I Thought I Would Have Accomplished a Lot More Today

February 2, 2024 11:34 AM

and Also by the Time I Was Thirty-Five I was supposed to renew my car registration today. I haven’t opened the Web site. I thought that I would’ve for sure given a ted talk in my thirties on “How to Unleash the Infinite Writer’s Brain.” I haven’t even given a tedx. Damn, I really wasted the morning and the afternoon and the last ten years.
posted by folklore724 (32 comments total)

Honestly the first time I successfully flipped a crêpe* it pretty much FELT like I had just won a Nobel Prize. Maybe that's the whole secret to life. Setting the bar low.

Way low.

No, lower than that. I am thirty-three and I:
-Figured out how to ship a package internationally
-Once folded a fitted sheet
-Petted a baby owl at the zoo (SO SOFT)
-Finally learned how to spell eczema (unfortunately, this was only because in my thirties is when my eczema got very bad)

*I love the New Yorkierian flourish of putting the circumflex on the e in crêpe in this article and I do think I aged 5 years trying to remember the keyboard shortcut for circumflex
posted by capricorn at 11:46 AM on February 2 [17 favorites]

Oh and I can do the entire rap(?) portion of the Barenaked Ladies' "One Week" at karaoke. So I think I'm accomplished as fuck!
posted by capricorn at 11:48 AM on February 2 [16 favorites]

I love the New Yorkierian flourish of putting the circumflex on the e in crêpe in this article and I do think I aged 5 years trying to remember the keyboard shortcut for circumflex

Remembering it's called a circumflex is already a huge flourish.
posted by Ickster at 11:51 AM on February 2 [12 favorites]

Honestly I thought it was called a macron and I had to google it to check. Hell yeah, I successfully googled something, today has already been HUGE!
posted by capricorn at 11:53 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]

I turn 53 tomorrow, and every time I've paid a bill in the last 10 years, I've had a little thrill that I'm finally grown up enough to just get it done instead of remembering in a panic the day it's due (or worse).

When I actually put something away instead of setting it down wherever it's convenient, I get the same little thrill.

Basically, I've spent my entire adult life trying to act "like an adult" and the bare minimum gets me excited.
posted by Ickster at 11:55 AM on February 2 [25 favorites]

I have what I guess is a successful career, but can only imagine how much more relaxed my life would be if I could avoid distraction long enough to get things done when they need to get done.

Maybe before I die.
posted by Ickster at 11:57 AM on February 2 [5 favorites]

Aimee Mann had this guy beat by a few years.
posted by mykescipark at 11:57 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]

Once folded a fitted sheet

*burns with jealousy*
posted by gwint at 11:57 AM on February 2 [7 favorites]

I can:
- burn toast
- forget to take the garbage out
- forget to switch the laundry over
- quietly panic when my car won't start
I mean, I could go on but I think that pretty much covers the big stuff.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 12:05 PM on February 2 [9 favorites]

This is so timely. I'm in the middle of a mundane chore, one that entails a bit of waiting for things to happen and then doing a small thing and then waiting again, repeat a few times. Not 10 minutes ago I was congratulating myself for starting the thing, and have already considered it to be a good, productive day because yay, the thing is getting done. the one thing.
posted by OHenryPacey at 12:06 PM on February 2 [6 favorites]

I successfully expressed my dog's anal glands. Ask me anything.
posted by obfuscation at 12:06 PM on February 2 [19 favorites]

Things I've done this week that I feel more accomplished about than any work tasks or life successes:

- changed my sheets, including the duvet cover.
- cleaned out stuff from the freezer that has been in there for literal years, having finally accepted that no, I will not be cooking any of that and yes, it is fully too freezer burned to risk eating.
- my taxes. I owe money :( but I did them, and scheduled the payment to the IRS!
- did not eat out even though I really really wanted to. I told myself "you have food at home" and I did, and I ate it!!
- actually messaged a friend within a day of having the thought "I should message friend" instead of just thinking it and then failing to do it.

Did also eat an entire bag of chile limon potato chips though. Also I have eaten two bowls of Froot Loops this week. But! I also ate bananas and apples as snacks! So, like, it all evens out, I guess.
posted by yasaman at 12:16 PM on February 2 [8 favorites]

Maybe that's the whole secret to life. Setting the bar low.

“Listen to your mother, kids: Aim low. Aim so low no one will even care if you succeed.”

Marge Simpson
“The Twisted World of Marge Simpson"
Season 8 / Episode 11
posted by star gentle uterus at 1:15 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]

I haven’t even given a tedx.

I knew I had made it when I got invited to give a tedx and declined without giving it a moment of consideration.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 1:20 PM on February 2 [5 favorites]

This week I successfully paid someone a very large sum of money to come change the smoke detector battery in my bedroom, because despite having lived in this house for ten years I still don't own a stepladder tall enough to get at the ceiling in this room (14') and quite frankly even if I did get one I'd be terrified to get up that high, I read all the time about people around my age who fall off ladders and DIE. (The handyman who came to deal with the issue was probably 20 years my senior, but he climbs on ladders all the time.)

My parents would have solved this problem (if they hadn't already had the good sense to live in a house with 8 foot ceilings throughout) by the time-honored tradition of Knowing A Guy, but despite having lived in this neighborhood for ten years I do not Know A Guy with a big ladder, I know no guys at all and have to call an ambitiously priced handyman service when even the tiniest thing in my house goes kerblooey.
posted by Daily Alice at 1:44 PM on February 2 [12 favorites]

I know no guys at all and have to call an ambitiously priced handyman service when even the tiniest thing in my house goes kerblooey.

4 out of 5 of the lights in my kitchen have been put for over a year.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 1:53 PM on February 2 [3 favorites]

On a positive note - that article is from 2020, so maybe he has accomplished since then.
posted by davidmsc at 2:17 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]

"It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years." -- Tom Lehrer
posted by kyrademon at 2:18 PM on February 2 [9 favorites]

I know no guys at all and have to call an ambitiously priced handyman service when even the tiniest thing in my house goes kerblooey.

Literally just today my roommate and I called our super because the pilot light on our gas stove has been failing to light and it was getting to be an issue. He said he'd be right over, since my roommate was home to let him in.

The super just had to clean it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:23 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]

Oh and I can do the entire rap(?) portion of the Barenaked Ladies' "One Week" at karaoke.

I can do the rap part of “You’re Welcome” from Moana.
posted by nickmark at 4:11 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]

The rap break to "Wham Rap," over here.
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:29 PM on February 2 [4 favorites]

I have gone through all of the Tupperware, matched the lids to the containers, thrown out the stray pieces, and ordered a new organizing rack for the lids to keep them in place going forward. Look on my works ye mighty and despair.
posted by ActionPopulated at 6:12 PM on February 2 [8 favorites]

Meanwhile in Ontario, a few years ago our dumb-ass con premier made renewing vehicle license registration free as a sop to his moronic voters. But, you still have to remember to file to renew it, even though it's free. (Not really complaining about that, just the health-care crisis.)
posted by ovvl at 6:53 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]

I pay every bill electronically but I still pay my rent via paper check. Write it, envelope it, and then drive past the local mailbox, over to the post office. No mailbox for *this* guy. I walk in and slide that shit into the slot feeling the glorious surety that on the other slide is a conveyor belt that goes directly to my landlord’s house. I walk back out, jump up and chestbump myself in the parking lot.
posted by jerome powell buys his sweatbands in bulk only at 8:14 PM on February 2 [6 favorites]

Wait a second, the dude who wrote that piece got himself published in the New Yorker. Fake! Fake!
posted by storybored at 9:52 PM on February 2 [7 favorites]

Adulting 101
posted by fairmettle at 11:12 PM on February 2

I cleaned and reset the filter in the AC that had been blinking at me for a week
I am doing a ton of stuff for the first time, since my parents have abandoned me.*
Every little thing feels an accomplishment. Even paying the plummer.

*They are fine, they moved to the seaside.
posted by thegirlwiththehat at 5:14 AM on February 3 [5 favorites]

Remembering it's called a circumflex is already a huge flourish.

I used “milkshake duck” in a sentence in work Slack yesterday, correctly, and decided to end the week right there, at that high point.

I’m outta here. See you Monday.
posted by notyou at 5:49 AM on February 3 [4 favorites]

I have been homebrewing mead and metheglin since I was 22, and whenever I feel like a useless failure of a human I open one of the older bottles in my wine fridge to remind myself that I am occasionally capable of doing interesting things despite my daily habits resembling that of a raccoon in human form.

Anyways I'm going to be popping open a bottle of 5 year old wildflower honey and lavender mead tonight, because at almost 30 I can now reply to angry customer emails without taking 15 minutes to sob at my desk beforehand.
posted by Pemberly at 11:40 AM on February 3 [6 favorites]

the time-honored tradition of Knowing A Guy

It's my whole career to help people be organized and productive — to coach them at adulting. In the last 72 hours three colleagues and two clients have contacted me because it's assumed that Knowing A Guy is part of my skillset.

But it takes me three attempts to empty the dishwasher. Sometimes, I just do the forks and then close the door and congratulate myself on a good start. And when I click "submit" on TurboTax, I'm frankly disappointed that there's nobody standing behind me to cheer.
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 12:12 AM on February 4 [3 favorites]

Thanks for this post, folklore724! I was so proud of myself for loading and running the dishwasher late last night instead of just going to bed. But I wanted plenty of clean bowls when the grandkids show up later because whatever they eat, they want it in a bowl. Kudos all around to everyone doing anything, ever, no matter how small, instead of just going back to bed. Which I still do on some days.
posted by Bella Donna at 12:53 AM on February 4 [2 favorites]

I do a lot of adulting in some ways and absolutely none in others. Like why am I able to fold a fitted sheet on the regular, use q-tips to deep clean behind the bathroom faucet, and make it to the gym on a regular basis but I can't make a freaking doctor appointment? How is it that I bought an entire house but I can't manage to return an item via the mail? (Actually I know that one, it's because I don't have a damned printer. But why haven't I bought one?!?)

Luckily I had no particular expectations for myself in terms of a career. But I really did think by now I might be in a position to do laundry without traveling out-of-doors.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:54 AM on February 5 [2 favorites]