Checking Things Off the To Do List

I know this is SUCH old news. . . but why is it so hard to check off some of the most basic stuff off one's to do list? You put it down there at a moment of total organization and motivation. This, these things, that bullet point, THAT'S what I'll get done this week.

And then it just sort of sits there, getting transferred from one list to the next, gathering metaphorical dust. . .

. . . until one day you just DO it. And you can't figure out why the hell it took you so long to get around to it, since it was so damn easy.

Case in point: Last week I cleaned up my balcony and planted flowers in the 17,542 pots that I had lying around from the last time I bothered to plant flowers three years ago before a sub-tenant killed them all and I decided it wasn't worth it. My balcony is now so gorgeous that I have to run out there almost every two seconds to see just how many femtometers the morning glories have grown since I last checked. And -- including the time it took me to go to the plant store -- the whole shebang took me three hours. Absurd that I put it off for so long.

More to the WRITING point: I have been meaning to send a note to an editor in California for three months. I wanted to strike while the iron was hot, back in February after I had just met his supervisor -- but not him, since he was out of town -- and gotten the low-down on the brand new physics magazine they are putting together. It's a magazine with heady goals, as they're trying to make a really glossy, interesting, culturally-relevant magazine out of high-energy physics. From what little I know of the people involved, and the amount of support and enthusiasm behind the project, I think they've got a decent shot. And BOY do I want to write for them.

And yet, that "send e-mail introduction" to the editor has sat on my to do list for months. It's embarrassing really.

So, I just motivated to do it. A quick e-mail introduction, a quick edit of my current CV to make sure it was appropriate -- and boom, it's been sent into the ether.

WHY ON EARTH DID IT TAKE ME SO LONG???

Perhaps I just needed the inspiration of my balcony. . . I think I better go check on my morning glories.