If I could save time in a bottle, I'd probably drink it by mistake so why bother?

Oh.  Well.  Hi there.

And where the hell have you been?  Oh wait.  That's your line.

First of all, let's all just lay our cards on the table and agree that the title of this post makes no sense at all.  I know, ok?  I'm rusty. It's been awhile.  You don't take a month off, come back, and start tossing down awesome titles.  Well, maybe if you are someone else you do, but someone else probably doesn't go walkabout for a month, either.  Do Australians still say that?  Did they ever say that?  Mrs. P are you there?  Crikey.  That's a big knife, Mrs. P.

Okay I'm done.  Unless you have an alligator that needs to be wrestled for no apparent reason.

Now I'm done.  Let's move along.  So welcome baaack.  This is my blooogggg.  This is where I write, like, all my personal thoughts and feelings and oh, just whatever comes into my mind, like really random stuff, you know....

Well, that's interesting. I seem to be channeling Paris Hilton now.  Great.  That's just great.  If Brittany shows up, I'm leaving.  This automatic writing thing is for the birds.  Other people channel dead poets and playwrights.  I channel vapid socialites and feisty old black women.  No offense Pearl.  We have a lot of fun, we do.  Especially when you drive.  But just once, I wish I could channel someone profound.  Like Ghandi.  Or Elvis.

Anyway.  What I started to write about, what I MEANT to write about before the voices took over, was my sad time perception disability. 

Sometimes I get up in the morning and I think, gee, it would be nice to go for a walk.  But then I don't because, you know, a walk around the neighborhood is going to take a half hour and I have stuff to do, like drink this coffee and read junk mail.  Maybe tomorrow, I think. 

But one day, I did.  I did go for the walk.  And you know what?  It is amazing how far you can walk in ten minutes. 

This, friends, is the story of my life.  I think that everything I need to do, or should do, will take longer than it actually does so I put it off for the day when I have more time, except that day never seems to come. 

Cleaning out the spare bedroom takes roughly 1.25 hours, as I recently discovered, but I was saving it for a day when I had approximately 234 hours to spare.  Imagine my pleasure at all that time I had left over?  That might have been the day I went for the walk, come to think of it.

Paradoxically, the things I want to do seem to take much more time than I anticipate.  Dinner with friends?  Sure.  I tell BigB I'll be home by 8:30 pm.  BigB knows I won't be home until 10. Watch five episodes of NY Housewives-sure, that'll take about 1/2 hour.  I have time.  Stop at the Shell station for gas?  No way, I'm running late. And I'm quite sure that stir fry takes at least two hours to make.  I don't care what those iron chefs say, stir fry is not quick.  All that chopping?  Are you kidding me?  Getting the stuff out of the fridge?  Putting it back?  Finding all the little bowls to put all the different chopped up stuff in?  Oh.  And then you have to cook the rice, too?  Come on.  That's not a walk in the park, mate.  That's a commitment.  Put a ring on that stir fry and call the minister.

This illogical mindset carries over into the workplace.  My work day starts at 8:30 am.  I like my job.  I try to get there early.  Invariably, I am 10 minutes late.  This is because if I have to leave at 8:00 am and I am all ready to go at 7:50, I will decide to change my clothes, or clean out the dishwasher, or start a load of laundry, or look for something I don't need but that has just crossed my mind as something I haven't seen in awhile.  I do this because in my own warped mind I am ahead of schedule.  But in the process of doing this one small thing that I know I can finish, I will completely lose track of time and forget that I even need to go to work.  At 8:10, I will look up from the article I am reading about making my own floor wax that I just came across in a nine-year-old Martha Stewart magazine that I found in the bottom of the box I was looking in because I thought the other thing I was looking for that I don't need but haven't seen for awhile might be in there, and I will yell, "Shit. I'm late!" When I get to work, I'll say to my boss, "God, that littleb is slowwww as molasses".  The sole reason I had children is so that I could blame them for all the times I am late.  My boss knows better but he won't say anything because he knows that at 4:20, ten minutes before my day ends, I will start looking for one more thing to do and be there another half-hour.  Really, my time perception disability is working out quite well for him.

So time plays tricks on me.  I really have no internal clock.  I have no internal GPS, either, for that matter, but that's a story for another day.  As Thoreau once said, "Time is but a stream I go a-fishin' in".  It is also the same stream that, incidentally, I will look for shiny rocks in, stick my toes in, skip stones across, and take a nap by.  In my mind, it's all good.  I have all the time in the world except for the times when I have no time at all. 

Have you ever noticed, by the way, that the busiest people, the people who should, by some law of physics, have the least amount of time, are the ones who accomplish the most.  Oh you know who you are.  You people are gods to me.  Word.

You know who else seems to have a lot of time on her hands?  Martha Stewart.  Make your own floor wax, indeed.  Is she insane?  I don't have time to wax my floors, Martha.  I have at least 4 back issues, circa 1989, in this box I just found that I have to read first.  After I've learned how to make solar origami paper lanterns and hand carve miniature gourds into adorable christmas ornaments, then maybe we can talk floor wax, okay?

I've missed you guys.  I'll be by to visit soon.  I can't wait.

Chicken out