Focus? Can I take a pill for that?

This week I have had a very hard time focusing on academia.  I wish that I could lie and say that it is just a transient thing, a passing feeling but it's not.  I have a problem balancing life, outside goals, work, and school.  

I can admit it.  Fine. But isn't there a pill for that? 

It's not that I have a disorder, or even that I'm lazy.  My problem is that I have so many dynamic ideas, and I want to get them all out at once, and at different, conflicting times as well.  This does not work very well for me.  For example, this weekend I should have been diligently completing homework assignments, posting them by Sunday, and then working on the 'extras' in life.  But of course, I didn't do that.  I spent a lazy Saturday on the couch, went to dinner with my sister, and then drove around to half a dozen different car lots trying to find a new ride.  Calvin the Cavalier is wearing out after eight years together, and Foster needs to have more room to flop his furry butt.  I need more space to put my garbage, and when I move, I need a larger vehicle so that I can pack more necessities inside.

See?  Now you’re much more interested in what type of car I need, and you too have veered off of my main point. Sucker.  Don’t worry, you’re in good company.  The car was not the only distraction.  You see, my sister and I are thinking of starting our own business.  We’re both extreme smartasses with both literary and business backgrounds.  My friends and I are quite heavy-handed with puns and when most people have trouble writing succinctly, I have trouble expanding my thoughts past a haiku.  My feeling is this: I give you the framework of my thought.  You are picking up what I am putting down (as the kids say), and I don’t feel the need to feed your individual mind any further.  I don’t need to explain to you exactly what I mean because once I pass the baton to you, you take it where you want to go.  I give you the gift of the framework, but you make of it what you will.  And vice versa.  Anyway, I promise I can be succinct, but you wouldn’t know it here from the excessive rambling.  But hey, I have a word count to reach!  Damn.

 

Anyway, my sister and I are thinking of starting our own business, but you already got that, and aren’t you kind for following these detours from the form.  We are going to write our own greeting cards.  Yeah, yeah that’s been done, I know.  But none that serve the perverted minds of twisted youth (of all ages, I suspect).  I have hunted so many times for the card that says exactly what I want to convey to someone else.  I have then tried to settle for the clean version.  And then I end up getting one with a funny picture on the front and nothing printed on the inside. 

I’ll fill it in with what I really mean. Damn. Fine.  Hallmark is a feel-good piece of shit anyway.  I want the grit, the dirt, the bawdy humor of everyday speech.  And so does my sister.  And so do all of my friends.  And probably my family, too, but they won’t admit it.  They’re all goody-two-shoes anyway.  But back to my point. 

 I spent most of the day Sunday working on short stories that I intend to have published.  They’re all works about my dog, Foster, written expressly for young children. They are all a bit formulaic, but when it comes to children’s stories I think they have to be to a certain extent.  So I went to Borders and bought a wonderfully confusing, 1100-plus page book called “Writer’s Market 2o09”.  You see, I want to find a publisher, start sending off manuscripts in the hopes that someday I’ll stumble into a bookstore and see the cartoon version of Foster and myself staring back at me.    My dears, that’s what dreams are made of.

But back to my point.  Again.

 This week I have had a very hard time focusing on academia.  I wish that I could lie and say that it is just a transient thing, a passing feeling but it's not.  I have a problem balancing life, outside goals, work, and school.  

 I can admit it.  Fine. But isn't there a pill for that?