I hope not

In my last year at UT, I had to take a capstone English course where I had to write a journal everyday for the entire semester. The entries had to be in the morning preferably before you had spoken to anyone. It had to do with this little book called the Artist's Way. I'm sure if you've ever taken a Creative Writing class you've heard of it. It's got a lot of froo-froo arty stuff, but the best part is that it's a 12 step program for artist's block.

Isn't that great? So, if I'm a writer (stop laughing), and I somehow am blocked, this book equates my lack of writing to an addiction. I did wish that one of the steps was to apologize to all the people you have sent bad stories/ideas/poetry to.

Anyway, my point was that when I had to keep this journal, I only lasted about 6 weeks. I remember accosting my professor after class one day. I was having a bad, bad week. I told her that my journal became these "to-do" lists and it was driving me crazy. At first, it was a daily recap of events from the day before. Then I started working in all the studying I was doing. And then I began to work through my demons (one being my 9th grade English teacher). And then it was just these lists. Long ass lists about what I was going to do that day. What I wanted to accomplish. Well, it was all going okay and then I started to melt down that 6th week.

After my confession to my professor I had realized that the reason I was getting so depressed and couldn't write in my journal is that I wasn't getting my to-do lists done -- ever. I was used to being disappointed in other people (tiny violin), and disappointing myself (just not every day). Sure I had failed tests, hell even a class. I had pissed off many people. I had almost not gotten into UT. But all of that stuff passed, because although it was on my mind for sometime, it was never staring me in the face every morning before I even wiped my eye-bogeys.

I mean I wrote these lists down, all I needed to do was do it. It's not like the list had "Meet the man of my dreams" or "Get into law school" or "Be white". They were things like "Read book about semen transactions in Sambia", "don't blow off studying for Met game", "Only have 2 beers". So when I woke up with no clue about cultural relativism in remote African locations, and my head was banging just like Mike Piazza's homerun the night before, I knew I was failing me. Repeatedly.

Those are the things I was failing at -- regular stuff. Things I had to make simple choices about. So each morning, I was faced with the inevitable failure of my doings from the day before.

And I was beginning to hate myself, but still didn't have the real desire to change anything, but it's funny how this story ends.

After my teary diatribe about how this exercise was showing me what a real loser I was and that I was addicted to my own laziness and apathy, my professor spoke up.

She said "Same thing happens to me. It's not for posterity you know. Just stop. It's clearly affecting you negatively."

Her PhD is in English remember, not Psych. We English majors stick together.

Where does this leave me? I'm picking up where I left off almost 10 years ago, and although there have been so many changes in my life, two things remain - the laziness and of course, the Mets.

In an effort to save you from boredom and to save me from stabbing myself in the eye for my utter failures, I vow to never post to-do lists. And if I inevitably forget this rule, please do three things -- 1)Stop reading the blog 2) Tell me I'm pretty 3) Call my husband and tell him to make me an appointment with a licensed therapist

Or maybe just take me out for a couple beers, watch a Met game and don't talk about semen with me.