The Art of Writing, Aging, & Laziness

I tell myself all the time how utterly lazy I am, and how I don't write enough. Mostly, when I finally come home from work (usually after working unpaid overtime-usually my own decision), I just sit down in front of Netflix and binge-watch either an action-packed anime or a down-to-earth, touching romance/drama like When Calls the Heart or Call the Midwife.

I decided today (Easter) that I am going to use today as a more-realistic New Years Eve. I am not Catholic or Christian, so maybe the best way to celebrate today is to use it to review my New Years Resolutions, discuss how I let them drop, and write new ones I will actually follow. One is to write as much as I did as a kid. For inspiration, I decided to read some of my old diaries for guidelines from my young self.

And I found these three, consecutive gems:

Dear Journal (2/10/06),

I have no clue what to write. Nothing important has happened today. Bye.

Dear Journal (3/1/06),

I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. I love David. 

(Yes, I wrote that 29 times in my middle-school diary that day. Why 29? No idea. That's just when I stopped.)

Dear Journal (3/20/06),

There is no way I'll EVER finish this journal! 

Okay, so they weren't all gems. And maybe I do write better entries in my journal now.

Happy Easter.

Things I Do Instead of Being Productive

When I was an undergraduate, one of my writing professors had us all read a short story about a woman who would do careless things just to amuse her. One thing was buying a house and then wandering around in it, turning on lights, and going Hm, I have a house. It has stairs that go up and down to blank, bare rooms. I have a kitchen primarily not used for cooking. (I only imagine this was the exact dialogue in the woman's head because that's what I would think.)

Everyone in class thought that was ridiculous and unrelatable. Who would buy a house just because it amused them? Completely reckless!

So, here's what my life has become:

1. I got a promotion and instead of taking the time to consider how my life is progressing, where I wanted to go, and what I should start doing now to get there, I bought the most expensive apartment and new furniture that I could afford.
2. I made a late New Years' Resolution to start posting more regularly on my blog (we all see how that has gone, right?), and promptly ignored it.
3. I made a late New Years' Resolution to start spending an hour a day working on my literary journal, and promptly ignored it (as I am doing right now.)
4. I adopted a cat named Teddy one day while volunteering at the animal shelter because they ran out of things for me to do and said Hey, you can play with the cats in the cat room until your ride gets here. Then they learned not to let me do that anymore.
5. I bought Teddy Lupin (yes, Harry Potter) a scratching post that he promptly ignored (he takes after me.)
6. I did not do anymore wedding planning for two months and instead would go to work, walk the 10 minutes back to the apartment, and binge watch any anime on Netflix (in my defense, I'm having a half Great Gatsby / half anime wedding. This is called research. And spending all night in the same position on the couch, staring at the TV, forgetting about every single thing else I was supposed to do.)
7. I started seeing a new therapist because my first therapist, who diagnosed me with having trust issues, could never show up for our therapy appointments on time. Last time, she didn't show up at all. I wasn't even upset, I laughed. I'm still laughing (and a little bit of crying.)
8. I don't get paid overtime but sometimes I work 11 hour days (approximately 6:30am to 5:30pm with no lunch break), then reward myself by buying nice things I forget about. Like tickets to Mamma Mia's farewell tour, which was this past Wednesday, and I just did not remember to go.
9. Rented Good Morning, Vietnam finally and was actually "nice fiance" and helped my fiance with his paper for one of his history courses by watching the movie with him, telling him everything I thought was important about the plot and characters, and making him write it down word-for-word because I am, in my own words from that night, "A complete genius." This, of course, ended up being what we did instead of remembering to finally see my favorite musical live. 
10. Tried to start volunteering for our local LGBT and interreligious organizations to help out, and was completely blown off. I guess someone isn't "free labor material" anymore.
11. Walk around my apartment daily, turning on and off the lights, and going Hm, I have an apartment. It has stairs that go up and down to blank, bare rooms. I have a kitchen primarily not used for cooking. I use it to store more action figures and books.