We're living for Tuesday afternoon

Reports from viewers of local CBS Channel 11 about today:

Cold front coming in Tuesday afternoon. Supposedly after that we'll be back around our normal temps for this time of year, mid-90s.

Come on, Tuesday!!

Projects

Finishing up the first-half-of-the-month group of articles today. Then working around the house, my favorite! Yes, really! Well, okay, maybe not always my favorite, but I do look forward to some of the projects. Well, not laundry, which is on the list for today, or cleaning the kitchen, ditto. But some things, like cleaning out the guest bedroom closet and...wow. That's actually pretty dull, isn't it?

Maybe it's just that some of these tasks have been on my To Do list for so long that getting them checked off would be nearly orgasmic. There's got to be some reason I look forward to doing them, right?

Oh, well. It doesn't matter! Even if I only enjoy them because I'm a domestic dweeb, that's okay! I'm going to hum while I do it, and be blissful when it's done. What more can one ask of a Saturday?

Why does it take so long?

Could someone tell me, please, why it takes me ten times as long to do things as it should? Is it that I'm getting older? Is it that my attention is perpetually fractured and I can't focus? Is it that I'm caught in some kind of freakin' fissure in the fabric of spacetime? Or is it just lack of sleep?

I planned last night, and got up this morning intending to spend one hour clearing off my desk. (Yeah, it was a mess. I dumped a couple of days' worth of mail at the beginning of the weekend and didn't look at it again.) That was six hours ago, and I'm still not done.

It could be age. Seriously, I'm no stranger to the Midlife Mambo:

I'm so resigned to it that normally I tell myself it's okay as long as I'm doing something. Say I leave my office and go to the kitchen, then once I get there can no longer remember why I went (yes, I see all of you nodding). I can manage to be satisfied as long as, while I'm there, I move the laundry from the washer to the dryer, or put a few dishes in the dishwasher, or something. Anything. As long as there's a little forward progress. But it's apparently getting worse. Otherwise I don't see how I could have started out the day with the intention of making two — TWO — phone calls and six hours later still have one left to make! Is that how it's going to go? Is it just going to keep getting worse every year? How can it? I mean, there's only so much room to fall, you know?

It could be that my focus is eroding. Seriously. You can read more about it on my business blog, but there's a lot of information around that indicates multitasking 1) is kind of a myth (we can actually only work on two tasks at a time, and we do neither of them as well as we would if we did them separately), and 2) doesn't do anything good for our brains. The more you multitask, the worse you get at ignoring irrelevant information and focusing on a single task. Like walking to the kitchen to do something, I guess. That could be it. Am I doing it more now than I used to, so the effects are more pronounced? Am I in some sort of multitasking downward spiral?

As far as the fabric of spacetime being to blame, I'm willing to consider it. I may be living on a cosmic slub, the border of some big metaphysical Uh-Oh, and time just speeds up when I start doing certain things. Or the time some tasks take expands as I approach them. Yeah, okay. We'll say that could be it.

Or it could just be that my dreadful occasional knee pain has started again, and I'm worried about health insurance, and I've had a terrible time sleeping the last two nights. But, really, how likely is that?

Report

This is a report of all today's activities. For those of you who were with me in North Carolina (or who have heard me speak of this before), you know that sometimes Rich tends to act like I've demanded a full report on what he's been doing and what has planned. He recites a list ("I fed the cats. I offered to let J go outside, but she didn't want to go. I made myself some oatmeal, then ate it while I checked my email...."), and often does it first thing in the morning, sometimes before I've even gotten out of bed. On those occasions, it's hard to not shriek at him to shut up at least until after I've used the bathroom. I guess all I usually do is moan and pretend he's not there.

Anyhoo, I've had a bad attitude most of the afternoon, after a perfectly pleasant lunch with Terri. Dunno why. I finally decided that I'd abandon work and go paint the bathroom. I did that. It didn't help my bad attitude, but the bathroom's painted now, so I guess it evens out.

Then I felted, or tried to, three swatches of yarn that I might be using to make the lovely matching litter containers for my new car. (Hey! Don't you judge me — I bought that car then went six weeks and four days without it while it was at the dealer waiting for a part. I'll make as big a deal over it as I want to!) FYI, camel does not felt at all. Interesting, for an animal fiber. Alpaca does, but it was weird and bumpy, so much so that I couldn't tell which part of the swatch was garter stitch and which was stockinette. The wool swatch was too tightly knit to felt much. After running it through the washer, I tried agitating it by hand in some hot water. No luck. I guess I'll have to try the wool yarn again, on bigger needles.

Finally, it's RAINING! The temperature has dropped to a balmy 84° and I'm about to go sit on the porch swing and watch it rain. That is, BTW, the whole reason we have a porch swing.

I expect an upward turn in the attitude.

Hockey and the Daddle!

First, Mike Modano & Marty Turco. Good on 'em both for finding jobs! Rich and I are big Turco fans, so we're happy he'll be playing for Chicago. I think he's as good as he ever was, and just wasn't getting something here in Dallas — support from defense, coaching [my guess], something — that he needed. Good luck, Marty! We'll be cheering for you, though not for the rest of the Blackhawks and not for you to, you know, actually win, when you play the Stars.

Modano…I'm okay with him playing for Detroit. Perfectly fine with it, as long as he plays well enough to not embarrass himself. To be honest, I'm not a huge fan, though I admire him well enough. I just don't think he's that great anymore. He's good, certainly, but not great. And I hope he retires some time before that becomes painfully obvious. And, really, I don't see how he can play again, after that big sendoff he got last season. I'm guessing the next one, when he really does retire, isn't going to be that big a deal.

As for the auction of the Rangers, I'd kind of like to see the team go to the Nolan Ryan group, just because I believe they have the franchise's best interest at heart. Who knows what Mark Cuban has at heart, besides the spirit of a spoiled 14-year-old. But I'm okay with Cuban as part owner…of the Rangers. Not the Stars. Please, God!

And, finally, this little gem. The Unclutterer blog (notice the link to your left, there) sets aside Wednesdays to showcase a Unitasker, those ridiculous items that only do one thing (the kitchen is especially prone toward them, though they can appear anywhere in the house). Today it featured the Daddle. You need to see it for yourself. Be absolutely sure, though, to read the customer reviews!

Back to real life

I'm back from North Carolina and San Antonio, with no company and even free of the spousal unit for the rest of the week. I'm committed to thirty Superpages articles about my current topic. I also need to finish cleaning the last section of the patio, get everything out of the breakfast room that's been waiting to be stored in the garage, and water everything outside so it has a chance to live through this 100°F+ week.

Time to get to work!