You Can't Always Get What You Want

Especially if you have no clue what that might be.

Exhibit A: My least favorite day of the year is the 24 hour period beginning directly after dessert on Christmas Day and continuing until the following afternoon. What is there to look forward to? To plan for? To work on? You're adrift in a sea of great books and CDs, and really, it's all too much to process.

Exhibit B: My most favorite day of the year is the 24 hour period immediately preceding the opening of Christmas gifts. Oh, the anticipation, the excitement, the hope--will people like the gifts you got them? Is that Mrs. Scotto at the door with leftover tiramisu? Do we have any nutmeg for the eggnog? Ah, good times.

Exhibit C: I had more fun planning my birthday dinner last year than I had actually attending my birthday dinner. I know this is true because, as it happened, we had to cancel the birthday dinner and to my surprise, I didn't mind at all. A couple days later, we decided on the spur of the moment to do a raincheck at a neighborhood place. My only real complaint was that I didn't have the fun of looking forward to that dinner as well.

Exhibit D: As I work on my 8 million projects (really just 4, but who's counting?), I keep thinking "I should pull the plug on X and focus on W, Y & Z." But then I think "Yeah, but that means X is done. And I'm not happy with it being done in its current state." Which means, for those of you playing along at home, that I am deliberately making myself work to the point of exhaustion because *that seems like more fun* than accepting what I've got so far and moving on.