My Invidious Planner and She Who Wrote It

As we were re-scheduling for the fourth time, Deb, my former colleague, observed that this was getting ridiculous. We’re retired. In theory, we have all sorts of time on our hands. Somehow that doesn’t happen. I flipped my planner to the next date Deb suggested and it was booked. Reminds me of that old New Yorker cartoon: How about never? Is never good for you?

Take this morning. I got up at my usual time, made coffee, read the news over a bowl of oatmeal: the latest revelations about Trump’s attempted coup again fail to excite the outrage I hoped for. Don’t people care about democracy anymore?

Liat, one of the cats I kept from starving this week

After breakfast, I arrived at my desk and read my planner to learn what I’m doing today. Groceries, clean bathroom, draft blog, work on translation, exercise, put out trash, grade. Seems like a lot for one day, doesn’t it? I mean, getting groceries is half the day right there.

It says exercise on every damn day this week. I made an ambitious commitment to exercise daily a few weeks ago after seeing photos of myself. Those lumpy arms! That protruding tummy! Usually I avoid such confrontations by being the self-appointed photographer. At that family gathering, my ploy was squashed.

The notes on my planner are aspirational and written by some unrealistic earlier version of myself the night before. A version of myself who has the expectation that life will not intrude and the hours of the day will somehow magically expand to encompass the desired outcomes. A version of myself who does not learn from experience. That person.

By five p.m., I’d bought groceries, written a rough first paragraph for a blog, and put out the trash. The planner does not mention other things I did: fed the neighbor’s cats while they’re out of town, killed some Japanese beetles, stared out various windows in search of inspiration, pulled some weeds, played a few computer games in search of inspiration, examined a patch on my foot that might be leprosy.

I have a loose rule that no serious work of any kind should happen after five, except making dinner. Unless I’m teaching, and then I might have to grade. Sometimes, in an effort to teach she who wrote the list a lesson, I amend the day’s schedule to include all the things I DID do, necessary things like killing beetles and feeding cats. I leave out playing computer games. Often, I simply add the things I didn’t do to the next day’s calendar. That’s how “exercise” got written on every day this week and checked off only once.

But it’s too late for anything else now: time to make dinner. Before I go to bed, I’ll make a list of what should be done tomorrow. Because look: the planner page for tomorrow is an open white field scored by inviting gray lines, begging to be filled.