The Other Day Job

How do you do it?  I truly don’t get it.  Life is maintenance.  I have a ten mile long list of things “to do”, mostly for the house, and I am completely

overwhelmed.  I try to talk myself through it, write my morning pages and vent, center myself back upright, preach to myself, channel Zen wisdom, and come to allow that I can only do one thing at a time.  But here’s the catch – when you do manage to stick to that path, the rest of your world goes to hell. 

I took a few days off to get a major house project accomplished before friends

and family descended in a couple weeks.  I made myself a deal – I would only do that one huge project and not worry about anything else at all.  One thing at a time, right?

So what happens?  I’m getting through the project all right, which of course is taking about five times longer than anticipated, but now everything else is just crap.  My garden is completely overgrown and has been invaded by unknown

burrowing creatures.  I think it’s an evil mutant squirrel.  Half my plants have been eaten by him, the rest by the birds.  I haven’t watered enough and when I did so this morning a geyser erupted from the irrigation line where the little

asshole had chewed through.  And yes – I mean that – he is an asshole.  He chose the one location where I couldn’t get to the line, where it goes under an installed drain with cement all around.  The little bastard.  He diabolically and cleverly chose that precise position purposefully and he is definitely calling me out. 

The house is a disaster.  I am not tidy nor particularly organized when I do a

project like this and I make a huge mess that requires three times the amount of work to clean up than if I had done the proper prep work in the beginning. 

I’m only halfway through the project, if that, and I’m a mess, the house is a mess, my life is a mess.  I don’t have any clean clothes, I’ve neglected bills and groceries and my son is carefully avoiding me.

So much for "one thing at a time."  Is that sage advice really only for those with servants or something?  It sounds really good on paper, but seriously – what do you do about everything else that demands attention?

My options as I see them are:

• Strike a deal with the squirrel mafia for some sort of time share arrangement
  

• Do it all, don’t let anything go, and have another heart attack.  At least I’ll get a justifiable break and somebody else to do the laundry

• Drink heavily until I don’t see the mess
  

• Surrender the yard to the squirrel  – one less thing to do
  

• Move

• Go live in a yurt

• Give up all my belongings and become a wise street prophet preaching the evils of materialism and government conspiracies controlling the masses through possessions. 
  

• Drink more heavily

I’m open to suggestions here.  Anybody?  

I can also just sit here and write gleefully about it all and feel like I’m “doing” something productive.  At some point one of my characters will surely sit in squalor, overwhelmed, close to giving up.  That’s it – I’m actually doing research here!  Now I just have to research and compose a character that has a cleanliness fetish and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.