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My New Favorite Word is "Done."

Pbbbbbbft.

The theme of this week is "projects that will not end." I have approximately fourteen million Very Important Things to do and they are all, every one of them, clinging to me like backward children, refusing to get their damn lazy butts off of my task list and go out into the world and make something of themselves. Meanwhile, I feel as though I am moving in slow motion, trapped in resin, unable to resist the onslaught or turn my puny, exhausted will against the forces of inertia. Among the things that I am so ready to let go of are:

The magazine project. First it was the ads that people kept being unresponsive and/or bitchy and/or last-minute about. I finally finally got the damn thing laid out, got it to be a multiple of four pages, said no freaking way to a last-minute addition that would have required the finding of another three pages of filler, got it proofread a million times by everyone, figured out why the text of one story kept appearing under the heading of another, etc. I survived the disastrous first attempt to send it to the printer, where my slow little sleepy computer decided to go all crashy from the stress just as the courier was arriving to pick up a disk. Snapped at my boss. Was repentant. Was forgiven. Then we get this...thing back from them, this dishrag, this landfill candidate, as a proof. I do not know what they were thinking. The images: printed wrong. The Very Expensive Ad on the back cover: streaky. The fonts: screwy. All of it, despite their vigorous claims: pretty obviously not my fault. I am in no mood to talk to the printing guy, a guy who goes from defensive to condescending to conciliatory, all the while cracking bad jokes, all in one sentence, all in the same tone of voice, which makes me dizzy. I am in no mood to do this all over again. I do not need this. What I need is for this damn thing to be done, distributed, and out of my hands.

The coat project. The fall coat is almost done. Except that the fall coat has a hem, a hem that must be hand-finished to look right, and it seems that I have created a fall coat which defies the laws of physics. Lay out the fall coat and measure the hem, and the hem is maybe five feet, total. Take up needle and thread and start stitching, and the hem expands to fill the universe. All there is is hem behind me and hem in front of me, as far as I can see, for ever and ever amen. And it is getting cold out, man. And I am having Project Paranoia, wherein one suddenly feels as though what one is doing is totally crappy, not worth the time at all, doomed to fail and look bad and be unflattering and I probably should have thought twice or three times about the material I picked out, cotton twill, what am I a moron, don't I know it rains here? and blah blah. So what is with all this hemming anyway?

The pants that fit project. Back in July I optimistically bought a pair of warm, flannelly, charming gray pants for $9 that were the same amount of too tight as my other pants, because surely by the time the weather got cold I would fit into all of them. Well, here's a dieting tip for you: really really wanting to fit into your pants is apparently not a good substitute for exercise and the reduction of snacks. I should write a book. I could make a mint.

Speaking of which, the solvency project. I keep setting deadlines: by X time, I need to be getting Y number of freelance editing/writing/whatever, fucking typing even jobs, or that's it, I will work at Starbucks. But then I get a little tickle, a little job here or there, and even though it barely counts as pocket money I tell myself that this is a sign, that I should keep going because if I take some minimum-wage counter-jockey job in addition to my current job I will have to work so many hours to make ends meet that I will never get anything else done, never have time to get ahead. And while this is true, really, it's time to make a living again. I am so tired of the monthly bill freakout, the cycle of promises, betrayals and recriminations I go through with my checking account. My Fleet statement is starting to give me that look, the one that means it's wondering if this is really forever, if it made the right choice, if it should maybe be looking for someone a little steadier, someone salaried maybe, someone who doesn't horselaugh and head for the recycling bin when it offers up a "Your Investment Options" brochure.

So, yes. Frustration abounds. Hopefully next week's theme will be "winning lottery tickets for everyone I know" or something.

Posted by hilatron at October 1, 2003 10:44 AM | TrackBack