Who is tugging at your skirts?

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I know this is a recurring theme around here, but what the hell. Who or what clamors for your attention? What makes you feel like you're being pulled in all directions? How much of it is in your head? What do you do to get away from all the voices calling for your attention?

-- Anonymous, March 31, 2000

Answers

The Move.
The move dominates my consciousness, impedes on my thought-processes at work, makes it difficult to function. The Cats.
Let's just say, Tiger, 3am. 4am. 5am. 6am. 7am. 8am. Bam bam bam on the door. "Mao mao mao" translated: "I'm lonely. I love you. Don't you love me? Why won't you let me in? You can't _possible_ be asleep with that white intruder in there (Pearl). Please? Please? Please? Let me iiiiiiinnnnn." Actually, it turns out that their water dish was empty. We have a 5 gallon dispenser and we've been so busy I didn't notice that the water was low. It was completely empty and dry when I finally managed to get out of bed around 10:30 after a mostly sleepless night. So Bad Me. Bad bad cat-mommy not taking care of her chilluns. I gave them two big bowls of fresh water right away of course and they all zoomed in like crazy folks, except for Mephisto who only really cares about hanging out with Pearl and eating her leftover food, so of course was all tangled up in my ankles when I brought her her breakfast. Driving.
So yeah, two lessons down and one to go. I don't know if I'll actually get my license, but I'm feeling better about driving already. I actually drove on the _highway_ yesterday. Big step for me. Though I still get butterflies just thinking about getting behind the wheel. Websites.
The move has pushed everything to the side. I just can't even worry about stuff, even though there are ten million things to do -- for Metajournals, for my journal, for my personal sites, for my family history site, for my dad, for everything. It's all just going to have to wait. Down kids, down.

-- Anonymous, March 31, 2000

Everything right now.

The dogs, the job, the friends, the Dave, the wedding, the other weddings, the friends having babies, the diet -- ALL pulling in different directions.

It's enough to drive a woman mad.

Or at least to the point where I say, "Fuck it" and do whatever I want, like garden.

My seeds are Sprouting!

-- Anonymous, March 31, 2000


Hate to say it, but my ex.

I moved out March 17, and I still have to go back there a couple of times a week, for this, for that, you know. Stuff I left, stuff that has to be fixed before the lease runs out (it's in my name, natch). Mainly, he's lonely, and he doesn't have many friends, so he wants me to keep him company. Still. Even though we've split, and I don't live there, and I have plenty to do without driving 30 minutes back to the old place.

How sick am I? I go, twice last week, and three times this week. He's moving across the country at the end of April, so it'll have to stop then. Right?

I amaze myself. I just can't say no to this guy. (Though I did manage to move out.) It's like hypnosis. Somebody wake me up!

-- Anonymous, March 31, 2000


My mother. Well, both parents actually, but Mom can talk better than Dad. It's _always_ "Call me, call me, call me!" I have to call her twice a week on pain of death, and recently she bitched me out for writing her too-short e-mails. (Note: all she ever does is forward me about six things of mostly crap per day and the occasional short complaint e-mail) Oy. The things I put up with so I won't have college loans...

-- Anonymous, March 31, 2000

My boyfriend. He is constantly wanting my attention. However, I'm not exactally complaining. I don't really mind him tugging at my skirt..

-- Anonymous, March 31, 2000


One voice which no longer calls for my attention is the online version of my journal. I'm still keeping my print journal (which the online one was based on) but I'm fed up maintaining the online journal. Nice while it lasted but I'm tired of having to keep typing stuff up. So no more sleeping in separate ditches.

-- Anonymous, March 31, 2000

1) My favorite cat. He's in the hospital. He has liver problems. Last week when he was diagnosed I was really worried that he was going to die, and I couldn't think about anything else. Then he had exploratory surgery to figure out what exactly is going on with his liver. I went to visit him on Saturday and he kept crawling out of his cage onto my lap even though he had an IV and a little blue neoprene cat sock to keep it on and a cone on his head to keep him from chewing it. The vet says he seems pretty strong and he spends all of his time meowing at them, so she's optimistic. We'll get the biopsy results today or Tuesday.

2) This albatross (er...book) that I'm writing. I signed the contract when I was a relatively carefree senior peon at NCSA; now I have a real job but I still have to finish the book. Soon. They've already got the cover design ready.

3) My job: develop a couple of new courses; organize a group of people to put together a grant proposal for a computer lab to teach in; set up a pile of computer equipment which will be arriving any day now (first making sure that the appropriate building renovations occur); oversee a faculty search; help rustle various people into doing their parts in developing a new interdisciplinary degree program; and, oh yeah, develop a creative, independent, and fundable research project of my own.

4) My own psychological well-being. I'm well aware that I'm neglecting this and if I don't do something about it soon, my head will explode.

None of this is in my head, unfortunately, except in the sense that I'm a control freak and I may be overinvolved in some things that I could possibly delegate.

-- Anonymous, April 03, 2000


All last week it was my zine, which was due on Sunday. But I finished it on friday and that was off my mind.

Now it's my web page where we run a dead pool. I need to do a bunch of work on it.

Oh and I have this new domain and need to move everything over there.

Luckily, that's about all...

-- Anonymous, April 03, 2000


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