I've reached multi-tasking meltdown, and it ain't pretty. A quick review of my to-do list exposes the overload:
- Write and find homes for filler articles on kids' bad dreams, snoring and heart disease, clinical research participation, www.kudzu.com, full-time working mamas' decline
- Wash Carson's laundry, think up fab dinner dish, get to the store for laundry soap, stain remover (chocolate milk is my sworn enemy!), and dish detergent
- Update website homepage (content), move business consulting content to new web space, find graphic designer to create high-res header image that doesn't suck (note: designer must be able to hear what I want and not respond "that's not working for me" like some sort of frustrated creative genius...)
- Read writing class materials and complete writing assignments, make comments on classmates' contributions
- Try not to read email when I should be working (bing -- I've got more mail)
- Write up first draft of essay on my year in Fresno, CA without lapsing into such self-indulgent reverie that it grows far beyond 2,000 words and becomes a major motion picture screenplay
- Don't think about editors who don't return calls or email. Really, it's impossible to concentrate with puffs of smoke coming from your ears
- Figure out whether we have ingredients for fab dinner dish identified earlier and cuss when we don't. Muse over options: go to store to buy needed ingredients or select new dish (not so fab) or chuck it all and order Thai take out
- Draft query letters for 2 feature articles I've been plotting and planning in my "spare time"
- Wait! Where's Carson? Have I changed his diaper? Cooked his breakfast? How much TV has he watched today? What time is his "Fledgling" program at the Nature Center? Should we walk or drive?
- Blog, blog, blog
Don't get me wrong, I've always had a (nearly) pathological tendency to put more on my plate than is healthy. And I mean that both literally and figuratively. Yesterday I ate so many of Jessica Seinfeld's Chocolate Chip Chickpea Cookies that I counted them as a serving of vegetables.
Seriously, I've started to wonder if the mommy brain drain isn't a result of divided attention. Maybe when you divide your attention between so many things at once, your brain just sort of falls apart. Maybe I still have one hundred billion brain cells, but they aren't speaking to each other anymore. They're working on separate projects. And right now I need it that way.
