My Didn’t Do List
The last couple of months or so have been spectacularly unproductive for me, for a couple of very valid reasons. I’m not beating myself up: I know it’s temporary, and that my get-up-and-go will come-back-and-stay at some point. But the number of things I haven’t gotten to since the Summer That Wasn’t is starting to be ridiculous.
What I meant to do: organize all the 2,000 “Sent” emails in my work account, deleting the garbage and putting the rest into easy-to-access folders. I was determined to tackle this overdue admin work once and for all.
What I did instead: Watched two episodes of Poldark. My friend Maria’s been recommending this Masterpiece Theater series for ages and about eighteen seconds into Ep 1, as dashing Ross Poldark is dashing around on his dashing horse in Cornwall circa 1780, flirting/not flirting with his saucy red-headed serving wench, I was all in. Ross Poldark likes to sometime do his accounting shirtless, while in bed, so there was admin work involved after all.
What I meant to do: Resurrect the roses. We have a small rose garden that takes a ton of attention in the summer, deadheading blooms, spraying off aphids, pulling off leaves that show any sign of mildew. I ignored all of it, all summer, and by September 1 it showed. Our rose garden looked like a backdrop for Zombie Prom, blackened blooms, decrepit leaves, and all. A gardener friend told me the only hope was to pull off every single dead flower and diseased leaf, spray everything with rose oil, and keep doing that on a weekly basis.
What I did instead: Plucked half the dead leaves. Bought the rose oil as well as a spray bottle to disperse it with. Didn’t realize spray bottle had only one setting, Turbo Jet. Sprayed rose oil all over the wall behind the rose garden in big, dripping mess. Inexplicably continued spraying even as I saw that it was not hitting the roses and was in fact creating a big oily mess on an exterior wall of the house. We probably need to have the house repainted now. Grunted. Watched another episode of Poldark. OMG, you guys, will the miners find copper or NOT?
What I meant to do: clean off the ping pong table that hasn’t seen a game of ping pong played since 2012, buried as it is under bike clothing, ballet accessories, and a wireless keyboard that I would donate somewhere if I can ever find the dongle that will connect it to a computer.
What I did instead: made sure that at least the bags of Trader Joe’s chocolate covered pretzels are cleaned up, by which I mean in my belly. Wondered where I might get my hands on a nice Cornish pasty such as Demelza is always serving up for Master Ross.
What I meant to do: pitch a travel story I’ve had floating around for two years, a perfect hidden-getaway piece that is rich with spiritual and natural beauty. I have the contacts and the basic info already, just need to shape it into a timely and compelling pitch.
What I did instead: scrolled through Instagram looking for evidence of our college age daughter in anyone else’s pictures because she is so stingy with the posting. Then I looked at our old dog walker’s Instagram feed to see Achilles’ old friends. Then I looked at Celeste Barber’s feed. Then I looked up #Poldark.
What I meant to do: sketch out an editorial calendar. Start a podcast. Outline a new book project.
What I did instead: wrote a post about everything I can’t quite seem to do.
Then left to finish watching Season 1 of Poldark.
I swear. I’m gonna get back down to business at some point.
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