Putting It Off

"One thing that's good about procrastination is that you always have something planned for tomorrow."

-- G.B. Stern

With the active social life I lead, it's difficult to choose only one aspect of an entire week to share with you here. This morning, I stared at my blinking cursor, allowing the events and emotions of my week to flow through my mind, hoping that one would surface above the rest. I was almost onto something when I heard and felt my stomach gurgle. When I looked away from the screen to consider my hunger, I realized I hadn't checked the mailbox at my dad's place. "David! We should go right now to get something to eat and then collect my mail, don't you think?" He agreed, and we were off.We hit up the Mission Hills Café on Washington so I could get a #2 (in six years my morning order remains consistent; yet for some reason, I continue to look over the menu). The neighborhood restaurant is located down the street from my father's condo. Walking toward it from the car, David and I stopped in front of one of the thousands of real estate offices in our booming town to check out the going rates of homes in the area. I'd found a coveted meterless spot, so we lingered until my tummy spoke up again, at which point we grabbed one of the free Dream Homes San Diego magazines with the intention of flipping through it while we waited for our meal. By the time we sat down to eat, it was 11:00 a.m.

The tomato, feta, and basil omelet silenced my belly. After breakfast, I grabbed my mail and returned home with David. I'd resigned myself to a day of work, and nothing was holding me back. Halfway to the staircase, my eye caught the piano keyboard. I dropped my purse on the floor and sat on my small black stool. "Do you want to hear a song?" I asked David. I sat and played, reading the sheet music and enjoying the sound of my improving skills while David ran errands to the garage and back. Finished with his tasks, David came to stand by me, where he stopped to smile and whistle along with the tune. "It's great to have music in the house," he said.

I played for a bit, but the knowledge that I had to get to work nagged me into switching off my pianistic toy and making my way upstairs. Again, once I'd settled into my chair, the insidious cursor and I engaged in a staring contest. I attempted to capture some of the words flitting about in my head, and I was close to approaching some kind of concept when I stopped to check my e-mail. I meant for it to take just a second, but there was a new message from my friend Ollie, and I was compelled to call him for a quick hello. I was giddy when he answered his phone.

While speaking with my friend, I picked up the magazine that David and I had grabbed a few hours earlier and thumbed through it. I hung up after 20 minutes of chatting, but I kept looking at the magazine -- as a "minor preference" would have it, I had to look at every page. Willpower alone kept me from looking at each page a second time. I put it down and propped my laptop back up on my legs. While my eyes fixated blankly on the screen, I rubbed my left brow with an index finger, which led to an inevitable intense, 45-minute-long tweezing session.

I don't have "tweezers"; I have a soldering tool -- I picked it up while working at an employment agency. It's a sleek metal device with sharp points meant for grasping itsy-bitsy electronic components. While testing a prospective employee for accuracy and detail, I saw the tool for what it was -- the ultimate tweezers -- and I spared the company their extra set. After my sesh, with no visible hair left on my face and eyes watering from the "under the nose" yanks, I took a few deep breaths and returned to my blank document.

Rather than typing anything, I thought to surf the Net -- I hadn't checked CNN.com in, like, an hour, and I craved an update on the "Sporty Spice Stalker" case. As I was taking a quiz to see if I could identify low-carb foods, David asked me to come look at a drawing of the bed he's designing for us. He showed me his ideas and then we discussed the layout while I absentmindedly painted the fingernails on my left hand with nail polish Stephanie had given me the day before. It was 3:14 p.m.

Without bothering to match the paint job on my right hand, I began to type at random, trying to avoid getting any wet polish on the white keys of my iBook. For every sentence I wrote, I checked various sites on the Web -- e-mail, friends' blogs, news, etc. I continued to type with one hand while attaching a clothing clip to my lower lip with the other. (I find it fun to lift and drop my mouth with something hanging from it -- doesn't everyone?) With the clip flopping about my face, I stared at my words and fiddled with the pens to the left of my laptop. Suddenly something occurred to me -- I had no place to put my pens -- no drawer, no holding apparatus, nothing -- so I said, "David, I'm going to run to The Container Store. Do you want to come with me?"

He was reluctant, but I managed to bully him into accompanying me on my spontaneous supply run. Fashion Valley is always annoyingly crowded -- we waited for minutes while a woman took her sweet-ass time to put a bag in her trunk, get into her car,

buckle up, and remove herself and her vehicle from the spot I wanted. (Diva Tip: Official parking courtesy dictates that if you see someone waiting, you don't stand around like an idiot with an ass full of molasses -- you enter your mode of transportation briskly, and as fast as is safe, open that spot as you would hold the door for someone entering a building less than a foot behind you.)

I'd never been inside The Container Store before, so I had no idea there were so many things you could put other things into! Craving organization for my sloppy work area, I perused every aisle slowly, with David pushing the cart behind me. I picked up bins for my collection of Readers, which caused David to sigh with relief as he thought, It's about time she moved those huge stacks off of my speakers. I got a trashcan for my desk, a holder for my pens, and a few other knickknacks I never knew I couldn't live without on the way to the register.

Getting out of Fashion Valley's parking lot is almost as difficult as getting in, minus the frustration of finding a spot. We pulled out quickly because there was a smiling woman waiting patiently for the spot. When we got home, I thought about getting back to my work, but first I had to put my Readers in chronological order and file them into their new containers. When I was finished (at 4:36 p.m.), I felt productive. But something was amiss. It was my hair: I hadn't showered, and my hair was coming out of its hastily assigned style. I thought a shower might refresh me enough to get me motivated to the point where I would start typing like the wind.

My shower was long, and I was right -- it was refreshing. Half-dressed and smelling of the musky, feminine fragrance of Victoria's Secret's "Very Sexy for Her" (another gift from Steph), I sat back in my chair and contemplated the cursor. My eyes kept darting to the top right corner of my screen, where the digital clock is displayed. I watched as the minutes ticked from 5:25 to 5:39. I opened some dialogue with myself about possible topics to discuss in my column. The exclusive party I attended on Friday night? The lunch I enjoyed with my sisters and niece? I entertained ideas, conversations, and memories in my mind, until finally, I said, "You know, David, I think I have enough time to get this done tomorrow. What say we go get a pizza and rent a movie?"