STOP. Thief!

How can February be nearly one-third over? Who grabbed the remote control on my life and hit the fast-forward button?

The last time I looked, December was meandering to a close, and the hint of New Year’s possibilities was just around the corner.

Then things went dark: for four days the first time and just over one the second. Snowed in and without power, things slowed to a crawl, and while inconvenient at times, the taste of the past made the experience worthwhile.

Then there was the first good illness of the year: hello emergency room and five-hour-wait-to-be-seen which was followed by the four-hour-wait-to-be-released which added up to my very first (and hopefully last) twenty-seven (27) hour awake-the-whole-time “day.”

I lost the rest of that week recovering from the sleep I’d missed and caretaking, but HOW DID I GET HERE: to the 9th of February?

Oh, and did I mention the Julia Fordham musical loop that keeps going though my head?

During my 20th century graduate work, I learned to multi-task like a madwoman. I think I turned the corner when I developed the ability to read three books simultaneously while keeping each compartmentalized in my brain. This has bled into my I’m-not-a-student-anymore but-I-still-go-to-school-and-have-homework life (often referred to as teaching). I suspect part of the time-warp I'm experiencing is due to the number of really cool projects I’m working on: I’ve got handfuls of stuff to do each non-teaching day, and most of it is satisfying work, so I wake up at 5:30 ready to dig in, and other than breaks for little things like exercise and food and bathing, there’s no stopping me. Suddenly, it’s 7 at night and the pets need my attention, and dinner is overdue, and and and. . .

I'm beginning to suspect projects are not like books or assignments: perhaps they are best handled independent of one another; however, the thought of setting a few of them aside for any length of time makes me want to scratch my eyes out.

At least if I did that I’d miss the calendar pages whizzing off the wall.