Procrastination

The past month has been interesting to me. I have done a lot of thinking. The main reason I have not been writing is that so many things come to mind to write. They get all jumbled up in my head, and every time I start to write, I just keep going off on all kinds of tangents because every word I write triggers another fleeting thought, or memory, or idea. Being a life long procrastinator, I just know that is my perfectionism kicking in, which I know is actually a form of extreme assholeness because what makes me so special. I mean I know I am special, but I am not so damn special that my every action and word, and thought needs to be above reproach, especially by a tightass such as myself.


I have a bad habit of not doing stuff I want to do, holding off on it until do something I should be doing. I have been "going to paint my room" since May. I just could not get motivated to do it. I am not sure why because I am quite the little multitasker. I want it done, and I am absolutely sure that I will feel better, more settled in this house, and more centered if I get a place to sleep all established for myself. Actually, when I moved into the house, I had not had much time to get the house in any way shape of form cleaned out. It took me forever to get my younger sister out, and to get the mortgage, and my landlord had already had found a new tenant, so I was fucked, and just had to get out, and move in here, and punt until I defenestrated. After I put my Mom in the nursing home, I ordered a hospital bed for her for when she came home. Ever helpful, my sister dragged Mom's bed into the living room to make room for the hospital bed in my Mom's room. My parents told people they did not sleep together because my Mom was a restless sleeper and my Dad's snoring got horrendous as he got older. This was the official story. Truth was my Mom was diabetic, and my Dad had been a prostate cancer survivor, so they slept separately in order to facilitate quick exit from bed and travel to the bathroom. Just in case you were wondering about the sleeping arrangements. I often teased them because there were many times when I dropped by when my sister wasn't home, and I would catch them together in my Mom's room allegedly watching television. Because my Dad kept all their financial records, and all the papers I would need after he died carefully labeled in his room, it was where I had gotten the most cleaning done by the time I moved in. I just pulled my Mom's old bed in there and had been sleeping there. For some reason, I had a really tough time clearing out the rest of the crap my Dad had in there. Some things about cleaning the house out are tough. I have to do what I can when I can.


Eventually, I moved my mattress into the living room for awhile, and began working on cleaning out the room. Then I moved it again into a different bedroom because I decided I am too fucking old to be sleeping on a mattress in my living room. As if sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a bedroom that I use for a closet is any better. Because of my convincing myself I had to do my bedroom before I did anything else, I have not done much of anything else constructive except develop elaborate ways to avoid being home. Finally, I got down to business. It took forever. It has been very damp here, so every layer of mud took an eternity to dry. I had to do some serious repairs to the walls, so that was quite a project. Then I scrubbed every surface, and primed it all. Also having to wait for it all the dry. Right now I am waiting for the paint to dry. I found I few flaws I missed before that I am going to sand out and repaint, and I did a shitty job on the outside corner, and one inside corner. I am a dork. My eyeglasses were getting all fogged up because they slipped, and bumped my dust mask, and I could not see, so I missed a couple spots. I feel like this is progress because I am pretty calm about it. In the past I would have been such a stickler about getting it perfect, I would be berating myself for my lack of flawlessness. Now, I am chilled out about it. I know how to fix it, the world will not come to an end, and it looks way better than it used to. My only main fuck up was that when I did the ceiling, I should have lapped down the walls a little. Unfortunately, some of the old nasty paint showed where the walls meet the ceiling, so I went back painted those areas with the wall paint, so now my edges are no longer perfect. I’ll live. The whole wall color thing really slowed me down anyway. When I did a test, I really hated it. A nice old dude at Home Depot named John helped me try to find a recipe that could make a color I liked better. See, when paint is tinted they use certain measures of certain dry dye colors to mix with the white paint to make a color, so I would have needed to find a new color that had at least as much of all the tints already in the paint. No such luck. John suggested I try lightening it with some white. Well, I am using a very light almost white yellow for my ceilings. I love it. I mixed the half-gallon I had left into the two gallons of wall paint. It turned the way too pinky looking mauve that was not what I wanted at all into a really nice deep lilac. So I can live with it until I marry a rich guy to hire somebody to paint it over for me because I ain’t doing this shit again. I am sure in the course of painting my next room, when I open up my next can of ceiling paint, I will go back into my bedroom and fix the mess I made on the edge of the ceiling. I am excited about sleeping in a real bed, and putting up my Monet prints, and pulling my furniture in there, and putting up curtains. I think I will feel much better and expect to be all set by the weekend, as long as Ikea has the bed I want in stock.


In addition to my temporary home improvement aversion I have also been disenchanted with the job search process. I am just not up for it at all. I am so sick of temp agencies contacting me about my resume on Monster. I want a real job. I am an accountant with over ten years of experience. I went back to school and got an official Accounting degree, while I was working full time, and taking care of two terminally ill parents no less. Now I am trying to get the public accounting time to get a CPA license. These freaking clowns at the staffing agencies keep calling me up with these "opportunities" that remind of that old joke. You know, about how my parents had to walk ten miles to school, uphill, both ways, and fight off bears with their notebooks. "We have reviewed your resume on Monster.com and feel we have an excellent position that will suit your skills and career aspirations. It is a part time third shift position with no benefits, at one third your salary level and only two hours drive from your home in an only mildly shady neighborhood." FUCK YOU! So, I am thinking I am going to try to get a job at Starbucks. At least they have insurance. I am just afraid they will sense my disdain for the petty and inane and fear I will not be able to be sufficiently obsequious to sexually frustrated soccer Moms and sexually retarded lotharios. I’m actually not bullshitting about this. I cannot take accountants as seriously as they take themselves. I have never had a stick that far up my ass, and trust me, for a significant portion of my existence I was a poster child for uptightness in all forms. I think of the Starbucks idea as a recovery job, which if you know any recovering anybodys you will know what I mean. It is basically a job to get you back in the swing of things, get you out in the world, and with not too much stress or responsibility. I need a little bit of recovery from my life. Back when I was going to the shrink she told me I have/had, whatever, PTSD. Basically I lived such a spectacular clusterfuck for so long, that I kinda wig out about idiot shit, at completely inopportune times, while simultaneously handling very daunting stuff like I am gonna win a prize. So except for the whole having no money thing being an unemployed loser doesn’t bother me, however, I yelled at my cats over the weekend because they hopped up and tried to play with the paint roller while I was rinsing it off. My poor furry babies looked at me as if to say "Mommy, please don’t make us into chicken chow mein." And the real reason I yelled was exhaustion and fear they would get sick and die from licking paint. I scared the living crap out of them, and it just made me feel even worse. I have no idea how I would manage if I had people babies. Man; imagine what kind of therapy MY kids would need.