At night I can still hear clocks ticking and faucets dripping and dogs barking and husbands snoring.  I’d like to get deaf enough to NOT hear those things.  Then we’ll talk.  And I won’t be able to even wildly guess what you’re telling me, so won’t that be fun?
3. When I was an optician I found people in denial about their need for progressive lenses to be the most apt to dislike them and not adapt to wearing their new multi focal glasses.  I’ve heard it’s the same with hearing aids.  I don’t want to spend all that money on something until I’m sure I need it and really want it and will wear it and like it.  The option of being able to turn it off at will is certainly appealing.
4. Part of my hearing “problem” is no doubt my inability to pay attention.  My mind wanders off on tangents.  I zone out.  Teachers often remarked about how much time I spent day dreaming.  I’m still doing it.  Sorry, did you say something?
5. The things I hear are often way funnier than the things actually being said.  Who would want to give that up?

So, how do you like my new lazy Christmas decorating method where you don’t take anything ordinary away but simply add some holiday stuff to the junk you already have lying around?  Whoa, Martha’s got nothing on me.  If you’re disagreeing with that, I can’t hear you.

Nothing says Peace quite like an alien giraffe.

A Giraffe’s Coffee…

…and other serious stuff found on Facebook.

 

 

Good Morning Sunshine

The latest incarnation of the paint room aka art studio, in which I have spent hours moving things around and minutes actually working on stuff.

There isn’t a lot of sunshine yet today, but that’s okay.  We’re having gorgeous autumn weather into the last ten days of September.  Six work shifts to go.  I know countdowns are bad, and a form of wishing your life away while you wait for something to end or begin or happen but I’m doing it anyway.  Anticipation is half the fun, right?

On my second last working Wednesday, all alone between six and eight with no appointments and no customers and no real ambition, I decided to write down all the things I will miss about work when I’m finally done with it on the last day of this month.  I took a sheet of paper out of the printer, got one of my three erasable pens out of my pocket (there must always be three) and sat down to write a list.  Things I will miss.  Ten minutes crawled by.  Everything I thought of was something I actually wouldn’t miss at all.  In fact I knew I would be beside myself with relief and happiness to never have to deal with that shit again.  So then I divided the paper in two and on the second half started a list of things I will NOT miss.  I filled up that side and the entire back with such a pile of work related crap it put me in a totally pissy mood.  I should not be left alone on Wednesday nights.  I’ve always said that, but no one listens.

While this process was all very cathartic, I won’t be sharing my list of negativity from hell.  Going over it once was enough.  Indisputable proof that it’s time to walk away.

W is coming home today.  He’s been in Ontario at the island closing things up for the winter.  He’s bringing my water-color paint supplies home with him.  I can’t remember why I thought it was a good idea to leave them there, but now I’ll have fewer excuses for stifling my creative urges as I amass all my tools and gather ideas and look up art classes.  Plan projects, get organized, have another cup of coffee, read some blogs, play some candy crush, make a pot of soup…..

Is it a little sad that procrastination is my favourite thing in the world?   (Except for reading for hours and watching bizarre things on Netflix.  I never put those things off.)   If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, I’ve been headed in that direction forever.  I do entire blog posts in my head in the middle of the night on my brilliant blog where I discuss brilliant things.  Then dawn breaks and work looms and Netflix sends me a notice that some dumb thing I’ve been watching has new episodes.  So the brilliance is put on hold.  Or forgotten.

Well, it’s an interesting theory/excuse, hey?

No, I’m not really buying it either.  But my point is (YES!  I have a POINT!) work will no longer loom.  Huge chunks of stress will dissolve right before my eyes.  I will have to find something completely different to get all pissy about.  I will answer more prompts and accept more challenges.  Or at the very least, drum up the courage to share my artistic creative genius.  You people are all really nice and will humor me on that one, right?  Thank you, I knew I could count on you.

Ten days.  Six shifts.  Gorgeous fall weather.  Paint supplies en route to home.  Oh yeah, and W too.

Life is good and about to get better.

Just Jazzy 237

Jazzy Does 100 Days of Happiness 24

Happiness is loving that you’re a multi-tasking procrastinator, able to put off several things at once.

Pothead Sunday

Lazy day lovers unite.

Cin’s Feb Challenge Lazy Day and Dance

Mulligans

Mulligan is that great golf term, used when a shot is not counted against the score.  It is permitted in unofficial play to a player whose previous shot was poor.  Like a do-over.

Well I would like a Mulligan of my last two days off.  There is so much nothing to do, two days just isn’t long enough to do it all.  I have accomplished as little as humanly possible without actually forgetting to breathe.  And thus procrastination has been taken to a whole new level, because I don’t even know what things I should be doing that I am so determinedly avoiding.

There was some vague plan in my head to play so much Candy Crush that I would get sick of it and stop for a while. So far, this has not worked.

I played around on an Instagram app and made these two collaborative pictures.

I drank a lot of coffee.  I did some grocery shopping.  I read some books. I slept late and went to bed early.  I read every single inspirational thing on Facebook.  And some things that were not at all stimulating or helpful or moving but I read them anyway.  Because they were there.

Eventually I sat down and wrote this post about it all.  I don’t know about you, but I am now completely worn out and done reliving it and ready for bed.  Never mind the Mulligan – I would probably do the same non-things all over again anyway.

I have the expertise, if anyone needs guidance on whiling away time and goofing off.  If you forget to call, I’ll understand.

Of Madmen and Poets

This lover sincerely thanks all the mad men, wise men and lucid poets of the world for their various talents and areas of expertise.

From a procrastination point of view, these last couple of days have been wildly successful.  I can’t think of one thing I’ve accomplished that’s worth talking about.  My house has been cleaned, but I didn’t contribute to that except for writing a cheque.  W has arrived back home after closing up and winterizing everything on the island.  Notice how I left well before any of that had to be done.

Although it’s been only a couple of days, I am sadly missing a former co-worker who was a ray of sunshine in an otherwise often dull and cloudy workplace.  Maybe I’ll start marking big X’s on my calendar to count off the days I have left.  You know how prisoners keep track of their confinement time.

Or I could snap out of this lethargic state.  There’s an idea.  Already W is wanting his grocery and to-do lists and I had forgotten how nice it is to have someone else around to do all that tedious stuff.  It’s crisp and cold outside and therefore time to start burning some candles inside and basking in their warm glow.  The flames make a nice sparkly reflection on a wine glass.  I’m going to add “case of red wine” to the grocery list and see what happens.

And one day soon all these bazillions of books I’ve been reading could stand some one-sentence reviews.  Man my life is hard.  I don’t know how I keep up.

Anyway, Cheers everybody!  Let’s all be lovers, and have a fantastic weekend.

Supper Sunset Series 03 (Photo credit: smilla4)

Just Jazzy 134

“Sometimes I do smart things. Sometimes I do dumb things. Most of the time I don’t do anything.”
― Gorilla Rising Hintz

Don’t tell me I didn’t accomplish anything today. This wine did not pour itself, you know.