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The Tenerife malaise
By Joe | February 15, 2008
Note to self: You’re 43 years of age, a parent of two toddlers and a professional writer. It’s time you got organised.
Now I know I recently had a rant about the shambolic organisation of the Elton John soiree but I’m putting myself in the stocks here. If you want to throw things at me, please make sure they’re soft. And light. Fluffy preferably.
I’m a procrastinator, a firm believer in the adage of ‘Why do something today if you can put it off until tomorrow’. Very Tenerife, and very lazy, I know. But I think the time has come to change my ways. Two days ago I was sat at my computer calmly idling my time away scraping my cuticles back with a bent paper clip, thinking I had plenty of time before my next deadline, when up pops an email from one of my regular editors; ‘Hi there, just wondering when we can expect your feature?’
I checked my list-of-things-to-do-and-how-long-I’ve-got-left-to-do-them convinced that five days of cuticle smartening separated the present from the day of submission. Wrong!! I’d inadvertently put in the wrong deadline date and was now two days over on a piece I had yet to start researching. Add to that I had started with a cold that had glued my sinuses together and attached sharp little vices to every bone in my body. Work was the last thing that I wanted to do. Then again, it usually is.
Needless to say, I fired off an apologetic email detailing my malaise - but omitting to mention my lack of brain activity - and cracked on like a dog with its tail on fire. Happily I finished the feature in record time, and all is well again (I think), with this particular editor, but why oh why am I still so fucking disorganised after 43 years on the planet?
Is it because I live in Tenerife? Would I have the efficiency of a diamond-encrusted timepiece if I lived in Switzerland? Would I be as organised as a civil servant if my home was in Germany? Somehow I doubt it. I think I’m just crap at coordinating my life.
My cuticles look neat though, if anybody cares to have a look.
Topics: General musings, Life in general, Tenerife |
April 27th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
You’re spot on Joe, its Tenerife, I’m about as organised as haystack in a tornado. The Tenerife Malaise doesn’t just affect your ability to organise yourself, it hits on a much deeper and depressing level too.
The island has its merits but after a while it begins to slowly erode at your soul like a Nephilim gnawing away at your legs. The process is accelerated if offered the catalyst of countless nights in Veronicas and Starkos.
The only remedy, the only cure is to leave.
Depressed yet? Good - share the misery.