So the intrinsically sensible Frugal Scholar responds to yesterday’s rant from Funny about the constant deluge of paper that pours into the house, despite a diversion dam between the mailbox and the front door that directs much of it straight to the recycling bin. She suggests a personal organizer might be helpful.
Yes. I’ve thought of that. We do, however, have my innate laziness to contend with. This characteristic makes it possible for me to ignore personal organizing systems, blithely and with ease.
But something must be done.
Once I finally got caught up (except for reconciling all those bank accounts) and desk was shoveled off and — now that its surface was visible — dusted, I considered what I could do to keep the mess of my life more or less under control.
As a practical matter, the organizational device that has always worked best for me is The List. Listing goes a long way toward making me remember the things that need to be done in a given day, and also there’s a little carrot effect in the pleasure of marking stuff off. What if I had some kind of “list on steroids,” whereby not only would all the to-do’s be listed, they would be listed by “zones” of the day in which to accomplish them — morning, midday, and evening.
So far, this is working OK, except that by evening I’m so tired I usually don’t get much done.
Last night, for example, I was just too whipped to focus on writing a blog post. Or much of anything else, either. Managed to write a few sentences of the present scene in Book II of the Fire-Rider series, enough to jump-start another line or two this morning…gosh, that’s going slow!
So all the things that didn’t get done yesterday — such as writing this post — take time away from things that I need to do today:
Oh, boring boring boring BOOOORING! How much more would I rather spend the whoooole day writing this stuff…
Don′O, a man almost as hefty as Bova but who carried his size less in muscle and more in fat, greeted the newcomer with a handshake and a bluffly cheerful welcome.
“How’s your day going, Old Snow-Killer?” he asked.
“Good,” Bova replied, without elaboration. “It looks like there’s some water at the bottom of the hill,” he said. “Leastwise, that’s according to one of the drovers Lhored sent forward to check it out. I’m headed back to let my monja know and start rounding up our boys.”
“That’s good to hear,” said Kay. Done with his work on Nando, he stuffed the unused bandage strips into a green sack and handed it over to Tavio, who went off to load it on Mist, their ill-tempered pack pony. “You’d better run along back up to Devey’s bunch,” he said to Nando, who thanked him and then headed up the line at a trot.
Don′O, at Bova’s news, decided it was time to alert Moor Lek’s bands, and also those of Kay’s deceased mayre, Robin of O′a, among the heroes dead on the field at Loma Alda. He went off to find Robin’s monja to let him know of the supposed water supply and then to start wrangling his own men.
Jag Bova fell in with Kay for awhile, knowing there was no great hurry to tell the Rozebek band that they would soon arrive at the night’s campsite. Kay was content to have him around. He enjoyed the big blond man’s company and respected his deeply traditional rural decency. [WAIT WHAT? REALLY? SERIOUSLY?????]
“I think I’m gonna belt the next guy who calls me ‘Snow-Killer,’” Bova grumbled.
Kay glanced at him, not altogether surprised. “Why?” he asked.
“Sick of listening to it.”
They walked together in silence for a few minutes, Kay uninclined to comment. The sun was sinking toward the western horizon, the air cooling and growing quieter as the bands dropped toward the desert floor and toward evening. A quail crowed its odd, bright call from somewhere in the brush. Kay heard a thrasher’s melodic trill, and he noticed a pair of small scavenging bluebirds following hopefully alongside the marching men.
“Doesn’t it get on your nerves, them calling you ‘Fire-Rider’ every time you turn around?”
“Not especially,” Kay said. “They don’t mean any harm.”
Bova sighed. “I know,” he said.
“They’ll forget about it pretty soon—whenever something else comes up for them to think about.”
“Mm-hm. I suppose,” Bova replied. “But I’d sure like to put that business behind me. Don’t need to be reminded of it twenty times a day.”
“Well. It’s the wages of fame, y’know.”
“Sure.”
The sun settled closer to the mountains at their backs. The sky began to take on the dusky blues and pinks of sunset. From a bluff behind them, a canyon wren sounded its wild cliff-diving tremolo: CHEE-WEE–wee wee-wee-wee. A turkey vulture rode a column of cold air above the desert floor.
“I’m having a hard time getting that stuff out of my mind,” Bova resumed.
“It wasn’t very pleasant,” Kay replied, in exquisite understatement.
Bova spat on the ground.
And? AND? AND???? THEN WHAT???
I can’t wait to find out, and I don’t want to wait until late tonight or sometime tomorrow to dream up Bova’s answer! Argh!
