Marginalia

I worked a 13 hour day today - and yes I'm working tomorrow. Hooray for the 4 day weekend coming up after that! I need it desperately - for sleeping, for finally finishing my Round Robin comments, for making progress on the 127 emails on my preferred screen name alone, and maybe even a chance to read and relax and think. How can I take on reading the Bible more often or updating the church web site or working on Mages or finally writing the next installment of Lore Goes to Mâvarin, when I keep slipping further behind on everything with each passing day?


One of my friends was talking in the car on Sunday about a sermon Father Smith gave when he first arrived at St. Michael's, less than a year before I got there (I think). It was about a book called Margins, if Jan remembered correctly. The premise was that modern Americans fill up all the margins in their lives, leaving no blank spaces.

Yeah, that's about right. I have basically no down time. I don't even like down time, to be honest. Lying on a beach is my idea of excruciating boredom, not that I've done any such thing in, oh, thirty years or so. The closest I get to down time is watching a M*A*S*H rerun at 1 AM, or taking a nap when my brain simply can't continue otherwise.

But what are the alternatives? Too much to do, and I don't get it all done. Give me some time, and I'll fill it up with Wikipedia or some tv show or a book or maybe a meal and shopping with my husband. It's always easier to do the stuff I want to do than the stuff I need to do. But does that mean I mustn't watch two hours of tv after 13 hours at work? Am I not entitled? Must I apply discipline, at the expense of the relatively little time I spend in unscheduled fun? Is there something actually wrong with writing a Wikipedia article about Zachary Gray before going to bed for just six hours, up from four the previous night? Must I draw ruled lines in my margins, to fit in all the stuff I should be doing?

Well, I don't have to answer all these questions tonight. I'm going to bed now, for a little over five and a half hours. I probably won't have to work until 6 PM tomorrow, and after that is the long weekend. We have no idea yet what we're doing for Thanksgiving dinner, but we'll work it out - I don't want to cook, and John doesn't want to go to Marie Callendar. Any suggestions?

Karen


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