Plans.

A couple of nights ago, I happened upon a slew of the calmed-down, basic-cable versions of Sex in the City. For those of you who remember it, it was right after Aidan and Carrie and Big and Natasha all had their sad roundelay, and subsequently Carrie regretted it, and Charlotte and Trey were trying to be together and trying to have a baby, etc. I fell into these episodes like they were my best friend, walking down the street when I least expected her, and we went to get Cokes and french fries (this would have happened a long time ago, before there was such a thing as carbs and therefore we could eat what we wanted).  I watched Carrie consider important narcissistic items whilst wearing cosmic print shortalls with a chiffon shirt over them. And prancing in her crazy shoes, which, in one of the slew of episodes I watched, she also got mugged for. Etcetera and so on, except I still kind of liked her, as I always did.

Yes, there I lay on the bed, letting those stories just come at me, as if I had nothing better to do, such as

• make my actual, as opposed to my theoretical, syllabi
• write the reports I just dropped mid-bullet point back when the semester skidded to a halt and I waltzed off to a wedding and then Christmas
• I don't know, iron my white shirts?
• revise my manuscript, maybe?
• put together my travel request
• stop all my online shopping already
• etc.

Tomorrow, I need to make progress on several of the items on this list. Also, and perhaps contradictorily, I would like to be able to drop everything if my son wants to go get a burrito, because he's moving across America soon, and how many more burritos are in my future, at least burritos consumed with my son? Not that many, you guys. My burrito-eating days, with my son, are numbered, because mortality, that's why. Ergo I should be able to drop my syllabi in favor of a burrito. Syllabi are eternal, in that they will always be with us, but lunch dates with children are not. They are finite. I feel this argument is becoming circular. Moving on:

Also, I want to work out. And there are housekeeping things that could take up my time forever, such as putting the sheets back on the downstairs beds, and deciding once and for all what things I can put or give away so that there are no more clothes lying around unhoused in my bedroom. You know, general it's-the-new-year stuff. Like: NO MORE! of whatever it is there's too much of. 

Because I don't have anywhere to go tomorrow except possibly to Burrito Town, I can theoretically really get a lot of things done. So that's my plan: move through the list and check them off/strike them through. Until I have a veritable tiger of a list, i.e., striped (with strikethroughs, do you see the picture I am conjuring? with my words?). At least a tiny little part of me suspects that there may be some languor and dillydallying, though. Languor and dillydallying are my specialties.

I wish there was someone in my life who would come up to my apartment and cook me a steak, bloody, to strengthen my blood, and smack me and say Snap out of it!


That's right, tonight it was Moonstruck on TV. Classic of straightening out your life by having, then changing, your plans.