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Jul. 24th, 2006 03:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shalannaOh, dear. Just got e-mail from a piano teacher with whom I had scheduled an audition/appointment for today at noon. Of course she had e-mailed me about this last Monday as a reminder. Of course I got all caught up in the events of the weekend (we met my sister-in-law at a large electronics store to buy her a computer on Saturday, went to a piano party, had my ear "pop" and drive me crazy Sunday night, etc.--just normal stuff) and forgot about it entirely. In fact, I woke up at seven when the dog wanted to go out and tinkle and took a shower and started doing some de-junking. At nine-thirty I sat down to watch a re-run of Dick Van Dyke or something and fell asleep. By noon I was up to my knees in various plastic boxes that I was trying to sort through to see if I could use them for storage. . . .
You'd think that by my age, I'd be "organized." Nope. I have bought endless numbers of calendars, guided by the Type A friends I always seem to have . . . you know, the people who buy a new notebook for every school year or every new business quarter, fill it with all sorts of specialized pages and a ruler and an area code map, and then note down all manner of things on the various pages. They sit patiently with me and set up an elaborate system of remembering stuff, but it simply is not in my nature to do it. I can't keep a food diary. (Boring! And who is thinking that much about food? It's tough to remember to write down when I drink a shake or eat a bowl of Medifast oatmeal *even now*, because that requires me to focus on the immediate present, the now, and on the mundane details. I'm usually busy thinking about something else equally useless but more interesting.) I never keep up with calendars. I'm grateful that our doctor's office has a service that calls us the morning before the day of an appointment or blood draw to remind us about it. I'm thankful that *most* of my friends and acquaintances tolerate the seeming absent-mindedness and occasional tardiness. Still, it probably would be helpful if I could at LEAST follow a calendar.
I know where you're going . . . you're going to say, "If you are on the computer so much, why not use one of the many Notifying programs and the built-in calendar? Why not get a Palm Pilot and set that up for alarms?" That would, again, be something an organized person would do. Is there something in the calendar function of Windows XP that'll do reminders? That would be interesting to try out.
Now comes the worst part of a forgotten appointment . . . the calling to apologize and explain. *sigh* What's the explanation, though? "I forgot all about you" makes it sound as if I hadn't been planning for the get-together, but in fact I had been practicing and polishing up a few pieces for the audition. I just hadn't kept track of the day of the week and when this was actually going to be. I know, that's tough for those of you who think concretely/organized-ly to buy, but that's the way the ol' brain works around here. I could make up white lies, but they count as sins, and what's the point . . . people know you're just making something up. The *best* thing would be not to make any appointments at all. I never remember that when I come up with a new I-Love-Lucy Plan, though.
I can remember stuff that happens regularly, oddly enough. Every other Wednesday we do the writers' group, and I usually know by the weekend before that I need to do my critiques and post my chapter. Every three months we go to the doctor for a diabetes check, and I start getting a feeling that it's time to go back around then. Tuesdays and Fridays are our trash pick-up days, and if I remember that it's Tuesday, I always get that trash put out by 9 AM. *grin*
When I worked at a Regular Job, I used to have methods for remembering meetings. One was post-it notes stuck on the side of the computer monitor. The other was my cubicle neighbors (who typically went to the same status meetings and were aware of this absent-ness of mine), who would start getting ready ten minutes in advance and yell over the cubicle walls for me to come on already. Another method was to get a phone call from the people in the conference room asking where I was.
I wasn't a candidate for management, you may rest assured. I was a "think tank" and "innovation" type. You can't have EVERYthing.
Having a personal assistant would work wonders. Wouldn't that be grand? And I could make him/her read through questionable passages in the book, or listen to a few measures of a piano piece to see if I'm getting there, or talk to the people who invariably call while I'm trying to write a journal entry or e-mail. Wonder how much THAT would cost? (Ha!!)
And there, on cue, is the telephone! *click*
You'd think that by my age, I'd be "organized." Nope. I have bought endless numbers of calendars, guided by the Type A friends I always seem to have . . . you know, the people who buy a new notebook for every school year or every new business quarter, fill it with all sorts of specialized pages and a ruler and an area code map, and then note down all manner of things on the various pages. They sit patiently with me and set up an elaborate system of remembering stuff, but it simply is not in my nature to do it. I can't keep a food diary. (Boring! And who is thinking that much about food? It's tough to remember to write down when I drink a shake or eat a bowl of Medifast oatmeal *even now*, because that requires me to focus on the immediate present, the now, and on the mundane details. I'm usually busy thinking about something else equally useless but more interesting.) I never keep up with calendars. I'm grateful that our doctor's office has a service that calls us the morning before the day of an appointment or blood draw to remind us about it. I'm thankful that *most* of my friends and acquaintances tolerate the seeming absent-mindedness and occasional tardiness. Still, it probably would be helpful if I could at LEAST follow a calendar.
I know where you're going . . . you're going to say, "If you are on the computer so much, why not use one of the many Notifying programs and the built-in calendar? Why not get a Palm Pilot and set that up for alarms?" That would, again, be something an organized person would do. Is there something in the calendar function of Windows XP that'll do reminders? That would be interesting to try out.
Now comes the worst part of a forgotten appointment . . . the calling to apologize and explain. *sigh* What's the explanation, though? "I forgot all about you" makes it sound as if I hadn't been planning for the get-together, but in fact I had been practicing and polishing up a few pieces for the audition. I just hadn't kept track of the day of the week and when this was actually going to be. I know, that's tough for those of you who think concretely/organized-ly to buy, but that's the way the ol' brain works around here. I could make up white lies, but they count as sins, and what's the point . . . people know you're just making something up. The *best* thing would be not to make any appointments at all. I never remember that when I come up with a new I-Love-Lucy Plan, though.
I can remember stuff that happens regularly, oddly enough. Every other Wednesday we do the writers' group, and I usually know by the weekend before that I need to do my critiques and post my chapter. Every three months we go to the doctor for a diabetes check, and I start getting a feeling that it's time to go back around then. Tuesdays and Fridays are our trash pick-up days, and if I remember that it's Tuesday, I always get that trash put out by 9 AM. *grin*
When I worked at a Regular Job, I used to have methods for remembering meetings. One was post-it notes stuck on the side of the computer monitor. The other was my cubicle neighbors (who typically went to the same status meetings and were aware of this absent-ness of mine), who would start getting ready ten minutes in advance and yell over the cubicle walls for me to come on already. Another method was to get a phone call from the people in the conference room asking where I was.
I wasn't a candidate for management, you may rest assured. I was a "think tank" and "innovation" type. You can't have EVERYthing.
Having a personal assistant would work wonders. Wouldn't that be grand? And I could make him/her read through questionable passages in the book, or listen to a few measures of a piano piece to see if I'm getting there, or talk to the people who invariably call while I'm trying to write a journal entry or e-mail. Wonder how much THAT would cost? (Ha!!)
And there, on cue, is the telephone! *click*
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-27 02:51 am (UTC)Due to my inability to continue to give money to a company, Six Apart/Live Journal, who harassed women for having breast-feeding images as their default icons (tiny images that didn’t show anything) and then allowed a very offensive default image of a black man and the words “You Gonna Get RAPED!” as a default icon, despite many complaints, I’ve pulled my blog.
It’s a matter of principle. they are not getting my money.
I have a new blog You can find it here.
http://www.awildcelticrose.blogspot.com
I’m going to be reading my friends blogs through bloglines http://www.bloglines.com/
A few folks asked about how to make an LJ book, you can do it here www.ljbook.com
I’m not forgetting my friends, I just felt that I needed to take a stand.
~L
no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 02:39 pm (UTC)Anyway, I'm new to Mensa and was reading the book blog - hopefully will get involved soon. Cheers.