20nothing.com

I have two lists in my life: Things To Do and…well, Things To Do. Neither have anything ticked off them because I am yet to do the dishes or sleep with John Mayer.
“One day…” I tell myself every time I look at the sink. “One day…”
I think it would be easier to get me to do John Mayer than it would be to get me to go all Cinderella on my kitchen. Because, first of all, he doesn’t seem at all particular. And, second of all, we frequent the same bars.
“You’re going to meet your husband while you are wasted at a bar,” my boy friend scoffed.
“At least the first five, yes,” I confirmed.

Before I become the next Elizabeth Taylor, I have a list of things I need to accomplish in my life to acknowledge myself as a successful, contributing member of society.
“I want to go to McDonalds and order one thousand chicken McNuggets and eat them all in one sitting.”
“Can I ask ‘Why’?” My dad is often amused – sorry, bemused – by the decisions I make in my life.
“Isn’t it obvious? To see if they have one thousand McNuggets on hand at any given time. And then to see if I can physically consume them.”
I also want to go to the North Pole dressed as Santa and Mrs Claus, drive from one side of the USA to the other in a Hummar, get banned from ever returning to a small Asian nation, learn to cook cupcakes and, of course, sleep with John Mayer.
“How ever will you find the time?” my boy friend scoffed while I was eating breakfast at three o’clock in the afternoon after waking up from a Temazapam-induced coma.
“It’s called time management,” I scoffed back. Duh.

One morning, when I woke up before noon, I decided to make a new list and actually challenge myself.
“I am going to do absolutely nothing today,” I informed everyone in my life who is paid to stay in contact with me and validate my existence. “If I can’t do it from my couch, I am not going to do it.”
I moved my scotch bottle, Coke Zero, cigarettes, ashtray and Dinosaur Chicken Nuggets within arms reach of my chair and computer, then went to the bathroom one last time. (Aside: Imagine if diapers were acceptable to wear between the ages of three and seventy three? Ponder that.)
“Aim high!” my boy friend scoffed.
“You are going to do genuine throat damage if you consistently talk to me in that tone.”
I sat back, got comfortable and lit up lunch.

As life is filled by unavoidable stresses out of ones control, I often like to take the time to avoid them. (I call them “Weekdays” and, sometimes, “Weekends”). I reason, simply, that life doesn’t have to be so involved with lists of things you don’t want to do and lists of things you have to do, so it is therefore an individual right and liberty to stop momentarily and do the things you actually want to do.
For some people, that Thing is to climb Everest. For me, it is sitting in my underpants, drinking scotch and watching YouTube videos of midgets on skateboards.
“You really need a job,” my boy friend crocked with the sound of a pack-a-day-smoker. I lit up and sung along to the chipmuck backing music on Midget Runs Into A Bus.

Eight hours into achieving my goal, an enabler entered my reality.
For some people, this person is a Sherpa, or an employer or, you know, a baker with cupcakes. For me, it is a friend with an invitation to go to a bar.
“I will never achieve my goals so long as I am surrounded by social alcoholics,” I sighed with the tone of someone who actually does smoke a pack of cigarettes a day.

I returned home, thankful for many reasons that no one had seen the glitch in my challenge and sat back on my couch. Doing Absolutely Nothing, I decided, gives one the same satisfaction of popping the perfect pimple: It is essentially disgusting, but that doesn’t dismiss the momentary feeling of satisfaction and joy.
I curled up into the crevasse and resumed my immediate function in life.
“Did you see John Mayer tonight?” my boy friend coughed.
“No.”
“He was at the same bar.”
Nine hours later I moved, proud that I had at least done something.