Making Lists

 

Guys, I'm so tired! Oh, what a dreadful beginning to a blog post, don't you think? It's been, well, quite a month. A very busy month. A month where you look at your email and think: I can't. It's just too much! But then you get some sleep and you wake up and have some coffee, and then on the way to work you give yourself that pep talk (Just make a to-do list! Just put a star next to things you absolutely have to do today! The rest can wait! It will all work out!) But at the end of the day, you realize you've put a star next to everything on your list and only been able to complete, say, a quarter of the items. And so you go home, and it's dark out, and you think to  yourself, I'm going to make some dinner and relax. I'll do some knitting! But you go into such a state of relaxation after dinner that you can't fathom pulling yourself up off of the couch to get your yarn because suddenly nothing has seemed more interesting to you than the show Restaurant Impossible! and the feel of your puppy's warm head on your lap.

I can't remember where I read about this--gah, it might have even been Eat Pray Love--this "American" tendency to over-work and over-rest. To live in a constant state of anxiety and fatigue and (ultimately) resignation. When did my lists get so long, and become so unachievable? It's not healthy, you know...I firmly believe brains weren't made to work at this speed. 

I made a personal to-do list last week, too. (I'm all about the lists.) It reminded me a bit of the list I made in college, when I was dead broke, of things I would buy if I came into a little bit of money. These included a UCLA T-shirt, a haircut, and a bra. No joke! Is that not the saddest list you've ever seen? (And no, I couldn't even afford a t-shirt from the school I was attending, and yes, I did have other bras, but they were all worn out).

My list last week was actually, in some ways, much more ridiculous, if only because most of the tasks are normal things that normal people should be able to accomplish with relative ease. Some highlights included: get a driver's license (expired over a YEAR ago), buy Word (no joke, I do not have Microsoft Word at home), fix hip (my hip hurts!), get a new phone (Blackberry circa 2008, people), and yes, buy bras. (The bra buying, incidentally, is the only thing that I have accomplished. What is it with me and bras??)

Oh, I'm being too negative now. Let's spin this another way: today's post is really to tell you what's to come!

Today was actually the day that I was planning to do my latest Nancy Drew book review. But I just couldn't do it in this frazzled state! I really want to paint the picture for you of the Shark Submarine, and Nancy's impostor, and the time bomb in her bungalow. It was soooo good! Actually, I was at TNNA in Phoenix last weekend (that's The National NeedleArts Association conference), but I forgot my Nancy Drew, and I was very depressed about not being able to finish it. It would have been a perfect time to read Nancy Drew, all bundled up and lonely in a hotel room, eating Twix bars from the vending machine. But unfortunately, I had nothing to read, so I had to watch terrible TV, including some movie set in the 1950s starring a skinny Vince Vaughan where he is constantly smoking cigarettes. (It was not a good movie.) But on the last day I was in Phoenix, I found this pretty copy of Emma at the local Urban Outfitters, and Jane Austen literally became my new best friend. We ate several meals together, and she stayed up with me the whole flight back. Plus it's a pretty embroidered cover!

Oh guys, I'm talking too fast now, aren't I. I will end by saying this: I WILL (promise promise) write about Nancy Drew soon. Very soon. And I will also tell you why I put this cute photo of my dog Camper at the top of the page: Because it snowed in New York while I was in Phoenix, and it was Camper's first snow! Robb, bless his heart, documented the whole event for me, video and everything. But this one--this photo here--it's the one that both breaks my heart and melts it. One of these days (one hopes), it will snow, snow again, and I shall watch those snowflakes fall on his sweet, black head. And THAT is the kind of thing that makes all of those lists--those horrible lists--become totally irrelevant.