jamelah.net

I don’t think anyone could say that I am a good steward of time. (In fact, just last week, my mom said “You waste more time than anyone I know,” to which I replied “I do not!” to which she replied with raised eyebrows and that mom look of hers.) And as a bad time-manager, I am often frazzled and distressed, especially now, because I have all this stuff that I’m working on and there are deadlines, and the deadlines are soon, and that makes me sad. But I was thinking, maybe it won’t be too bad if I just spend my time a little more wisely. As such, I thought what I would do today is analyze the way I spend my time to find some areas in which I may need improvement.

So, I present to you:

Monday Morning: A Case Study

The alarm goes off at some time like 6:12 or something, which I have figured is perfect because it allows me to hit snooze twice and get up at exactly 6:30. But instead of that, I am not even conscious when the alarm starts going off, and so, as some sort of sleep zombie, I hit snooze until 7 a.m. I mean, that’s what I must have been doing, though I absolutely have no recollection of it whatsoever. Maybe I slept peacefully while the Snooze Elves took care of it for me. I don’t know. Anyway, at 7 a.m., I thought I should probably get out of bed, but instead of doing that, I stayed right where I was, face buried in some sort of pillow barricade I’d apparently built overnight. (My theory about why I’m always so incapable of getting up in the mornings is because I am always so busy in the middle of the night while I’m asleep doing pointless things… like building pillow barricades.) And actually, maybe it wasn’t a pillow barricade. Maybe it was more like a pillow fort. For my head. My point is that at 7 a.m. I turned my alarm clock off and reburied my head in its pillow fort. I didn’t go back to sleep, because I knew that would be a bad decision, so instead I just kept my head in its warm fortress while I thought about things. And what did I think about? Well, not anything important, like what I might wear to work, or how cold it might be outside, or anything like that, no. I thought about the word crudites, and how fucking pretentious are we when we can’t just call them celery sticks?

After several minutes of this, I removed my head from my pillow fort to look at my clock and see how much longer I might trespass on my bed’s goodwill before overstaying my welcome. It was 7:30, so I figured I should get up. (Did you know it was possible to think about crudites for 30 minutes?) I had to unwrap myself from my blankets. Because here’s something else I do — I roll myself up in my blankets like I am a burrito. Sort of. I don’t really understand it, except it always ends up that my arms are immobile, which is another reason why I can’t figure out how I hit snooze so much, unless I’m hitting it with my face, or perhaps controlling it through the power of my mind.

Okay, so I got out of bed, anyway, went to the bathroom, spent a moment giggling at the status of my hair (it was pretty impressive, but then it would have to be, considering the fact that it had spent some time — the exact amount unknown — cavorting in a pillow fort), and then I went for the caffeine, and then I turned on my computer and checked my e-mail, and then I played a few turns at Scrabulous, and then it was, like, 7:58 or something, so I thought maybe I should brush my teeth. So I went back to the bathroom and told myself to wash my face after I brushed my teeth, but then I washed my face first anyway, because I’m a dumbass. So I got that done anyway, and went back into my bedroom, and it was something like 8:11 and I thought “Oh sweet, I have lots of time!” which means that I sat in my desk chair sipping my caffeinated beverage and staring out of my window at the pink sky over the snow-covered rooftops. And then it was 8:15. And I thought, not too bad. So I got things set with my new external hard drive to back up all of my photographs (there. are. so. many.) and by the time I got that going and noted that the transfer would take 253 minutes (my computer is so slow, and I have this sinking feeling that it’s going to crash any day now), I looked at the clock and said “It’s 8:20! And I’m not wearing pants!” So then I sat there for another minute, thinking about whether I wanted to wear pants or a skirt, and did I really feel like putting on tights? (Do I ever really feel like putting on tights? No.) And then I remembered that my pants were downstairs in the dryer, so I rushed to get them, and I figured while I was down there, I might as well transfer the load that was in the washer over to the dryer and start a new load (Whee, laundry!) and then I ran upstairs carrying an armload of pants, trying to decide if I wanted to wear the gray ones or one of the three pairs of black ones.

Interlude: Pants. In the Form of an Open Letter to the Readers of My Blog

Dear Readers of My Blog,

I have a question. I assure you that I am not losing weight, unless somehow my routine of making poor eating choices and not exercising is making me thinner, even though I see absolutely no evidence of this on my body whatsoever, and if anything, my ass sometimes inspires me to quote Sir Mix-A-Lot, especially lately. So, bearing all that in mind, did they change the rules for vanity sizing or something? Because all of my pants are falling-off-me huge. Including the two pairs of jeans I bought a week ago which fit when I tried them on. I don’t get it.

Love,
Jamelah

P.S. If I am losing weight, the benefits of which are completely invisible, do you think I should write a diet book and make a billion dollars? Please advise. XOXO.

And Now We Return to Our Feature Presentation

So I decided on the gray pants, even though I hate them, because I have to spend all day pulling them up, because I can’t belt them, since they don’t even have belt loops. And considering the fact that they’re really at this point just voluminous swaths of fabric, I think a belt would look… odd. But no odder than they look anyway, because all of that voluminous fabric sort of just gravitates toward my crotch. Which means that I look really attractive. Also, I can pull them up to my boobs, almost. Seriously, I am having a pants CRISIS. I really am going to have to wear skirts every day until I get this sorted out. I hate tights!

I am digressing like a crazy digresser!

Anyway!

I decided on the gray pants because at this point (8:23, give or take), I didn’t have time to deal with tights, and I thought that they would at least look relatively nice-ish with the navy blue pinstripe shirt I bought which I haven’t even gotten around to wearing yet, because I have been a bit of a shopoholic lately (yet a pants-buying failure), but then I put the shirt on with the pants and looked at myself in the mirror and said “No.” But I didn’t have time to waste, and I was already in the gray pants (along with a pair of silver earrings and a red necklace) so I had to make my decision quickly. I grabbed a black shirt out of my closet but it was covered in white sweater fuzz, so I tossed that on my bed and grabbed an identical green shirt out of my closet and put it on, then looked down at and noted the red necklace and thought “Oh great, I look like Christmas,” but I didn’t have time to care! So I pulled on a black cardigan, and started to run out the door, when I realized I was barefoot.

So I returned to my room, put on socks and boots (I have to wear something with a high heel with these pants because otherwise they are so long, they sort of puddle on the floor — I really do sound like a pathetic clothing urchin right now, don’t I? Someone help me) and left, pausing at the full-length mirror in the hallway to assess the situation and then laughing at myself before I put my coat on. I’m not even kidding you — I got out of the house at 8:25. All of that happened really quickly. I am pretty fast at the whole getting dressed thing.

Anyway, as I was opening the door so I could step outside, I said to myself that it would all be perfect, just as long as there wasn’t ice on the car. So when I stepped out onto the porch, the first thing I noticed that yes, of course, there was ice on the car. And it was that terrible ice, too. The stuff that somehow gets factory-sealed onto the car in the middle of the night, by evil ice fairies. So I had to scrape the ice off my car, and then I had to drive to work, and thankfully, my commute takes between 3 and 5 minutes, if that long, which is just another reason why I think living in a small town is swell. It sort of balances out all the reasons why I don’t think living in a small town is swell. And I found a good parking space, and I ran over a mountain of ice (in 3.5-inch heels, mind you) and across the street and into the building and I was only 5 minutes late. So go me!

And then when I sat down at my desk, I noticed that I was still thinking about crudites. And my pants were falling off. Oh, Monday.

My point is, of course, that I think my morning routine is perfectly fine and I really see no room for improvement. I guess the problem must come at some other point in the day.

My second point is, of course, that I think it’s time I gave up on pants.

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