Loose ends

I don't have anything to do tonight, and so I don't know what to do with myself. I'm antsy about the work I forgot at the office -- the work I'd intended to do while sitting on the couch watching some new fall dreck on TV. And I'm antsy about the rest of my week, in which I will try to put out a record-breaking issue with one fewer day, one fewer staffer and several fewer stories than usual since our supposedly world-class email system just began rejecting all emails with attachments over the weekend. So I'm sitting here stewing and feeling restless. Thinking about eating some black raspberry chocolate chip ice cream, and thinking again since I didn't get to run tonight -- for what would have been my first run since last month's race.

Of course, there are lots of things I could do. I could clean the tub in my shiny new bathroom. I could write the letter to New Jersey EZ Pass about how they damn well better return my deposit. I could trim the ends on that fancy scarf I crocheted over the winter but never quite finished. I could drink some more water. I could read a book. I could look for story ideas to pitch to the very nice editor who just paid me an awful lot of money for a freelance piece and who said he'd like to see my byline again.

Instead, I surf through blogs, trolling for new posts. I call my grandmother, who is chipper and feisty, yet still in the hospital. I page through catalogs for new curtains and towels. I write a post that is even more self-absorbed than normal. And I spend several minutes Googling the rules for "less" and "fewer" while revising thesecond sentence of the first graf above. Clearly, it is time to step away from the computer.