Thursday, February 12, 2004

How to Waste an Hour

I believe that my lack of writing productivity is due to my undiagnosed case of attention deficit disorder. This afternoon, for example, I expertly put all the fruits of my loins down for a nap that is guaranteed to last for an hour-and-a-half to two hours. Wide open space, right? Space and time and silence enough to write. A beautiful thing. I applied my arse to my little writing perch, and my fingers danced gracefully along the keyboard. For seven minutes. Then the following things happened:

1) I stood up and walked around the kitchen. I ate a slice of orange left over from my kids' lunch (the fruit of the fruit of my loins?!).

2) I returned to the keyboard. Typed fifty or sixty words.

3) I wandered into the den and turned on MTV. I danced with wild and scary abandon to that Missy Elliot video where everyone's wearing a t-shirt that says, "Hot." I pretended that I, too, was wearing a t-shirt that said, "Hot." And my tweed hat, dammit. I winked at imaginary people; I cocked my head as if to say, "Hey, what's up?" Then my thighs started to hurt.

4) I took a seat on the couch and changed channels. General Hospital, my true guilty pleasure. A fire was raging at the Port Charles Hotel. The angst, the drama, the hair. It was too much for me.

5) Back at the computer, I wrote a good solid paragraph. Then I went outside to check the mailbox. There was no mail yet, but gads the weather is lovely right now. I sat on my steps and let the sun kiss my spf'ed face.

6) Back inside, I determined that because I had danced so vigorously to the aforementioned Missy Elliot song, I deserved some cookies. I baked five of those little "break-n-bake" chocolate chip numbers. For the twelve minutes it took them to get softy and gooey, I wrote a little more. Then I poured myself a glass of milk and ate my cookies while watching more fire! more drama! more mascara running down faces! on General Hospital.

This was how I killed an hour of my life. I have only 304 words to show for myself, so I did the logical thing: I started to blog. The girls will be up any minute now.

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