DownTime

There is, currently, not a thing for me to do at work. Projects are caught up, in limbo, we are in a "hurry up and wait" phase. I study Adobe InDesign. I work on my website. I blog. I pee. I clean my purse. I look up books on Amazon. And I check the clock; it is 8:10 a.m., and I have 7 hours and 50 more minutes to kill.

I'm frustrated. Here's a list of stuff hanging over my head, that I could be doing at home:

1. Finish Melissa's paintings. There are 2, and they are within an hour of being finished up. They've been one hour away all summer long.

2. Clean my car; it is a dusty mess. Change the oil, I'm 3,000 miles over the 3,000-mile-change-your-oil due date.

3. Get a haircut. My last was in March; I've been periodically snipping my bangs out of my eyes, and calling it "good enough." It's time for a little shaping up.

4. Write a complaint letter about the $300 rug I bought for my dining room, that will not lie down; in fact, it curls more as it ages. People trip over it constantly, and I'm going to have a lawsuit on my hands if I don't remove it from my home.

5. Analyze my financial situation. Create a budget. Figure out how I can work a few more pieces of furniture into the house so that my guests don't have to dine on the floor around the coffee table.

6. Start studying up for the part-time freelance design job I just accepted by bluffing my way through the interview, promising to deliver something I've never done. Just because I've never done it doesn't mean I can't.

7. Go to the post office and turn in my P.O. box key. Feeling paranoid and insecure, I secured the box at the time of my divorce a year ago, hoping to redirect legal and financial statements to the new address. I immediately found out that these sorts of statements cannot be delivered to P.O. boxes. I have then, never checked the box, nor paid for the next 6 month installment. I picture ninja's dropping from the ceiling the minute I insert my key, cuffing me and hauling me to jail til I pay the fines, which are probably in the tens-of-thousands of dollars by now.

8. Finish the cat painting, which I started almost 2 years ago.

9. Tidy up the yard and sweep the driveway, so that I won't be such the outcast neighbor. I share a front yard with a nice lady. I swear you could set a plumbline down the middle of that yard: hers is vacuumed clean and trimmed and tweezered, while mine is covered with leaves and twigs (Does she blow her twigs into my half while I am at work?)

10. Get the garage back in order so I can park there again this winter. It's been a warehouse while I was "under construction" this summer.

Sigh... That's just half of it, I didn't even throw in laundry and dishes and shaving my legs.

So, tonight, when I get off work, I am going to...

...blow off all my responsibilities and go hang with my friends at the coffee shop!