The Hobart Chronicles XXVI: Who are you?

“Ego is not a dirty word.”
- Skyhooks, 1975

“I was taught not to speak to strangers
But strangers always seem to know my name.”
- Paul Kelly, All Downhill From Here, 1991

Sin City, day 15 minus 2*
24 degrees, clear; humidity 41%, lovely

* if you can’t make sense of the ‘minus 2’, it’s not your fault. See housekeeping at the end of this post.

As if there are not enough ways to waste time. I just heard a stat quoted on the wireless that sits on the desk with me. Apparently, 95% of all people are procrastinators, and a whopping 20% of us are chronic procrastinators.

Well, I am definitely not a virtuous five-percenter. There are even times when I flirt with membership in the intransigent twenty-percent.

Usually I am driven to procrastination when faced with an unpleasant or boring but necessary task that has to be done… unless there’s something more important to do first. ‘More important’ is of course a subjective notion, the boundaries of which fluctuate according to what is being avoided.

Having recovered from the chronic procrastination suffered during my academic years, the habit is well and truly under control. Today the need to avoid that unpleasant or boring task is only temporary, a pause to create a small space in which to gird one’s loins before knuckling down. Like the other day at work when I needed to avoid one task for just five minutes in order to face it with a calm demeanour.

What can one do in an office for up to five minutes? Well, you have google, and…

You’ve heard of ego-searching, I’m sure, where one types one’s own name into a search engine and sees what comes up. It’s a great way of imagining who you might have been in another life. For example, in my alternate existences I am:
• a Malaysian model;
• a semi-professional tennis player from Queensland doing the circuit in southern US states;
• a SF/fantasy illustrator;
• a scientific researcher;
• and I also passed the bar exam in Arizona a few years ago to become a lawyer.

Well, in a desperate attempt to do something ‘more important’ while mentally preparing for another task the other day, I am ashamed to say I actually ego-searched my blog identity, Miss Andrea.

Oh boy.

Miss Andrea actually has a number of alternate existences:

• as a sports fishing boat: available for charter in Cape May County NJ, “the Miss Andrea ranks among the top 50 charter boats on our coast…[she] is a 50' Evans Summerset Custom Sport Fisherman. She runs on twin brand new 3196 Caterpillar engines with 660 hp. each. She cruises at 30 knots and has a 25' cockpit with all modern electronics and top quality tackle.”
I’ll remember my cockpit measurements and top quality tackle when promoting myself to potential employers and future suitors;

• According to student Jennifer Gagne, “Miss Andrea was a student teacher but now she's a real teacher. She taught in 434, Mr.G's class for grade three and four. Ms. Andrea taught us a lot of things. She taught us stomp dancing, Math, poetry, Language Arts, and much more… She has long brown hair, has glasses, and is tall for her age.” I think I may also host storytime at the Mercer county Library NJ.

• “as well as being a working professional and Mother, I'm a practising BDSM player and, until
recently, served as "Hostess Extraordinaire" of The Other Side, B.C.'s oldest and largest pansexual BDSM club. I'm currently the presenter of the "BOUND!!!" Women-Only Play Parties at PURGATORY!!!, Vancouver, B.C.'s premier BDSM play facility.”
(all punctuation verbatim);

Oddly, after recording these results I don’t really have much more to say. Rendered speechless I guess. Maybe I need some new 5-minute procrastination ideas.

Housekeeping: So if you haven’t made sense of the ‘[day] minus 2’ reading for the Sin City entries, it’s not your fault. It refers to a brief trip back to Tasnarnia on my first weekend in this acting job, for a work-related event. FYI it went very well.