Honie Briggs

Opening tabs like I was at Billy Bobs on route 17, for Yahoo, Gmail, NaNoMail, WordPress, Google, Amazon, GoodReads (yeah, all my virtual rowdy friends were there) I had a pretty good digital buzz going. Then a couple of bloggin’ buddies showed up and made it a real party! iTunes was crankin’ through my Bose headphones. Life was good. A word.doc was sitting in the background, but the little wall flower just couldn’t grab my attention. Searching Picasa for photos to post was way more fun. Then it occurred to me maybe it’s time to think about sprucing up the joint with a new theme for 2013. I browsed the showroom of over 200 themes available here on WP, even kicked the tires on a few using live preview. Curious to see what $130 premium theme would do for me, I clicked on the Newsy theme and watched an interview with Matt Mullenweg.

He’s an inspirational guy, same age as our daughter; so, he pretty much knows everything. (Really he does.) In a wave of excitement, I thought SURF’S UP! Then I remembered – writing, oh yeah, I was supposed to be writing! I finished my blog post, of course, but my NaNoWriMo word count wasn’t going increase itself. I pulled up the word doc patiently waiting on my desktop. Fifteen minutes of crappy dialogue and I was once again popping tabs, hitting refresh, searching for another distraction. Excellent! Five new emails, then over to Freshly Pressed where the snazzy blogs are. (Thank God it’s no longer the landing page; I was starting to get a complex.)

Just a peak before heading back to the themes page. All of those choices, how was I going to decide? Over to Google I stumbled, looking for inspiration in all the wrong places, then I came across a video about creativity, perfectionism and organization that completely captured my attention. Tom Sachs, the guy in the video, was saying some things that resonated with me about task/time analysis, and when we’re not making decisions, just executing our last decision, we use that time to think about why we’re doing what we’re doing. He said he’s process oriented, I thought about how I am results oriented and what that means, how maybe I should take more time to think about why I’m doing what I do. Like why I’m searching for a way to spruce up this blog instead of focusing on writing.

That’s when it happened, the video just froze.

I started clicking and clicking, but nothing. The internet was broken. “Page Not Found” messages every where I clicked, lights on the router flashing, nothing to do except get on the phone with Verizon or write. I couldn’t make myself talk to SIRI’s cousin, the automated help desk agent. (Digi bitches!) Procrastination had its tentacles wrapped around me, but I managed to break free and force myself to face the page. One thousand words later, all I had to show for my time was some dialogue and this paragraph:

…The long scream of an ambulance in the distance circled my head, the rolling door on the back of a UPS truck rumbled down my spine, broken glass crunching under my feet, it was almost musical. I tried to focus, but the sounds penetrated my thoughts. Why had these terrible things converged with my mundane life? The question seemed to be dancing to the rhythm of my footsteps in the air above my head like I was in a commercial for anti-depressants. I thought, thirty years, God, what had I done with all that time? I stopped in my tracks. What if I’m the one who’s dead? What if I’m like that kid in The Sixth Sense who doesn’t know he’s dead? Oh God, I’ve lost my mind! I ran all the way back home.

Next time I’ll just call Verizon. It’s a mad, mad, mad world when the internet is broken.  This morning I made a promise to my husband. “Yes, I will get out of the house today.” Still thinking about that new theme, but hey, there’s plenty of time for that! Why not get out and have a little fun instead?

I can write later! 😉