I’m sorry if you now have this stuck in your head; I do. And this might be semi-incoherent, but confessing my personal shortcomings is something I have to do, if I’m going to stop shortcoming. Ahahahaha, I said, “coming.”


Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve fallen off the wagon. Okay, that sounded much too serious for what I’m going for here, but you get the idea. I spent the better part of the last year doing the whole, “I’m gonna be less chemical dependent and wasteful. I’m gonna feed my family healthier,” with some steps having more importance than others. You will pry my coffee from my cold dead fucking fingers — and it’s good for you, anyway.

I made some pretty comfortable progress. I was both proud and cocky. And then there was none.

It starts with convenience.

Disposable is easy. Disposable diapers are simple. Fast food is simple. If it were easy to bake fresh bread every morning and cloth diaper our children, people (I) would do it without bitching. To my own fault, I’m lazy. I like baking — but I don’t like the time it takes. I don’t plan far enough in advance for making fresh rolls — these things rise for how long? I feel frequently pulled in a million directions, torn between enjoying things around the house and committing to my chores and cooking. I opt for the easy route, if I can afford it. Ah, yes. It’s about money.

When I was making most of our food from scratch, cloth diapering with absolute determination — I will hand wash all the diapers and dry them in the sun of our deck for the greater good!  – we were broke. There’s this funny thing about having money, where it somehow becomes easier to spend it on things you don’t need.

Take pop. I love that shit; it’s ridiculous how much craving a pop becomes distracting, and how relieving having one is. (Hi, I think that makes me an addict?) When we’re budgeting down to the dollar, we’ll forgo the pop; instead opting for water, coffee, tea and kool-aid to break the monotony of water. But more than that, we didn’t buy things we didn’t absolutely need — paying $3 for a box of garlic bread? Fuck that, I make four times as much garlic bread cheaper. We made our menu two weeks in advance and went to the store twice a month.

When there’s money to spare, it’s easier to start shopping as the whim hits. Hey, want to make wings tonight? Ugh, I don’t feel like cooking tonight — Taco Bell? Both habits are disgustingly expensive. In Taco Bell’s case, just disgusting, but I cannot quit it.

Then I realized how dissatisfied I am with the whole thing.

For a person who takes great pleasure from doing nothing, it’s strange how much pride I take from simply getting things done like every other functioning adult on the planet. Maybe it’s not strange — maybe it’s totally normal that I, who has enough anti-willpower for ten men, finds pleasure in getting up the gumption to do my dishes and bake a loaf of bread.

The problem is that when I let things little things fall by the wayside, when I start taking all the shortcuts possible, the rest of my life follows along. I lose a sense of purpose. Before my purpose was simple: keep this household in one piece, healthy, with the absolute least amount of money possible. I worked in earnest, as best I could. I blogged, I made sure I was putting in the time for my fiction and doing my paid work absolutely as fast as possible.

Now I kind… plod through everything. My novel stands long-neglected and behind schedule by several months. And you’ve seen the tumbleweeds here on the blog, I’m sure. Please, dear lord, do not ask me about my website.

More shortcuts, lazier lifestyle, slower work, less money. Well hello there, cycle of my life.

So, there it is. There is my flawed, lazy cycle on public display. I’m going to shut up and go work.