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Things I Do When I Should Be Doing Something Else
- Check my pockets for loose change
- Bake cakes
- Make jam
Make chutney (It's all been inedible so has been given up as a bad job.)- Read novels
- Read poetry
- Visit bookshops
- Play chess
Play online Scrabble (Abandoned as it Got Out of Hand.)- Play with my virtual fish. Singular. (Don't ask.)
- Get cross with the Daily Mail
- Fire off emails to the Daily Mail
- Wash windows
- Pull up dandelions
- Groom my eyebrows
- Rearrange my notebook collection
- Stroke the pure, virgin paper in my notebook collection
- Daydream
- Drink coffee
- Dust the bookshelves
- Paint my toenails
- Write lists
- Walk round the park
- Stare at the river
- Witter
- Trawl Facebook
- Do Sudoku puzzles
- Make bread
- Listen to BBC Radio 4
- Doodle
- Ink in all the Os in the newspaper headlines
- Despair at Disgruntled Poets
Debate with Disgruntled Poets (Argue with an idiot and a spectator won't be able to tell the difference.)- Search for quotations by P.G. Wodehouse and Mark Twain
- Despair that I never have and likely never will say anything as clever (see above).
- Wonder at the idiosyncracies of antique glass
- Consider the clouds
- Chop vegetables
- Make soup
- Be distracted by dictionaries, looking for the word that I thought I'd remember but have forgotten when I was looking for another word which meant something else entirely
- Roam Blogger
- Dehead Lady Penelope
- Think about what I really ought to be doing
- Be overwhelmed with guilt
- Sigh loudly
- Lie down
- Stare at the cracks in the ceiling
- Calculate how little time I have left to do the thing I ought to be doing
- Play Winner Takes it All on the piano. (Badly.)
- Pick up my pen, put it down again. Google recipes for quince.
Posts
Avoidance can be such hard work...
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering what #48 refers to, really.
ReplyDeleteTruly useful things, for which you should not castigate yourself, are:
Nos. 2-8, the reaction to 9, 13-16 (17 being a sensual pleasure and necessary in its own way)
18 (Unavoidable, if you ask me) 19 (more healthily replaced by green tea but nothing wrong with the activity, per se), 23, 24 (closely related to 18). Jumping ahead now to 31 (the only real sign of serious mental idleness), 35 (an utter, and I do mean utter waste of time and flagr.., no blatan...no PATENtly untrue) 40 (you're not alone, m'dear) 44 (here I refer you to the plethora of self-help books to be found doing 7, or even 20) but 46 is a dangerous thing indeed if 48 really bothers you. Time spent doing 49 is, in my ex-piano teacher's view, more appropriately called 'practice' or could even seen as beneficial in much the same way as 6 or even 27, and most definitely should not involve 44. As for the first part of 50, you gave us this, didn't you?
What does one do with quince, whatever it is?
I'm with you in all points except for the two relating to the Daily Mail; unless you need to professionally, why would you read TDM; if you didn't, you wouldn't need to get cross and you'd save letter writing time and paper, plus a stamp.
ReplyDeleteWould you like to become a fridge soup cook. Email me and I'll send you an invitation. You'd be perfect.
@ Jinksy - yes, I'm utterly, utterly spent!
ReplyDelete@ Deborah - your response is more entertaining than my original list
@ Friko - I am very flattered but fear I would spend even MORE time procrastinating (which is was TDM is about TBH).
You'll enjoy wasting another 5 minutes reading this then - courtesy of one of my twitter feeds
ReplyDelete1949 essay on the subtle art of procrastination: http://bit.ly/ahOSAK
Though do try to avoid twitter addiction. No good can come of it...
Invisible Woman - thank you. That was delightful.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, I know my own limitations and am avoiding Twitter even though Broken Biro is trying to lure me into the path of temptation.
I have also avoided eBay, given up a poetic forum (Disgruntled poets are Hard Work), and trawling second hand bookshops online.
Drop the Mail too (from a great height - possibly onto a Disgruntled Poet) for no good will come of reading it. But I can't criticise. On Friday I sorted an extensive range of recently-acquired packet soup into alphabetical order and I've just been... oh never mind.
ReplyDeleteAsparagus, Borscht, Carrot & Coriander, Cockaleekie - sorry, have to stop there. That last one always makes me laugh.
ReplyDeleteHey, Moptop! Do as Friko tells you, otherwise there'll be big trouble. She's scary. Come and dive into the Fridge Soup.
ReplyDelete