January 29, 2007
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The Daily News1 Ever felt like this on a Sunday night?
2 Yeah, me too.3 It's like you wait the entire weekend before thinking of all the stuff you have to get done beginning Monday, and start a scramble around 10 p.m.
4 I generally start with taking out huge stacks of papers and things.
5 Within five minutes, I have a great idea of how to conquer everything for the week, and I'm the cock o' the walk.
6 Then, without warning, there's the one thing...
7 Whatever the one thing is, it's enough to send me into a tizzy for around a half hour, the half hour in which I storm around looking for things, get angry with myself for being such a disorganized dufus, misplace something easy like glasses, or a roll of tape, and then practically give myself a heart-attack before I realize one thing:
Nobody cares. And nobody is worth all that stress.8 It's almost as though I'm telling myself, "You are running all over the place for one or two people who do this stuff to EVERYONE. What's the worst that can happen?"9 For myself, I'm a completely imperfect perfectionist. Oprah calls it the "disease to please", which is really an okay thing, if you have to suck at something.
10 But my goodness. Last night I just wanted to get to doing the DN because it's just a stream-of-consciousness thing that is relaxing and enjoyable, but I also knew I had a ton to do this coming week.
11 The challenge was that I also had a ton of work to do last week! On Saturday I spent over 11 hours working for the school, so I just decided not to do another thing today.
12 Didn't work.
13 I got early insomnia. Started running about like a madman in a royal robe, King Arthur on crack, Moses looking for the tablets, Superman looking for his shorts.
14 All right, perhaps a bit of hyperbole, but you get the idea.
15 I eventually figure stuff out and a nice mellow way to do it on a Monday, when we all just fly under the radar all morning anyway.
16 Every once in a while I need to remind myself that we are all pretty much faking it.
17 Ever hear that tune by Simon and Garfunkel? It's called Fakin' It. Here's an excerpt:
I'm such a dubious soul,
and a walk in the garden
wears me down,
tangled in the fallen vines,
pickin' up the punchlines
I know I'm fakin' it,
not really makin' it
this feeling of fakin' it,
I still haven't shaken it...
18 If life has taught me anything it's that if something happens to me, it probably happens to the guy next to me, and probably happens to the many more. It's a sure bet that nobody walking on God's good earth is perfect.19 And truth be told, none of us wants our own ineptitudes brought into the light.
20 As J. Pierpont Finch says in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, "...remember mediocrity is not a mortal sin..."
21 Ah, the Brotherhood of Man.
22 Moving on: Oprah just came on. No fooling.
23 Synchronicity.
24 Well, I was looking for some of those paranoid images above, writing things like "insanity" and "oh no!" on google images, and I just thought, "help me!" and the Teevee said, "HELP ME!" in some commercial or other.
25 I report those things as they occur just because.
26 But each time some amazing coincidence happens (that one was weird tonight, because as I was thinking those words, they came right off the screen!) it just adds to an impressive amount of coincidences, which I watch carefully.
27 Telling anyone though is like telling someone you have a cold. Or perhaps better, pouring yet more air out of a Dixie cup.
28 I care, only because it just proves stuff.
29 I won't go a step further. I'm plenty relaxed after an early insomnia.
30 I need to go now and get some sleep, because in the morning I have to go back to fussing and fighting.
31 Life's too short. Someone on Teevee just said, "I definitely have to get back to the Daily News..." Words to that affect. She was on Oprah. Ah! Elizabeth Vargas. Yeah, she just said that. And NOW a commercial just came on for some CD called Celtic Women, and one of the songs was Scarborough Fair by...Simon and Garfunkel! Oh, and Vargas used to write for the Daily News. Scarborough Fair. Why, I'll be...
32 Just now. Just after I wrote all that about synchronicity. I swear to you. So much for fussing and fighting.
33 Think of a great coincidence today, and then look at the sun coming through the clouds.
34 It'll all make sense. Every time you take whatever it is you're doing too seriously, just give a glance up to the sky and smile.
35 Have a beautiful day.
~H~
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