Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

Most of my blogs are about past experiences. OK, some are incoherent ramblings about what I’m doing with my life. In an attempt to live in the present moment, I’m going to focus on the minutia: things I do (always and probably forevermore) that slightly irritate me but that I never seem to change.

Having a dusty computer screen.

I could just wipe it off with a hand towel, but I read somewhere that you have to use that special cloth like the kind you use for wiping off your glasses. Or your screen will look like a rainbow. Now that I think of it, that information probably came from an advertisement for the glasses cloth. I still have the fear though.

Dragging out my contacts’ lifespan.

I will wear those things until they’re so dry they’re sticking to my eyelids. I try to prolong switching them out for the next pair as long as Kira-ly possible. Which is pretty long actually. I have incredible tolerance for certain somewhat meaningless annoyances.

Not folding my laundry until I have to get into the bed it’s piled on.

It takes 5 minutes, but it seems like forever. I think everyone probably agrees with me on this. But instead of folding them right away, I toss them in a large heap on my bed and then when I start getting ready for bed I get mad at my past self for refusing to fold the laundry right away. So then I waste 5 minutes of precious sleep.

Not washing the outside of my car.

In my defense, why should I? It lives outside, and rain falls on it. And even if I did wash it, there are trees that drip sap on cars. And 900 pine needles. And bird poop. Besides, it takes all of my brain to remember to keep the INSIDE clean. Sheesh. If I washed the outside all the time, I’d probably have 900 Gatorade bottles blocking the back window instead of pine needles. But still, it looks dirty and then some people get confused about the color. It's blue. Not green. I do wash it occasionally, but in the summer so I can play in the hose.

Using four notebooks at a time and leaving them in different places.

It’s nice in a way to have a notebook everywhere I need one: on my nightstand, in my purse, in my backpack, and in the car. On the other hand, it’s impossible to remember what I wrote in each notebook because they’re scattered around. Also, sometimes in my school notebooks, I’ll flip to an empty page toward the back and write down some weird idea I have for the Oliver story, or some brilliant thing someone said that I want to remember, or brainstorming for an essay, or just rambling thoughts I have. Then I find it three terms later and by then it’s embarrassing.

Leaving a trail of my belongings.

I leave stuff at other people’s houses constantly. I would be a very easy person to track, if I ever had to go on the lam or whatever. (Does anyone know what ‘on the lam’ actually means? I don’t get it but I’m using it because ‘hiding’ sounds boring). Books, my phone, water bottles, jackets, candy. I like to leave people a souvenir.

Getting into bed and turning off the light, then realizing I have to pee.

Seriously. Why? Whyyyyyyyyy?*

Spending a vast quantity of time staring at things and zoning out.

Sometimes I’ll be staring at a TV show but instead of paying attention I’ll start planning what I would do if the back half of an airplane fell off like in Lost for a half hour, and then I have no idea what the show is about if someone asks me. (For the record, I’d attach my child’s breathing mask if I had a kid before my own because I would know to hold my breath and the kid wouldn’t, cling to that seat cushion thing that is supposed to float (and the child), and hope that the cool slide that you use in plane crashes comes out so I can go down it on my stomach into the ocean). Anyway. Also, when we’re doing crunches at the gym I stare at the ceiling squares and make invisible hypotenuses until there are a bunch of tiny imaginary triangles, which is my favorite staring game. Apparently we’re supposed to look over our knees instead of at the ceiling, because she reminds us all the time. I can’t make any triangles out of my kneecaps.

Leaving my keys inside and not realizing it until I get to the car door.

Seriously if you tallied the minutes I waste by walking from the house to the car twice as much as everyone else…well. You’d have a lot of tally marks with diagonal ones through them. One time I lived in an apartment by myself on the third floor, and I bet I was in the best shape ever after that year. I actually taped a sign to the wall right by the door handle that said “Keys. Wallet. Phone.” 60% of the time it worked every time.**

Being in a rush every time I leave the house in the morning.

I have, apparently, a void in the part of my brain that understands how long it takes me to get ready. The void affects me even if I get up really early on purpose, so I have no way that I could possibly be running late. What happens is very strange. I get mostly ready to leave, and then I waste an incredible amount of time doing whatever it is I do that wastes time. I stare at the wall thinking about random things, try on different earrings that I’m not actually going to wear because I rediscover them in the pile of tangled things in my jewelry box, go on the computer, ponder which book to bring, rip out my hair (that can burn anywhere from 10 seconds to an hour, depending on how much time I have to waste before I’m about to be late), write in one of my myriad of journals, or something equally inefficient. So then I look at the clock and I have 30 seconds to do the two things I leave until the end: putting in contacts and brushing my teeth. And I don’t want to lose my teeth in my twenties, so I end up leaving about two minutes later than I’m supposed to. And sometimes, for fun, I leave my keys in the house.

*When you read that part, say it like Nancy Kerrigan.
**That’s from Anchorman. I’m not actually confused about percentages.