Eccentric Flower:199902/paving the road of good intentions

eight february

paving the road of good intentions

Mental note to myself: Call my mother in the morning. I have lost count of the days, and when I wrote that date above, I realized today is her birthday.

The last few days have been like that. Time slipping by while I do nothing useful. Unlike the "lost weekend" last weekend, this time I can trace where the time went; unfortunately, I don't like the way I spent it.

Right now anything that is not one of the writing projects or work-related is tagged as "useless." I have deliberately placed myself in a narrow box so I'll get the correct things done, and it is frustrating to watch the hours slip by anyway. The return of my old friend Chronic Insomnia is part of the problem, and I can't control that, but really:

Did I need to spend nearly three hours on Saturday night making a new compilation cassette? It's a very nice cassette, but I don't listen to tapes anymore and neither do any of my friends weird enough to appreciate it.

(Note to the record companies and their lawyers: Of course I am not sending copies of songs I don't hold the rights to. That would be a violation of copyright law, something which, as a writer, I feel very strongly about protecting. The fact that such a tape would act as an inducement, in many cases, for the recipient to go buy the very CDs you're guarding, and the fact that collectively you're a bunch of greedy assholes who really could use a little piracy just to puncture your overfilled bellies, are obviously not germane - after all, I'd hate it if one of my stories appeared in an anthology without my permission. So go back to fighting MP3 sites and pretending that the web presents no threat to your distribution model; I'll be good, honest.)

Did I need to break my solemn vow and watch some of the impeachment proceedings, thus placing a permanent black mark on my soul? I couldn't help it; I had to find out what Monica actually sounds like.

Did I need to rent two really obscure Disney films and spend an evening watching them? Of course not, but I did learn that the people who say Disney animation never gets "wacky," in the way Warner Bros, Tex Avery, et al. do, have obviously only watched the "big" Disney films. They let their hair down in the minor ones. The Three Caballeros is one of the weirdest things I've ever seen, like the Marx Brothers trying to do a serious travelogue film while having drug flashbacks.

Did I need to buy a virtual Pikachu? Um, no, but it's sooooo cute! Okay, I have successfully resisted virtual pets until now, but this one is actually a clock and pedometer with a critter living in it. You don't need to babysit Pikachu - just bribe it occasionally. Pikachu eats (and sometimes emits) electricity. When you walk, your footsteps are converted to "watts." The more watts you give Pikachu, the better Pikachu likes you. If you look in on Pikachu, you may find it playing, eating, sleeping, etc depending on the time of day. What can I say? I already got my twenty bucks' worth of entertainment, so I refuse to feel guilty about the purchase.

You can see that not only am I not working, I am not at my most focused. I've been scatterbrained like this for three days. I'm going to go redo my nails, just so I can say I accomplished something - anything - tonight. I'm on the slippery slope here, folks. It's not too long before I'll be sitting on the couch all night in a housecoat, with my hair in curlers, watching TV and eating those horrid cheese puff things that smell bad, taste worse, and leave orange goo all over your hands.

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