Modest Goddess

I'm just wondering: Can the great American novel be made up entirely of to-do lists?

Today, in two hours, I did the following:
Took two bins of recycling out to the garage.
Took a full garbage bag of diapers out to the trash can.Took said trash out to curb.
Put on a sweater from the car trunk because I was cold.
Grabbed a small plastic bag, a leaf bag, a garbage pail and a snow shovel from the garage and brought them into the backyard.
Raked up leaves that had drifted in front of the back door and along the back of the house and put them in the leaf bag.
Picked up dog poop.
Collected various balls and put them under the wagon for protection from the elements.
Refilled the bird feeder. (Worried about them having enough calories for coming cold spell.)
Took the yard implements back into the garage.
Put the bag of dog poop in the trash. Closed garage.
Brought the recycling bin back in the house, along with the last houseplant to be left outside this fall.
Fetched stepladder from closet. Tried to adjust Christmas lights. Lights not adjusted; still annoying droop. Returned stepladder to closet.
Went into the basement and folded laundry from the dryer.
Brought laundry upstairs.
Made a stop in kitchen to leave clean bibs and dish towels and to grab digital camera from its home on top of microwave.
Washed dishes in sink and put away.Brought remaining laundry and camera up another flight of stairs.
Left laundry in front of Big Big Man's closet.
Plugged camera into computer and left it to download photos of Little Big Man with Grandma in front of Christmas tree and "helping" to rake leaves.
Went back downstairs into kitchen; closed kitchen and bathroom windows left open to air house. Sprayed orange air freshener.
Swilled cup of Airborne.
Got Christmas hand towels from bathroom and replaced them with clean but non-Christmas towels.
Went back into basement; threw remaining laundry in machine, and half-dried sweater in dryer.
Decided to dig out more Christmas towels from bags of Christmas stuff. Also grabbed laundry bag to return to back of basement door and clothes hamper to return to Little Big Man's room.
Went back upstairs to kitchen, hanging laundry bag on door.Put away non-Christmas towels in bathroom and replaced with Christmas towels.
Took LBM's hamper and some more bibs upstairs. Snuck into his room so as not to wake him and replaced hamper and put bibs in drawer. Tiptoed out of room; closed door.
Began process of uploading photos to Snapfish in order to create personal and thoughtful calendars for Christmas gifts for Little Big Man's grandparents. Deadline for discount orders is Sunday.
Closed bathroom windows. Stripped. Showered. Brushed teeth in shower.Dressed. Squirted mousse in hair and brushed it. Put on jewelry.
Remade messy bed.
Replaced towels in other bathroom so Little Big Man wouldn't get contaminated with Big Big Man's cold germs.
Shut down computer. (Three keystrokes. Why?) Grabbed address book, address labels, nanny's paycheck and digital camera from office.
Grabbed sweater from bedroom.
Went downstairs to greet nanny.
Left address book and labels and paycheck by front door.
Prepared dinner of leftovers to take to work.
Organized containers of food in fridge for nanny, shoving week-old chicken and container of giblets for pets into back so she wouldn't inadvertently feed them to Little Big Man.
Fed dog and cat.
Put on coat and bid nanny farewell after discussions on naptime, dinner and bedtime.
Grabbed bag by front door containing Christmas cards and book and labels, sweater to replace in trunk and digital camera to give to friend at work so he can take pictures of piano he's giving me.
Hopped in car. Resumed listening to 1,000-page novel "Sarum" on tape.
Stopped at post office. Air-dried hair using car heater. Applied make-up in parking lot at work.
At work: Spent a leisurely 20 minutes checking e-mail. Another 45 minutes writing this list.
Later: Wrote Christmas cards when workflow tapered off.
Now: Exhausted.

I don't wanna die thinking about all the time-wasters I kept occupied with when I should have been trying to create quality fiction.

But here's the truth: It's easier to fill up time doing all this crap than it is to sit in front of the computer sweating blood.

And who would take care of all this stuff, anyway? I used to think I could do housework and take care of Little Big Man at the same time. How much attention could a toddler really need? Turns out: all of it. And I'm already not there for his dinner, his bath, his bedtime.

The ability to ignore housework strikes me as a trademark of artists, the ones who actually produce. They are selfish. Cups pile up. Bugs root around on the floor. They don't care. They just create. Wannabees will get up and pick up the cups and exterminate the bugs, and keep doing a hundred million other things than what they really want to be doing, but are terrified to start.

Labels: art writing housework working moms