Constantchange

Procrastination Mantra

Moving, engagement, and family drama have succeeded in making me so distracted at work that I have problems completing tasks. It’s my own fault, and I need to find a way to make myself more focused. I’m considering going back on coffee. We’ll see next week if that works. What really works, of course, is having a little writing time like this to myself before starting in on more formal writing. But blogging is banned at work, and I often stare at the screen stymied, ideas blocked at the bottleneck of my mind.

As I write this, my sister Sara and I are sitting at a table together in my new apartment. She’s learning calligraphy from a book, and getting quite good at it, I think. She’s using an old pen set of mine with three nibs for the plastic pen and two automatic ink cartridges. She’s starting out with blue ink and I won’t let her start the red until she’s used up the blue. I plan on showing her how to make excellent fake blood splatters with the red ink in a few days, by blowing the red ink through a straw. I am writing this blog entry to procrastinate again instead of finishing up some reports for work. It’s Sunday, and in 12 hours I need to be at work with something resembling a full first draft of a rather complicated project. I’m stuck on it out of fear of criticism, I suppose.

We’re both inside at the table because it’s raining. It’s been raining for two weeks in Atlanta now. There’s a little muddy creek in the back parking lot of our apartment building. Other friends have written to me about flooded basements, and I feel lucky to live on high land. I should feel lucky that the rain has made this June a little cooler than most in Atlanta, since I still ride the train and walk to work every day. I am concerned about getting to work sweat-free in August.

In a few days Underdown will visit again, and bring with her Sara’s PS2, which will serve as our DVD player, sound system, and video arcade. As soon as Underdown leaves, Sara’s friend Sophie will be here to visit her for a few days, and then The Republican will come for the weekend. After that I’m off to the Bahamas for a short business trip I can’t really afford to go on. More on that soon.