|
|
June 12, 2009
 A grand night for dancing If you’ve got a good reason to be annoyed, but honestly you’re not, does it still count?
That’s what I asked myself this afternoon, Day 5 of The Annoyance Challenge, as I sat on the low wall looking out into the school parking lot knowing I might have an hour to kill before David returned to pick me up. Normally at this time I’d be mentoring an 8th grader, but today, she stood me up after calling on Wednesday to let me know that she wasn’t going to make it to our weekly Thursday meeting and then agreeing to reschedule for today. And yet… after David dropped me off to do a Trader Joe’s run (we were out of chocolate) it became clear that my mentee had gone straight home without telling me or the afterschool program director. In her defense, tonight is the 8th grade graduation dance and I’m pretty sure our meeting wasn’t on her mind as she rushed home to get ready.
Of course I called David to update him on my situation, but he wasn’t answering his iPhone. (Can someone please explain what is the point of having a phone that can shoot video and find you the nearest Korean BBQ if you don’t pick it up when your wife is sitting in a parking lot trying to reach you?) I suppose I should have been annoyed by all this, but I wasn’t. Could it be that after only five days of The Annoyance Challenge I was no longer annoy-able? Nah. More likely I was just in a good mood because it was a lovely Friday afternoon in June, I knew David would be back for me in less than an hour and… I love clouds.
Waaay up there were the high wispy ones (AKA mares’ tails). And there and there and there… so many bunched up little pouffy puffs, no wonder they’re called les moutons, ie., French for “sheep.” How cute is that? And to the north, wow! Such strange and wondrously shaped celestial masses you’d swear they’d been air-brushed.
Four hours later across the Bay, David and I walked back to the car after a fine meal at an Indian restaurant and spotted a shard of rainbow in the eastern sky, illuminated by the setting sun. It was a perfect night for a 13 year old to dance her heart out.
June 11, 2009
 Nooo, the worms can't wait! It’s Thursday and I am officially annoyed with myself for blogging instead of working on Book 4 of Middle School Confidential. True, the first draft isn’t due until late fall, but I had this plan of finishing it in June so I’d have July and August off and then in September I’d revisit the draft with “fresh” eyes and begin revising. Instead what did I do? I created The Annoyance Challenge, requiring me to blog every day until July 7th. Why the hell did I do that? Wasn’t writing 5 books in two and half years enough of a challenge?
Hmmmmmm… But wait! Hold on a sec! I know! I did it to annoy myself! For The Challenge! Ha! Pretty clever. And guess what? It’s working!
Since I’m doing such a good job of pissing myself off at the moment, I might as well dive in and quantify some of my major annoyance triggers. (To contribute your own, just click on the COMMENTS link at the end of the blog.)
For this list I’m sticking with those irritating situations that do not involve someone else. Sure, everyone’s got a little list of annoying people. And while kvetching about them is, undeniably, great fun, it can also lead to more annoyance, not less. So for the purposes of this 30 Day Annoyance Challenge, finger-pointing is kinda beside the point.
Annoying Situations of My Own Doing
1. Procrastination Tactics (AKA detour tasks ) — Any activity that takes you away from (or prevents you from committing to) what you actually should be doing. Referred to as “cabinet making” by John Irving in The World According to Garp, detour tasks are often worthwhile pursuits like shelling peas, Feng Shuing your garage, or going through your Can-O-Worms to separate the worms from their castings (poop). Whether Procrastination Tactics are useful isn’t the issue. The real question is: Do I need to be doing this right now? When I answer, “Not really but…” and keep right on doing it, well, that annoys me, just usually not enough to stop.
2. Expired Coupons for Cool Stuff — Yesterday I was organizing one of our cluttered bathroom cabinets (see #1) and came across a very attractive coupon from Seattle’s Best Coffee. It showed a frothy mug of some amber liquid, topped with an artfully sculpted mound of whipped cream. The photo identified the drink as a Vanilla Red Tea Latte. (Hmm. Red tea? Sounds intrigruing!) Beside the mug was what looked like a scone sporting a smear of raspberry jam. I’m only guessing here… the pastry wasn’t identified. In all honesty, I’m not fond of scones. They always seem too dry. But maybe that’s the point. You buy one and then you’re forced to purchase two more cups of Red Tea to wash it down or quick find someone to save you with the Heimlich maneuver.
The coupon read: REDISCOVER TEA, get a treat. Up perked the ears of my inner child (who truly is only 1/10 of a centimeter below the surface of my sophisticated adult veneer.) Methinks, “Treat?” I wanna treat!” The coupon continues to spell out the deal: Purchase a medium or large beverage and receive a complimentary pastry or a second beverage of equal or lesser value–ON US!
OK, so, let me get this straight: If David and I manage to find a Seattle’s Best Coffee in our vicinity and he shells out for a vanilla Red Tea Latte (or another medium or large beverage of his choosing) plus a scone, (though knowing David he’s more likely to go for a brownie and who could blame him?) then I get a Vanilla Red Tea Latte (with sculpted whipped cream) for free. Sounds like a deal!
So I’m all psyched and ready to suggest an outing to David when I flip over the coupon and discover that it expired 3/3/09. Dang! That’s annoying. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought that coupon up to the bathroom in the first place!
Annoying Situations of My Own Doing (items 3-10)
- Bumping my shin (again) on the open dishwasher door
- Knocking my hip (again) on the kitchen counter
- Misplacing my computer glasses (again)
- Misplacing my sunglasses (again)
- Getting poison oak (again)
- Being tricked (again) into bending down and reaching for the penny that some sadistic joker glued to the sidewalk on the next block
- Getting bits of turkey sausage stuck in between my teeth with no dental floss around. Then when I use my fingernail to try to pry out the meat, my nail breaks off in between my teeth. (that counts for two)
Because all of the above are situations of my own doing, I can do something about them… like paying more attention to the set-ups thus avoiding the traps. Just thinking about how I’ve got the power to become less annoyed in 10 areas of my day-to-day life makes me feel… better.
OK, my friends. Enough procrastination for now, I’m going to work on Book 4.
Honest.
June 10, 2009
 The "lost" wallet My “gift” from the Universe hasn’t arrived yet. I’m imagining Ms. U in line at the post office. She’s waiting, doing some re-centering breathing, and feeling herself age as she watches the wall clock creep forward faster than the queue. When she finally gets to the counter, she discovers she hasn’t got the correct postage and can’t pay the overage. (What? You thought the Universe carries a purse?) Annoyed, she goes back to her 2 bedroom flat on Cosmos Circle, her contribution to my 30 Day Annoyance Challenge, tucked under her arm.
It’s OK. I’ll wait. In the meantime, the only thing annoying that happened yesterday wasn’t even all that.
Scene: I’ve just ensconced myself on the living room couch, a blanket for my feet (it’s unseasonably cold here in Northern California) and a cup of hot chocolate to fortify myself against the ice storm threatening outside. I’m all set to continue reading Schuyler’s Monster: A Father’s Journey with his Wordless Daughter by Robert Rummel-Hudson.
Pause. You may be thinking: “Laying on the couch reading on a Tuesday afternoon? No offense, but what kind of sloth is this woman??” No offense taken. I’m the self-employed kind. A writer who also does the seasonal work of student assemblies and parent education events… none of which happen after early May. But don’t worry about me, I’ll be back at it in September.
Unpause. I was reading Rob’s book in preparation for my podcast interview with him next Wednesday. (See… legitimate work! Unpaid, yes, but totally valuable.) I’m only sixty seconds into this cozy reading session when the phone rings. And the phone’s way over there, in the kitchen. So, yes, I’m feeling a bit annoyed at the interruption, but we free-lancers don’t let a ringing phone go unattended so I hop up, taking my annoyance and cold feet with me and run into the kitchen. But the kitchen phone’s not in the kitchen. (Did anyone see the phone?) Ringgggg. (David?! Hmph. Must be on his office phone.) Ringgggg. I race into the family room and pick up that phone.
Annie (annoyance under control, professional voice in gear): Hello, this is Annie.
Ezra: Hey, Mom.
Annie (all annoyance instantly disappates replaced by love, joy and curiosity): Hey, Ez. What’s up?
Seems Ezra believes he may have left his wallet in our car after our weekend road trip to LA. Would I please take a look? What a question! Of course, I’ll look! I’m his mom. I live to serve.
So I put on my shoes, search for the garage door key, find it, trot out the front door, close the door, skip down the front steps, open the front gate, close the gate, use the key to activate the garage door, duck under as it yawns, open the back door of the car, see the wallet lying on the empty back seat, grab it, exit car, slam door, push garage door button, duck while it closes, open gate, close gate, trot up steps, open front door, close it, run back into family room, pick up phone. Elapsed time: 45 seconds
Annie: Hey Ez, if you wanted to play a game, you should have done a better job hiding the wallet. It was on the seat. Next to where you were sitting.
Ez: Cool! Thanks Mom!
Annie: You’re welcome, sweetie.
By the time I made it back to the couch, the blanket, the (less than) hot chocolate and the book, I started thinking: If that was a telemarketer I would have been pissed. Even though it would have taken much less time to say “Sorry I’m not interested and could you please take me off of your list and NOT CALL AGAIN!?”
But because it was Ezra, I immediately dropped my annoyance and replaced it with an eagerness to help him.
So, here’s the Annoyance Challenge probing question of the day: When you say “certain things just annoy me” that’s only half the story. It’s not just the occurrences, but who’s doing what. Obviously there are special people in our lives who may get a free pass even when they do something that would otherwise annoy us if someone else did it. Likewise, I’m thinking that there are certain people, that no matter what they do or say (“Hi. How’s it going?” “Nice pants.”) we automatically feel annoyed and might lash out. Seems unfair. Unproductive. So what’s with that? And how can we gain better control over those feelings because the world doesn’t need any more irritated, irrational folks (with or without guns).
Universe: ‘Nuff of them!
June 9, 2009
 Cream of Fresh Pea Soup (2/3 blended) My sister-in-law Randee sent me an email pointing out the fact that yesterday’s announcement of the Annoyance Challenge needed some editing. From her perspective I was creating a Meet-up for Grouches Anonymous. (Paraphrasing alert!) And that would leave out the 90% of us who are generally happy and don’t jump on the impulse to shout down the person at the next table whose broadcast of David Carradine’s uh… mishap, makes a god-awful pairing with your baigan bharta.
Rereading my post I could see where she was coming from. So I asked her to suggest a revision. She came back with something that described the phenonmenon of “hooking into” the “little annoyances” of life. “It’s like taking another route at a fork in the road. Turn the wheel and it’s behind me. Like magic! Other times I am hooked before I know it and immersed in it.”
Thanks, Rand. That fork-in-the-road metaphor nails it for me. When I’m at the fork and I’m nodding off at the wheel, high probability I’ll go this way — up the onramp to the Why Does This Sh$$% Always Happen To Me? Freeway. But on those rare occasions when I’m awake enough to pay attention to what’s going on I’m much more likely to turn that way, and end up grinning and parked in front of DQ. Sorry, I just returned from a road trip so the driving metaphors are strong in this one.
My objective in doing this 30 Day Annoyance Challenge is to to be more awake at the fork in the road. And if you’re reading this, maybe you’d like more of that in your life, too. The way I see it, any life practice that leads to more frozen treats sounds good to me.
But I’m also a little worried about whether I can actually do this because of that old “Watch what you wish for…” thing. I mean, here I am, wanting to examine, at close hand, the mental processes that get triggered when you’re at the fork and blogging about it every day. And in order to do that, I’ve got to take it from the realm of purely intellectual discussion into the belly of the dyspeptic beast that is Life. I’m picturing the Universe, one of my earliest subscribers, slyly arching her brow, stroking her chin and muttering “So, Annie, you want some real annoyances, you say? Oooookay. I can do that.”
So far, here’s the only thing that happened yesterday that was mildly annoying: I was pureeing the third and final batch of tender garden peas (slightly steamed) with turkey broth (frozen from April and microwaved) for this wonderfully simple yet delicious Cream of Fresh Pea Soup recipe from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest when the blender started oozing hot pea puree all over the base and counter. What to do? What to do? First I panicked. But the ooze could care less, so, in a race with gravity, I went to Plan B… unplug blender, lift the whole thing (base and all) and pour contents back into the pot.
Could have been a major annoyance. Wasn’t.
I’m guessing the Universe is going to kick it up a notch.
See you tomorrow.
— Older Posts »
| |
Facebook
Twitter
