Results tagged "Brain"

I need to write about something. But where to start is kind of escaping me right now. I could write about the weather, which is undeniably boring. Or I could write about how the babysitter was an hour late… and called to see if she should bother showing up at all… and I was all like, UM, YEAH! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? Because it is and isn’t her fault that she’s 19 and therefore does not understand that although it isn’t her fault that she doesn’t have her own car… it still is her fault on every possible level. But now I just remembered that I several other things to do… so the rest of this post is going to have to wait. 

So what did you do today? Did you dance through the streets? Did you brandish the arms? Did you stand guard? Did you talk the talk and walk the walk? Did you?

What’s that? I know, what do I expect? You to have this lavishly preposterous Monday? Well, actually yes. I expect to live vicariously through the people that read this… so GET ON WITH IT. Hey hey… don’t get angry. I’m not pointing any fingers… wait, what? What did I do? Why, LET ME TELL YOU.

I kicked off the day with a typical morning conversation with the doctor’s office — Yes, although they faxed the prescription on April 6th, it was never received. Which is why I don’t have my brain pills.. otherwise tainted as vitamins. Oh no.. never received and I am in complete D deficiency. Call back and leave a message? Why, aren’t I talking to a real person now? Oh, because you only fax and email requests that are left on the voicemail? Am I getting this right? You do realize that you are talking to me right now and you have my file open right in front of your nose… you know this, right? Because IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE.

Then I drove to a local strip mall to have some proposals bound while I took my son to Starbucks. Yes. That’s right. INSANITY. But that’s NOT ALL. First I went to the grocery store and bought lettuce… because I just might have a SALAD. I know. MADNESS.

And then, just before the babysitter called suggesting that she wasn’t going to make it until she felt me tightening my grip on her ponytail — dragging her through the telephone, I thought about throwing in a load of laundry… but then I forgot and sat down to write this glimmer of sparkling genius instead. Now aren’t you happy about that? I mean, what would you have done if you hadn’t read this? All things aside and nonsense about living your life… right? I mean really. And now what? And now WHAT AM I GOING TO DO? I’m going to make dinner because it’s 5:10pm and THAT’S WHAT WE DO AT 5:10pm. And thank GAWD I got all of this out of the way! Because somewhere scattered throughout the fabulousness of this weather trenched day I also did about 3 hours of actual design work. Real work. For real money. Which has left me limp and hanging by a thread… and before you get all manic and curse the gods of MY FOOT WHEN WILL SHE STOP? I’m going. I hope you had a good day too.  

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You want to see how my brain feels this week? You should take a look at this rattle over at Small for Big. With a brain that squirrelly, this week’s picks are more feel good than ever. When I was a kid I used to say “Simple pleasures for complex minds, we need the break”. Yeah, I was a nerd, you hadn’t guessed that yet? With the weird prose I write? Regardles, let’s focus on visually lovely things that might help my mind rest a bit. Feel free to buy any one of these and send it to me pronto. I’d love you forever.

1. Roost
   Nairobi Stool, Velocity Art & Design $150
2. Offshore
   Convertible Top, Free People $48
3. Silver
   Deer Necklace, Retro Skor, $16.99
4. Built
   by NYC Shoulder Bag – Girard Collection, Swiss Knife Shop $69.99
5. Woodland
   Owl Wing Headband, Sleepy King, $16
6. Ry’s addition to this week’s Random Five — because we are on complex patterns and she loves to shop for her niece, (slightly obsessed with little girl clothes because she has a bruiser of a boy two year old) — Check out a new FTB Twitter Follower VYSSAN LULL’s Retro Dress Orange by Strömming, $62:

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Guest Bird #5 – Mari

I’m Mari (rhyme that with Atari, not Gary, thank you). I’m so happy to have a place to ramble on and on and on and on, without having to post about the things I post about at my usual blog – Small for Big. Hope you’re ready for that Ry!
 

I’ve been looking forward to writing a post for days, but I keep running out of time – or more importantly, I keep forgetting it because of all the other random little things that take up my time. They keep pushing the writing aside. So now that I’m actually pushing all the other things aside, it seemed appropriate to write about the random business that is my life.
 

I mean, come on, I no longer have a day job! (lost that to a lay off in April) I should have oodles of time! The problem is, I forget to account for the 10 month old nipping at my heels. Ok, she’s a baby not a puppy, but she does nip at everything. My daughter is definitely a time-muncher. In my new life as a Work-At-Home-Mom (though the work is rather sporadic, see above) I’ve been eating up interviews with other Designer/Etsy/Artsy moms who all seem to agree: when your children are awake, your focus is on them. I agree, in theory. But in practice there’s always one more email, one more website, a little more to draw, and on my lazy days, a bit more TV to watch. The bigger issue is my Over Achiever brain (I blame that tendency on my liberal arts Undergraduate Degree) (and of course I said Undergraduate because I’m an OA and I also have a Graduate Degree). As an OA, I forget about the reality of the day’s schedule and assume I can get 10 things done. Instead, I should be choosing 1. Then, at 10:30 PM when I finally decide to give in and watch some bad Conan O’Brien (and I think he’s getting worse) I might actually be able to say I accomplished something.
 

I had an old boss who used to email herself the top 5 things she’d accomplished at the end of every week. She used them as a record for reviews later on. But when I managed to copy her practice for a couple of months, I found it actually helped me remember what I’d been doing. Actually, as I think about it, I’d bet a lot of my “time management” issues stem from my inability to remember anything.
 

Anyway, the end of all of this rambling is this. I’ve decided to try out a “master” schedule.  Because the larger problem – larger than over-scheduling my days – is that it appears I’ve chosen to focus on 5 different career paths. Blogger, Freelance Designer, Artist, (future) Etsy Shop Owner, and Mom. We’ll analyze the feasibility of that at another time. Given that the work week has 5 days in it, I’ve decided to pick a focus for each day. In the order listed above. Obviously I’ll still be all of those things – Mom in particular – on all of those days, but let’s see if choosing one thing at a time can help me make some progress. I’ll let you know how it’s going.

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Yesterday…while I was twittering, checking my email, designing a logo, writing an allergen free cookie recipe and driving back from Hampton Bays where I had purchased a pound of nutritional yeast, it occurred to me that my brain was on overload. Genetically modified soy overload. Information anxiety overload. Kids are riding around in spaceships when they are really hiding in the attic before blowing chunks on the Today Show overload. David Byrne was on the radio and a woman was walking by pushing a terrier in a baby carriage. It had started to rain again. I had reached maximum capacity. My mind was feeling a little like mush and slowly I started to think about Dr. Pepper – and how I used to love to walk barefoot up my parent’s street to Ada’s candy store to buy the soda and then linger back home again. Then I thought about the time that my parents gave me a few dollars and told me to go to Ada’s to buy some gum before we left for a flight out of town. I remember thinking  – wow, dollars worth of gum? What kind of gum should I get? I told Ada to fill the bag with bucks worth of every kind of gum she had. She was a little grumpy – suggesting that my parents didn’t really want that much gum, but I insisted. Every kind of gum she had.

This was just my take on the situation – my analysis of the quest I had been given. There were no specifics involved–had there been, I would have done what was expected of me. I would have just bought one pack of Wrigley’s and returned with change. I could have been spared the disappointment, but the concept of every kind of gum was way more fun. Or I could have just listened to Ada. But what did she know? She’d only been running a penny candy store for 100+ odd years listening to kids  – one of these and one of those and two of those… yelling at teenagers trying to steal cigarettes… attempting to sneak up the stairs in the back to see just how many bodies she was preserving… one of these, four of those.. 2 more of those, no not those.. those… that one, and two of… OH ADA, JUST GIVE ME THE GUM. And so she did, and when I returned home with all of the newly purchased gum it was unbelievable to me that my decision making skills were a little off the mark. What do you mean you don’t want dollars worth of every kind of gum Ada had? But don’t you know that in 20-something years from now I am going to be driving back from Hampton Bays with a pound of nutritional yeast remembering this?

A few weeks later, it was all forgotten until one afternoon I was walking our dog Henry… there she was careening off her porch — “HOW WAS THE GUM?” — thanks Ada.

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•  Nostalgia – An Owner Dies, but a Candy Shop Lives On — July 20, 2008 (New York Times)

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