Have you ever felt like the second you do something you enjoy, that you have to rush and do as much as you can because you KNOW it’s going to be cut short? Usually, there is some obligation or responsiblity scheduled to take away the joy of the moment, at least for me.

It’s like “I’m relaxed and having fun but in five minutes I’m going to have to do [insert responsible boring considerate whatever obligation here] so I’d better RUSH and do as much as I can (usually this is when I am on the internet and then the website I’m working on slows to a CRAWL–damned MySpace), or I’m getting to the good part in a book before I have to leave the happy place and go please other people. Or try to sleep. Or answer the phone. Or SOMETHING. Or before I’m interrupted AGAIN (usually by Aidan) for one reason or another.

Sidenote: I’d like to whine about Aidan for a moment. WHY is it that he asks the same question over and over, and even after he gets the same answer from me over and over, he rephrases it? It drives me INSANE. Example:

Silence for a while, until he thinks of something else to ask me over and over.

HELP!!

In unrelated news, I really want to read SMALL TOWN GIRL by LaVyrle Spencer again. It’s been years since I’ve read it and I’m kind of wanting to revisit that book. It’s such a good one. But I have a stack of library books to read (including the infamous HOW OPAL MEHTA GOT KISSED, GOT WILD, AND GOT A LIFE), Lauren’s REALITY CHICK, and a bigger stack of books that I picked up from Barnes & Noble that have been patiently waiting for months for me to get to them! Ack!

Well, I guess it was related because I feel so CONFLICTED with time! Like, work days tend to go VERY SLOWLY. I’ve been doing product check-ins for about a week now. The past few days, it’s been Physical Science with Earth. Book after book of Physical Science with Earth. I have to make sure the pages are in order, that the corrections were made, that the books don’t have stupid stuff in them like the editor’s note I found in one of the workbooks, or the ones with the outdated Periodic Table of Elements splashed everywhere. That gets tedious after a while, and by 2:30 I’m ready to poke a pen in my eye (okay, take a nap actually), but I push through because they need to be done, and it’s important to me that the books are correct.

The evenings are what speed by, unless I’m doing something I HAVE to do, like an OBLIGATION. Then it creeps. But once I’m doing something I enjoy, it speeds!! And there seems to be all the time in the world for the stuff I HAVE to do, but no time for the stuff I want to do. Hence my book queue. The unopened DVDs and Playstation 2 games from 2004…things of that nature. I think I have to resign myself to picking ONE fun activity a night (or week) to focus on, because there is simply no time for more than that. There is too much fun stuff I want to do: read my books, WRITE, take pictures, shop, watch DVDs, play DDR…but something else usually needs to be done. Or I get so distracted and flustered that I don’t really focus truly on one thing and I feel totally ADD or totally like saying “Screw it all. I’m going to sleep.” But then, I’m so anxious for certain days to get here, it seems they will never get here even as I’m feeling time slip away.

What a paradox.

ETA: I KNOW MY PROBLEM. I HAVE BAD TIME MANAGEMENT SKILLS.
And that my friends, is all. For real.