Stilettos, Stoli & Scribbles ~ Served With A Twist

Good afternoon and Happy Monday! I’m back once again to help you start your week, either with “no, it’s not just you” solidarity or by letting you feel good about the fact that your day is arguably better than mine. You get to decide.

One of my goals in life is to become an “Organized Person”. You know the type. These are people who plan what they’ll wear to work for the week and make sure their outfits are not only clean and wrinkle-free, but coordinated with the proper accessories, so that instead of the high-wire act of rifling through their closet with one hand while applying mascara with the other, they can enjoy a cup of coffee with Matt and Savannah before leisurely strolling to the bus or train, or getting into their car (always filled with gas) to safely drive to work while observing the speed limits. These are the people who carry around a planner or a calendar and actually use them. I think the one at the bottom of my ginormous tote is from 2010. It has maybe five entries in it.

Organized People always manage to have all of their ducks in a row. My ducks wander off the first chance they get.

Take this weekend for example. I, like so many of us, had so many things I wanted to accomplish. On Friday afternoon, when the next two days stretched leisurely out in front of me, I even went so far as to write them down. Despite my empty, out-dated, planner, I like lists. I get warm fuzzies from drawing a line through a completed task, even if it’s just the items on the grocery list that I remembered to take with me.

It’s Monday again and my list has no lines.  It’s not as if I sat in a chair and didn’t move all weekend. It’s just that I didn’t do what was on the list.

This blog post was on the list. I made notes. I gathered some graphics. I even remembered to put the notes where I could find them when I got to work today.  Then I promptly forgot all about it.

Sometime around 11:30 this morning, while on hold with a client, I took a minute to pop into Facebook. I can’t remember what it was that I saw there (probably a picture of Fergus), but it hit me like a brick to the head, “BLOG POST!”

*sigh*

You might think “Aww, it can’t be that bad. Don’t be so hard on yourself”. As I look around my overstuffed office, I see not one, but five dead flower arrangements. I think at one time I fooled myself into thinking that they looked like they were supposed to be dried flowers. Now they are dust covered relics at which Morticia Adams would turn up her nose.

It may be too late for me.  This office is a symptom of my syndrome.

I’ve learned that I’m well on my way to becoming a certified “hot mess”.  Granted it won’t be the American Psychiatric Association that will do the certifying. I don’t think it’s actually a clinical disorder, yet.  According to Cosmopolitan*, one is a hot mess if they can recognize themselves in the list below.  I only fit a handful at this juncture and I won’t tell you which handful, but I can’t argue with the facts. At my age, one is probably too many.

1. You have food stuck to you right now. Three pieces of lettuce and half a crouton. Always half a crouton.
2. Your underwear is inside out and you had no idea. Look, sometimes mornings are very hard and you are very tired.
3. You think your last hookup’s name was Jeff? Jeff … Green .. storm? Jeff Greenstorm. Yeah, that sounds right.
4. You have rubbed hand sanitizer under your armpits instead of deodorant in the recent past. Some people say this works and it seemed better than just silently smelling like a dead cat at work all day.
5. You cut open your conditioner bottles with scissors to scrape out the remains because you keep forgetting to buy fresh conditioner. Plus, it’s just wasteful otherwise. Yeah, that’s the reason you did that. To combat wastefulness.
6. You spend so many nights waking up in random apartments that your finger is basically your primary toothbrush. It’s always there … wherever “there” is on that particular day.
7. You’re eating grated cheese straight from the bag right now. Oh, so if you cut up a block of cheese, it’s acceptable, but eating it grated out of the bag makes you a garbage pile? Rude.
8. There is basically a full meal in your laptop keyboard. Same with the bottom of your purse. You know, if “meal” means countless crumbs that could technically be smushed together in a time of crisis aka waiting in line at the bank.
9. You’re wearing the same shirt you slept in last night. And honestly you will sleep in it tonight too because it doesn’t smell yet. Which leads me to…
10. You used Elmer’s glue to stick the soles back on to your favorite shoes. LOL, it did not work at all.
11. You sprayed spray deodorant on your head because you thought it was dry shampoo. And now your head smells like a lady-gym, which isn’t the worst thing, TBH.
12. More of your clothes are on the floor of your room than on hangers. And the last time they were in the closet was never.
13. You’ve never once opened a tab at a bar without leaving your card there.Late-night sex never bothers you but that walk back to the bar the next morning always feels like the true walk of shame.
14. Your phone screen is so cracked. Like it’s more cracks than phone at this point. When you go to text, you’re basically just hitting the cracks and hoping they form words.
15. Your super knows that when you call, it’s because you need them to let you back into your apartment. It’s just that your keys are in your friend’s purse. Or at the bar. Or in the cab. Look, they’re somewhere, all right?
16. You’re always asking other people for hair ties because no hot mess ever has a hair tie when she needs one. It’s an unwritten and very sad rule.
17. You get a pedicure and let the polish come off naturally, over many months. It’s like watching the seasons change, really. Plus, watching it decay and fall off reminds you of that one time six months ago when you took care of yourself. Ah, memories.

Well, that’s enough self-flagellation for one day. I have no answers. And my favorite mantra, thank you Margaret Mitchell, is, “Tomorrow is another day”.

I don’t like to perpetuate misspelled memes, but this was too good (and somehow apropos)

Oh! And the Staples truck just arrived with my new planner! Do I wait until January to try to remember to start using it or should I blow the dust off the one for 2016?

*Lane Moore, Sep 30, 2015