Fish guilt

I'm trying to decide if there's something wrong with me because I chose to stay home on Saturday to run/sew/clean instead of going fishing with Bubba.

Seeing this fact on paper is making me lean toward Yes.

I'm sure you've met those people in your life who, say, couldn't do their homework, read a book or paint their toenails if the house was a mess, the dog hadn't been walked or something in the kitchen was making a bad smell.

Well, I am one of those people.

Which means that when I have baby shower gifts to make, a house invaded by cat-sized hairballs (seriously, not exaggerating. It was alarming.), a half-marathon looming and uncut fabric folded next to a new pattern - it is virtually impossible for me to commit to a single act of leisure until everything has been crossed off the To-Do list.

I am a slave to this list. And it only exists in my own head, so it makes me seem extra crazy when no one else can even SEE the list to know how many things I need to do.

So when these other people ask me to do reasonably fun things like go fly fishing, I turn into this bug-eyed lunatic sputtering things like, "Can't go, must cut out bumblebees. Can't fish, must run six miles."

It's totally unbecoming and I know that. But there is nothing I can do about it. In fact, I've *tried* to do something about it before by just ignoring the nagging (HOLLERING) voice in my head and going ahead with whatever fun thing was presented to me, only to end up sitting at a baseball game renaming the players as things on my list.

And can't I just tell you that there is just nothing useful about "Go to the bank" turning a double play on "Change your oil " and "Make cupcakes for Kristie's birthday" .

I've lived the lesson and I've learned: When the Mental Mind List is full- stay home and do those things. THEN, and only then, go out and drink all the beers while watching the Giants lose. Or, in this case, THEN ask Bubba nicely if he'll go fishing with me soon and forgive me for being a boring lame house marm covered in bits of thread and hairball cast-off.

Thankfully Bubba is a very forgiving and, more importantly, adequately balanced human being who understands my impulses as well as my latent desire to wear my waders. Which means that he will, at once, not malign me for ditching him for the sewing machine AND plan another trip out to the river so that I can dust off my fly rod and pretend I still know how to cast.

Phew.

Meanwhile, once I got past the paralyzing guilt and awareness that I was turning into a boring houseflea, I did manage to get everything on the Mental Mind List checked THE HELL OFF.

And then I photographed the evidence of my productivity so that I could show Bubba that I didn't spend the day in vein watching skinemax and drinking gin from the bottle.

Baby shower gifts:

My new Barcelona skirt:

With a properly installed invisible zipper (see how it's even at the top? That doesn't usually happen. Like, not ever) :

Lemon meringue pie for our neighbors. They keep giving us produce and eggs from their farmshare so I thought I'd work some of it into a delicious thank you somethingerother:

And to be extra productive (thus assuaging extra guilt), I harvested from the yard and wore out the dog by running her around with me.



In retrospect it would have been more relaxing to have gone fishing. Guilt is a tiring hobby.