Oh, to be torn twixt love and duty

ROSEMARY: I guess I'm in a musical mood this week. I was going to call this post "It's procrastination, I know..." (please sing to the tune of "It was fascination, I know...") but this line from a favorite song is even more appropriate.

Sunday I moved containers around the house - should the odd-numbered assortments all have the same color pots or should I mix the terracotta and the stone? Can't tell until you've moved them all, can ya? Yesterday, I spent twenty minutes trying to fish a frog out of my pool because I was convinced he'd die from chlorine poisoning if I didn't. Of course I've been getting up at 5AM to watch the French Open live because it's just not the same thing to watch it on a tape delay.

All this in the same week that I have a pile of work to do.

I've always been a crammer. Tests, papers. I seem to like the heightened energy that comes from the ticking clock ala High Noon. Remember that movie - where Gary Cooper only has an hour to get ready before Frank Miller and his boys come after him? And he should be leaving on his honeymoon with Grace Kelly. Oh, to be torn twixt love and duty.

But I'm always torn twixt love and duty. I want to take a walk with my husband and dog, not really go over my last set of edits - again. like Guido Contini in Nine, I want to be here, but I want to be there.

So I indulge myself and then stay up until the wee hours doing the thing I should have done during working hours like normal people.

JAN: Sure the French Open is the same if you watch it at night. As long as you ignore the news all day, and the little ticker tape thing along the bottom that tells you who has won so far. But back to procrastination (I'm even putting off addressing procrastination, how's that for procrastination?) as a journalist, I was bred on that insane-adrenaline thing you get when trying to make a deadline, so my preferred method of procrastination is to delay the really important stuff and concentrate on the irrelevant details.

And for the record, Ro, I don't think that procrastination on the weekends counts as procrastination. Only WORK WEEK procrastination counts in my rulebook.

HANK: My procrastination is doing little things. Need to close the closet door--but Oh, I'd better put all the short-sleeved tee-shirts hanging in there together. Maybe I should check the white ones to see if they're getting dingy. Weren't there other tee-shirts upstairs? Whoa, I forgot I had those shoes upstairs to take to the shoe guy. So I don't forget, I'll put them by the dining room door . Oh, gosh, the dining room table has all those papers on it I was supposed to file. I'd better do that. Wow, look at these files! They're so out of order. I'd better organize a bit. Awww...look at this card from my grandson Elijah, I haven't talked to him for a while. I'd better go call....

What's your favorite
method of procrastination?