This Journal
9.25 Getting Away With It

WARNING: VULGAR LANGUAGE AHEAD

Do you ever start the day with great intentions and then end up pissing it all away? I sometimes start the day with great intentions and then end up pissing it all away.

ALL CLEAR

I've got plenty to do.
But I've been studying procrastination long enough to know that I can get away with it under certain circumstances. Today seemed to present those circumstances.

I've got this stack of papers. Papers of all sorts, but mostly, of course, school papers. After a moderately late evening online, I slept in a bit. Had a quick breakfast and a bit of a linger over the newspaper. Sr. Grace appeared for a few minutes...no biggie, no time lost...it's always good to see her. Then it was upstairs to work.

What did it? Where did I go astray?

Easy answer. I turned on the computer. Check the e-mail - nothing much. Gotta write a journal entry today because I missed yesterday. Gee, we're getting close to the end of the month. You know what that means. A makeover for This Journal. So I say to myself, "I'll just get something started and then I'll have plenty of time to think about it over the next week or so."

You can imagine the rest. Or maybe not.

I did begin a redesign of the journal and found something pretty neat. So neat, in fact, that I thought, "You know, The Closet is starting to get pretty funky; it could use a little touch up, too." So I began to work on the homepage, using some ideas from the new journal layout. Well....

One does not redesign an entire website in fifteen minutes. Around one o'clock my stomach and my head told me I needed food. This was good luck because while I was eating something I got a call from Jeff, just back from Kairos. Good luck because if I'd been in my room I would not have received the call because my line is plugged into the computer, not into the phone. (I like speaking with Jeff because he is awake and alive, and we usually only type at each other online. It's good to be remember that there's a real person attached to all that.)

Then it was back upstairs to fiddle some more. But first another quick e-mail check...and whaddya know? A letter from my long lost brother Pat. And it's a real good letter because I had to scroll down to get it all. In said letter Pat praises my writing in this space, says it should be paper-published. Well, this goes to my head for about twelve seconds. And I smile. But I think, "That boy needs to get out - even more than I do."

Then I kicked into Closet Design with the energy of Dominic going after the toughest stains. Somewhere in there I paused long enough to notice a couple fire trucks down the street and a plume of smoke from someone's backyard - stupid grill fire most likely. Then shadows got me thinking I should try to jog before sunset. It's such a nice day out there. So around five - no, six - I'm off.

But we're renting the stadium this evening, so the track is out. I hit the streets. Running long straight stretches then turning now and then into the neighborhoods around here. All over, roundabout. A crazy squirrel leaps down from a tree trunk to cuss me out real good. I leap up like a mad man and relish the fear in its tiny black eyes. I run all over the place. The neighbors see me coming and hold back their dogs and small children. I'm a whirlwind.

I bring it to a close by running over near the stadium where wimpy little kids look nervous and lost in way too large red uniforms. Off in the distance the other team warms up, howling like a not-so-distant army. Braveheart.

And back, where I run into George O'Keefe up from Woodlawn and have a nice tiny chat.

So here I am at 8:32, reporting on the day that went away, thinking about the big big mountain of work I've gotta get to tomorrow. Maybe I should set my alarm for four a.m. and make a day of it.

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