Getting it done: a letter.

Dear the middle of the night:

--or more precisely, 2:30 a.m., which I know precisely because I checked. I checked my cell phone when I awoke because my head was hot and maybe I felt my cold having a small insurgency in the skirmishes of the night. I guess that's what they are. I know I felt I was fighting something.

So one more DayQuil, a swig of water, a settling of covers, a small storm of thoughts. I thought: at least I can spend the morning at home. I thought, I only have one class, I can get it together for that. I thought, If I'm actually sick, why not stay home? And that last was the thought that I tied around my finger to remember in the morning, when I awoke again at seven. It was not exactly a reprise of the dark hours, but it was a variation on a theme: one more DayQuil, a swig of water, a storm of thoughts--and I was up.

Middle of the night, it was precisely there, in your 2:30 a.m., that I came to my senses. If I'm sick, why not stay home? I clung to this sensible thought as if I were in a fever and the thought were the promise of water. So I sent an e-mail to the class and to my chair, and settled in.

And even though I had awoken in you, the middle of the night, the 2:30 a.m. locus of my ill epiphany, I had a day that looked like an exemplary page from a Covey planner:

• graded a discussion.
• conversed via e-mail with students.
• brokered a tentative agreement in an e-mail with a colleague.
• narrated and captioned four short instructional videos.
• ate soup for lunch. (soup is always exemplary, in my opinion.)

Because of my sick, ergo stay home day, I believe I am on the mend, the middle of the night, though I may yet greet you a few hours hence. Even so, you shall not fell me.

be it so resolved,

htms

Dinner.

Son: What's for dinner?

Me: Thought I'd make soup. (chopping)

Son: . . . soup seems so . . . 50s to me.

Me: (laugh/chop)

Son: . . . like, it just seems kind of old-fashioned.

Me: (now sauteing/laughing)

Son: . . . when I hear "soup," I think of one word: Depression.

Thirteen ways of looking at April 13.

1. Pancakes for breakfast.

2. I got to wear my yellow coat.

3. New poem.

4. However, odd poem.

5. Walk with Bruiser in the cold.

6. Escaped from challenging meeting dignity etc. intact.

7. Saw Dr. Write at her signing. Huzzah!

8. Rose to the challenge of making dinner after long day.

9. Inspiring homemade mac and cheese--perhaps the best ever made by anyone, ever? Perhaps.

10. Cute shoes.

11. The historian greeted me when I got home.

12. I shall arise early to greet the dawn and also the Board of Trustees on the morrow.

13. In the meanwhile, I shall sleep. Huzzah!

Back to work.

Tomorrow, the historian goes back to work and so do I.  This week, I intend to sort and organize and give away and re-engineer and make my chaos submit to order or know the reason why. Possibilities:

1. Give some books and/or cds away.
2. Give a whole bunch of clothes and shoes away.
3. Ruthlessly get rid of a LOT of paper artifacts.  Maybe without even looking at them.  Much.
4. Move the big chair where the desk is and vice versa.
5. Contemplate how things got to this state of affairs.  Try to do this without sinking into despair.

Why have I not done this during the past week, you may be wondering, the week in which I saw six movies and barely cooked and only started to clean stuff up yesterday.  The answer is that cleaning up my nonsense is private.  Which is why I'm talking about it on my blog but not showing you pictures.  I am just not sure that anyone besides me and my dog needs to observe me sorting through the pile of shirts I have accumulated, or watch me in my deliberations, or listen to me mutter to myself.  Significantly, I feel this same way--that it should be private--about shopping (ah! see #5 above).  

Somehow, this blessed rage for order (O pale Ramon!) is connected with what I am imagining will be a storm of productivity in my projects.  Actually, I have a lot of faith that this will be so.  Some amount of order will be the result of this organizing mania.  And that amount of order will be exactly what is necessary for me to feel, even if this feeling is ephemeral, that I am on top of things enough to create, to write, to make.  So tomorrow, when I feel all sweaty with the effort of streamlining the stuff of my life, it will be good sweat, the kind that makes me feel that I can do almost anything.  

Lisa's Stuff:  Watch your back, because I am about to kick your ass.