anti-multi-tasker.

This VERY second?? Finding the best gourmet cupcakes
in all of Atlanta.

I have a LOT to do this weekend, Internet. This is both good and bad. Good because, quite frankly, I'm the type of person who just needs to be occupied. Left to my own devices, I'll veg out on Google and Netflix and obsessively check all my tweet analytics so I can imagine who's paying attention to me on that strange "social" sphere--what they look like, where they live, why they care, and how willing to flirt with me they may be. 

Bad because, quite frankly, I can multi-task many different things, but doing it makes me angry and peevish. And so when faced with multiple places to be and many things to go, my brain literally shuts down. This is when Procrastinator Amy raises her ugly head and all Hell breaks loose. Well, actually, Hell doesn't break loose as much as it just kind of casually floats into the air as passive aggressive, lazy balloons of half-completed chores and completely forgotten appointments. I'm lucky if I remember to dress myself on those kinds of days. By the end of the night, I'm lying nearly comatose in bed, limp haired and sallow skinned, mindlessly flipping through all the pay movie channels, wondering what the hell is WRONG with me. (This is the burden of being an INFP, though, I am told.)

So this weekend I'm busy, and this is GOOD. Good for me, good for Miss M, good for my job, good for my city/state/country, good for Humanity. You're welcome, Humanity.

1-I have waded through the 10,000,000,000,000+ papers I needed to grade and am down to 500,000+ to finish grading--all Language Arts tests that will make me consider teaching while standing on my head while doing arm farts if THAT will keep their attention and make them learn the material. Then I have to just add the 10,000,000,000,000+ grades to the online gradebook. This will take a mere 12 hours and 5,000 cups of coffee. And it will benefit the children and their families this much, in the long run: 0. Because you know why? Nobody writes Friendly Letters anymore--they text.

2-I'm going to watch my nephew play baseball. My nephew T is a mad baseball fanatic. He knows all the players. And their numbers. And things like what a double play is, why a box score matters, and his batting average along with the batting averages of 500 famous baseball players. I like to go to these events to watch the crowds--I wonder about some of the angrier parents there, the ones who get vocally upset when their kid doesn't get to hit a ball or run some bases. Because the kid usually doesn't appear to care about getting to do that, but DOES appear to care that their parent is in the stands screaming about it. Because the grown up cares, the grown up cares a whole hell of a lot. (One day, grown ups will stop making everything about them, and childhood trauma at the hands of well-meaning adults will end. I just keep hoping for it. In my own family as well.)

3-And I have to take my mom prepared (not by me) dinners. Because she had shoulder surgery and she can't move her arm, so she's completely reliant on my stepfather's goodwill and ability to stick some food in the microwave. I would cook for her, but one time I roasted (I use that term loosely) a chicken for a pregnant friend and her husband and I'm so surprised her child didn't come out of her womb with brain damage from the botulism.

4-And last (but not least), I have to write up my DIG (on USA!) episode 9 review. But I can't even begin typing until I've mourned the death of a fictional character. This is JUST like when Jodi Picoult killed off the one character in MY SISTER'S KEEPER--I wept over that character for about a day, and I couldn't believe Jodi actually did it. I was in admiring awe of her for being able to do it, but at the same time wanted to throw something hefty at her for doing it. 

So I'll be doing exactly that tomorrow evening when I re-watch the horrific scene with the one death of a fictional character again. Subjecting myself to it over and over, because I'm a storyteller masochist, apparently. My brain's been replaying it over and over, because it was pretty gory and that's just what my particular brain does when exposed to gore, but also because it involved a character I hearted a lot. This Kill Your Darlings thing is the hardest thing about storytelling, I say. Way worse than what any critic could do to you. 

5-And I need to do a write up on all my Temple Mount research. What a fascinating, haunting place that is. And worrisome. And sacred. Bitter hope, is what I'd call that. 

Speaking of bitter hope, I have 15 days left to my school year. And I still haven't made up an 8 hour snow day they're making the teachers do online (as if I haven't clocked about 500+ extra hours on my own dime at that place all year--and I do mean "on my own dime" literally, because I buy all my own copy paper, laser printer cartridges, along with school supplies for my really impoverished students...when they start recognizing this is a real thing that actually happens at urban poor public schools and the teachers there should be treated with reverence and like, yes, royalty, I'll know Humanity has finally slowed its rapid descent to hell in a handbasket). 

At any rate. This is the time of year things get really stressful. Because I have a LOT to do. I'm very occupied, but not like Wall Street. So I'm going to be focusing and taking a lot of deep, cleansing breaths. Maybe trying some meditation videos finally. Or, you know, drinking a LOT of wine.

Well, I certainly hope so, Pema.