If It Weren't For Shame, I Wouldn't Get Anything Accomplished

This morning, I shoved everything down into my garbage can, pulled up on the bag and winced at the smell and the stuff that spilled out of the top. I'd just been piling garbage on top of garbage for days. This particular situation needed to be remedied on Tuesday. To be fair, my motivation to take it out this morning had very little to do with the fact that I wanted to actually contain the mess. I walked into the kitchen and my cat was staring at the garbage can and then back at me as if to say, "You're kidding me, right?" My friends, not so much my cat, are kind and polite and say things like, "Oh, stop apologizing! Everyone's kitchens are gross. Not that your kitchen is that gross." And then they start talking about Hoarders--which is an alright topic of conversation except when it directly follows "your house isn't that bad." So I took out my garbage. For the cat.

And while I was washing my hands and getting the coffee grounds and other mysterious slozy gelaz (my dad always used to use this word to indicate mysterious goop. I always correlated this word with a substance similar to dried mayonnaise. I have never seen it spelled but I will write it as close to phonetically as I possibly can: "sl-ah-zee juh-lahz), I noticed how I'd written "Email: [list of people that I need to email this morning]" on my wrist last night. I went to bed with people waiting to hear from me--ugh. So I sat down at my computer and checked Facebook and got drawn in like I always do. Facebook--the bastard.

Interlude For an Interior Monologue of a Girl Browsing Facebook
"You've only got a few minutes, so just real quick. ... That baby is not very cute. ... Obama still isn't an American citizen? ... Ooh, music video. I wonder if he'll think I'm cute if I casually mention these lyrics in my status in a few days. ... He's so hot. ... Let's just browse pictures of his face one more time. Stupid girlfriend. ... I wonder if anything new has happened on the main wall. ... Oh, so-and-so is at 36 weeks during her pregnancy and her fetus is continuing to develop. Gross. ... That cute thing your kid did is not cute. ... GAH! Email these people!! ... I am emailing and being productive. I forgot to close the Facebook tab and a little (1) popped up. Ignore it--it can wait. No big deal. Someone probably just 'liked' something you said a few days ago or invited you to a wrestling match or something."
"(2)"
"Oh my God! People like me!!" Resistance is futile.

And then I remember that I was supposed to make brownies for TV night. If I don't--everyone will be sad that they don't get any sugar to much on while watching 30 Rock. I immediately stop what I'm doing and run into the kitchen and make brownies--intentionally checking the time and noting when I should check them. I have a very productive 30 minutes and I go check the brownies. Nope, not done. Put them back in the oven.

Research. Facebook. Check Etsy to see if there's anything that I absolutely can't live without. Nothing, today. Decide to write a blog post about how I can never get anything accomplished without guilt. Consider giving it a religious undertone but decide against it because you're just starting to make friends and you want them to like you and not think that you're a cynical snob--even though you totally are. Start chatting with sister about things that are exciting. Sing. Dance. Shake hiney to Pomplamoose's version of Single Ladies. Consider putting a line in there as your Facebook status. Decide against it because you don't want anyone to think that you're begging for marriage--you just like the song.

Start wondering if you should just reformat the inconsistent-tense of this whole blog post but then you just forget it and hit "publish post" because wouldn't you know it--you just burned the hell out of the brownies.

I'm sorry, friends. I. Have. Failed.

*Mental note to pick up donuts after work.* Yeah, right.

PS I just wanted to say that Natalie Dee is a mad genius and, I got this picture of a garbage can from her. Because most of the time when I'm all "Google Image something obscure", then it's her comics that generally show up and I'm not about to deny that opportunity but I'm also not going to give any impression that I made any sort of attempt to draw my own cartoons.