If You’re Messy and You Know It . . .

Organization is most decidedly not my strong point. I’m scatter-brained and sloppy, and for the most part, I can deal with that because I’m never too busy that I can’t remember the occasional appointment. Recently though, I’ve taken on so many little projects that I’m having trouble keeping them all straight, as evidenced by a phone call I had this weekend with the director of one of my shows when I told her that I had a conflict, only to realize after hanging up that there was no such conflict. Oops.

And so, on my lunch break from work today, I went out and bought something I’ve never had before — a day planner. I mean, yeah, I carried assignment books around with me in high school, but I never actually used them. (I never actually did my assignments, either, but I believe that I’ve written about that already.) My planner is big and black and named Charles, and besides a calendar and address book, Charles has a calculator and credit card slots and a cell phone pouch and an ID-card window and space for my money and a built in change purse and enough room for my keys, so long as I take off the bulky army-knife-esque key chain that doesn’t even work anymore. Now that I have Charles, I don’t even need a purse anymore, although I’ll still carry one around a lot of the time because purses are pretty and Charles, while functional and business-like, is not really such a looker.

With any luck, I’ll stick to using my new planner and it will help me figure out what I’m doing on a day-to-day basis and help me maintain my schedule of a full-time job, two acting jobs, one singing job, and, oh yes, a social life. I’m counting on you, Charles.

How do people manage to be neat? I’m seriously asking this question, because I have no frigging idea. I am a messy, messy person. I’m sorry, but it’s true. My apartment is a hole, I spill my food constantly, and I can ruin a pair of new shoes in twenty minutes flat. I stayed up for an entire night a couple of days ago, cleaning my apartment from top to bottom in preparation for a, uhm, visitor. (There I go, withholding information again. I’m so sneaky!) Now, less than five days later, it’s starting to look like a wreck again, and I don’t know how that happened.

Does anybody want to make some sort of arrangement where you come over every day while I’m at work and tidy up after me? I can’t afford to pay you, but I’ll give you a nice pat on the head whenever our paths should happen to cross, I promise.

This election really needs to be over sometime soon, because it’s starting to drive me crazy. I have my beliefs, and I don’t feel like changing them, and listening to two idiots yammering on about the “issues” is starting to wear thin. And yet, I continue to watch these debates, even though I can’t help myself from hurling insults at the television screen. I feel guilty; it’s not nice to the poor television, who has never done anything wrong.

As you can probably tell, given that in this entry alone I’ve named my planner and referred to my television as a “who,” I tend to anthropomorphize my possessions. My first car was named Eddie, and after he died of old age I bought Wanda, who died tragically in an accident. My computer is named Penelope, as was a six-foot tall blue stuffed flamingo who liked to flamenco that my first boyfriend won for me at a fair. My stuffed koala, with whom I sleep every night unless there should happen to be someone slightly more human in the bed with me, is named, aptly enough, Mr. Koala.

This doesn’t make me strange, does it? You know, on second thought, don’t answer that.