Life lessons from Milton Bradley

I took one of my antifreakout pills first thing this morning. It was probably a good idea. I woke up fairly early and felt the arbitrary pressure of May crushing my chest. My book isn't done (2.1). Actually, for the book I'm having a hard time trying to make sense out of what I already have, what I need, and how it all fits together. I'd push the deadline back a month, but I fear that's a bit ambitious for this project. May was also the deadline for applying at MSU. I missed that. Kind of on purpose. I had such a horrible experience at MSU that I can't convince myself that I really want to spend two to four years back there. But it's still disappointing to me that I set this goal and didn't follow it. . . Plus there's the whole no job thing. Starting yet another month without a job. . . All this and I'm still sick. But the pill seemed to work. I didn't freakout. I didn't start crying. I read for awhile, dozing in and out during the process. Turns out, it's kind of a sleepy pill. Not bad though. I could've stayed awake if I had anything that I needed to be awake for.

For my birthday, I got Chutes and Ladders. Get it? Because of the ups and downs in my life. I thought it was funny. But once we got started thinking about Chutes and Ladders on that deeper level (please don't leave), we couldn't stop. It's a good game for kids because it teaches them that hard work (the ladders) is fun and helps you to get to the top and that laziness/goofoffishness (the chutes), while fun, won't get you anywhere. This morning I looked at the game board and took things one step further. There are other messages in Chutes and Ladders: None of the chutes dump you back at start. No matter how far you fall, you never have to start over. Also, there are some chutes that dump you off a couple of spaces away from a ladder that will take you even higher than you were before you fell. So sometimes setbacks put you in a position to reach a higher level of success. . . Yeah, sorry. This kind of thing happens when you give an English major too much time to think about things.

So, today was a chute day. But I did come up with my next step toward a greater level of doingstuffness. I'm going to buy some sort of planner, and before each day I will plan six or seven things to be done on that day. One of these things will always be writing related. One yoga. One running. At least one job. One guitar. Then at least one activity not related to any of these other activities. My reasoning is that if I decide before what I'm going to do during a particular day before the day actually happens, I won't waste so much time trying to figure out what to do that day. I'm bad at choosing things. I'm working on that. But until then, I'm going to prechoose things.

Is it me, or is there some kind of notrightness to this post? It feels off to me.

I'm grateful for the ladders (20).