I'm hungry... for time. Because it's the End Of The Year. Time when everyone wants something yesterday, when everything is due all at once.
When someone knocks gently at my office door (or barges in, the usual approach), I cringe. Please, please, please don’t ask me for anything. Please. I scrunch up my eyes and click my heels thrice, hoping they’ll disappear, leave me alone to continue emptying my two-foot high inbox before The New Year commences.
The ivory tower always is a crazy place at the end of any semester. Tests to correct, papers to read, grades to post, research proposals to submit in hopes of garnering potential sponsors’ ‘left-over’ scraps, and project deliverables must be, well, delivered.
Superimpose the End Of The Elementary School Year projects and parties, music nights, shopping for presents, finding a parking space at the mall, making twelve-dozen biscotti for the cookie exchanges, present wrapping, standing in endless post office lines, tree-trimming and carol singing and you’ve got a set-up for extreme corporeal and spiritual anemia.
Writing? Never taking a back seat (sleep does that), my writing projects swell with bossy importance. Gotta meet those End-Of-Annum goals before posting new ones January 1. So I’m busy critting fellow writers’ manuscripts, penning those last few poems for the last class assignment, revising and editing and polishing and burning BRIGHTER THAN BRIGHT and other works in progress, sending out those dratted queries... and, of course, there’s the blog monster…
Feed me. Feed me. Feed me. FEED ME. Everyone and everything yammers for attention, for sustenance. But despite the zaniness, the nutso schedules, the impossibilities of getting everything on my multiple to-do lists crossed off, I am deliriously happy. The busy-ness feeds me in a way no plate of fresh-baked cookies ever could.
And some things I don’t want to end. Putting a poem to rest is like saying goodbye to a good friend. Finishing Jimmy’s DARK SIDE OF THE SOUL, Steve's PRODIGAL SON, Kim’s TAKING ON WATER, and nearing completion of Chrys' MOONCHILD evokes in me a nostalgic yearning to begin their stories… again...
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Good news! There’s a reason for conservatives’ excess happiness – they smoke more pot than their liberal peers. Read about it HERE… Eat dirt? Join the Donkey Party? Uh, I prefer the new alternative…
Peace, Linda
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I am so relieved for that follow-up. I was so flabbergasted by that study you posted about in your last blg that I spent the week at work postulating theories on why the study could come up that way. I was about to write a whole dissertation on it. Who knew it was as simple as pot?
ReplyDeleteYOu remind me of the two of pentacles, Linda, the happy juggler. I don't think I could do what you do, seriously. Sometimes I enjoy the busyness too, but a lot of times I'd much rather be mellow. So, kudos to you for being able to handle it all, and maybe even thrive in it all. You are a rare specimen.
Speaking of mellow, maybe I should go smoke, purely for the purposes of increasing the liberals' mental health stats, you understand!
Being from Vansterdam,now encompassed in an all consuming drug turf war,(the Americanization of Canada?),Allow me to make a suggestion.Vote for Ron Paul.Save us all.
ReplyDeleteHow goes the grading?
ReplyDeleteI know, entirely bland, but a real, non intellectual question.
Hope you are several chiantis in...
well. that certainly explains a lot.
ReplyDeletethat made my day...
Chrys, the 2 of Pents... clunk! was that a ball that just fell on my head? or the sky? the busy-ness is getting overwhelming... more later, friend...
ReplyDeleteSic, thanks for dropping by. Ron Paul...hmmm... a Republican doc, he could save us all, but does he smoke?
Sarah, been sucking down Conundrum, feeling whitish of late, and now have a nice side of Drambuie... who knows what's next - Rusty Nails? The tests and papers are neverending... I am now simply delirious.
Kelley, I am always pleased to make you smile - you deserve much happiness...Peace, Linda
Linda,
ReplyDeleteYou must be one to thrive on 'busyness'. Me? I shut down, say no to parties and sit at my window with a peanut butter blossom cookie and a hot Bailey's and coffee and watch it snow.
I don't think I could do what you do. You're a dynamo!
~Kim
Ah Kim... a cafe et Bailey's and a cookie - alone - sounds mighty appealing. Yes, I thrive on busy-ness, but all I want for Christmas is two minutes of solitude. There's something to be said for skipping off overdrive mode: sanity, appreciation for the moment, and clearer thinking. My 2008 resolution IS to slow down... Peace, friend...
ReplyDelete