66 GSCENE
SHARP WORDS
TIME FLIES
DEL SHARP ON TIME, AND
NEVER HAVING ENOUGH OF IT
Sharp Words is dismayed; the end of another year spent
procrastinating over my endless lists of things to do which seem to
get longer while all I do is change the ‘to do by’ date on them, which
vaguely makes it all seem better until I realise nothing has actually
happened and then my only sense of achievement is having more time
to try and get the said things done.
I’ve been living in my flat for eight years and still not unpacked
several boxes in the shed, the content I can’t even imagine, mostly
because I put even that off. I seem to while away huge chunks of
time with inexplicable flashbacks of T.J. Hooker episodes, occasionally
scrubbing the bathroom grouting with a nailbrush and sometimes
having a job to go to, then find with a real and frightening shock that
another year has passed me by.
I seem to be busy much of the time but can’t actually find the
evidence of what I’ve done. I think I may have a fear of time. I know I
can’t get things done in allotted spaces of it so often my immediate
reaction is to lie under the duvet for a bit in order to consider my plan
of action. Then I wake up and realise there’s less time. Then I waste
time panicking and getting palpitations which requires a glass of wine
and a sit down. Another x amount of hours gone.
I have experimented on days when I don’t have to be anywhere, see
anyone or get to bed at a particular time and have just not looked at
the clock. On those days I do lots of things: chores, send birthday
cards, make petit fours, create elaborate vintage style soft furnishings,
construct Shaker-style units for the kitchen and cook lavish meals;
and all before I decide to go to bed. Well maybe not the post box bit,
that would be pushing the envelope. But I get more done anyway.
Maybe that’s the secret to huge amounts of productivity, just not
looking at our watches all the time. I try not to look at mine anyway
mostly because it’s an hour ahead and I don’t know how to change it.
I do have the instructions but just haven’t got round to reading them
yet. I rely on my phone to tell me what hours are left in the day but
also have it close at all times to remind me how many, or few, friends
want to contact me.
“I’ve only been on Facebook a
handful of times. I didn’t understand
it and as far as I can remember have
left the settings as ‘leave me alone’”
I heard of FOMO recently, no doubt long after everyone else, which is
the Fear of Missing Out and the phenomena of using social
networking, Tweeting, Facebook and mobiles, to constantly update
what anyone is doing at anytime, anywhere and being a part of a busy
gaggle of a connected crowd. Well I’m not one of them. I’ve only been
on Facebook a handful of times. I didn’t understand it and as far as I
can remember have left the settings as ‘leave me alone’ or some such,
although I did use it to send a clumsy message to someone I liked
who didn’t reply then realised it made me look like a weird, stalkerish,
lonely middle-aged lesbian, which I’m not at all. So now I’m too
terrified to use the thing again, apart from gazing at her picture now
and again which is quite okay because I’m a netizen and reckon that
it’s in the public domain so not too strange.
If I want to talk to my friends I call them, talk for half an hour
before meeting them in a café and then not saying much at all. If I
want to talk to my friends abroad I can pick up the phone and
sometimes we use Skype and compare our stomachs. That’s all much
more normal interaction, isn’t it?
So I don’t have FOMO at all; I talk to and see people, sometimes in
real life and have no need for Tweeting because I haven’t worked it
out yet, but it’s on a list somewhere of something I possibly might
have a moment for.
“I have no need for Tweeting
because I haven’t worked that out
yet either but it’s on a list somewhere
of something I possibly might have
a moment for”
But in the meantime I’m far too busy with a mobile and a landline. I
check them constantly, not to see if I’ve missed anything, but just if
they’re working. That takes up a great deal of my busy day. I was
greatly distressed recently to answer the phone to a deep male voice
intoning, “You are running out of time!” I could only squeak in terror,
something somewhere had found me out, knew I kept hiding under
the duvet and was now in a mood to take its revenge and chastise me
for my tardiness. Of course it continued on to be a recorded message
about the PPI I never took out but it shook me up dreadfully,
stopped me doing whatever I hadn’t started and I had to lie down.
Practically another day gone and all through no fault of my own.
I have another year in my grasp, I resolve to stick to my lists, not let
any 1980s cop show visions ruin my concentration, let alone any
stray Cagney & Lacey theme tune humming ruin my next big project
and I will show old mean nasty Mother Time what I’m really made of.
I have twelve months, but I might have to just check in around
October to ask for a little longer in case something comes up. But I’m
sure the rest of you will have a very happy New Year, just make sure
you have enough time for it.