Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Slackers

Last night at the Richard Peck event (he was thoroughly divine btw) a few local writers and I had a chance to chat and do you know what these talented women did? They berated themselves for being SO LAZY!

Okay. These are first-rate writers who have published extensively and STILL all they could talk about was what slackers they are.

Have you heard people talk about themselves this way? Do YOU talk about yourself this way? Why? Discuss, please.

On the food front I drove up to Park City and ate an omelet for breakfast with Kim. You can't be unhappy when you start a day off like that.

10 comments:

Margy said...

I totally think of myself as a slacker. Over the years I've decided that one of the reasons I think of myself as a slacker--besides all of the actual slacking--is that I have tons of ideas but only bring a handful of them to fruition.

(And as an aside, I just had a little laugh to myself thinking about a high school classmate who totally thought she pulled one over on the teacher when she used the word "fruition" in an essay. She seriously thought she'd made the word up!)

SWILUA said...

I was a slacker today. Which made me all depressed. Which made me more of a slacker. Blurg.

Lisa B. said...

I believe, deep in my dark lazy heart, that I am a slacker. As in, To Slack. This is connected with my monumental procrastination skillz.

Sometimes, though, I kind of think being able to slack is a gift. Screw productivity, it is entirely overrated. Slacking, properly practiced, gives one an entirely different outlook on the world. I stand by my slackerhood. That is, when I'm not busy hating on it.

CSIowa said...

I'm doing better with embracing my inner slacker. We need slack. We wear out faster if we're always taut. We are meant to slack off. I make myself do it formally at least three days a week for at least half an hour, and I give myself permission to do it informally many times throughout every day. Damn the to-do list! Just because my brain wrote it doesn't mean I have to give in and actually do it!

The Dixon Family said...

I'm a slacker too. You need proof? It's 10 a.m. in RI and I'm still in my bathrobe. See what I mean?

I think it's hard for us to be so intimately acquainted with all of our own inadequacies, which we then somehow judge against others strengths.

I would have loved to listen to Richard Peck, he is hilarious.

LucindaF said...

I was going to start a big discussion about this.
But then I didn't feel like it.

Louise Plummer said...

I am a slacker to my core, although my pantry is so clean my mother could visit.

Becca said...

I'm a total slacker, and here's why: The things I choose as priorities are INVISIBLE. And they don't smell like Pine-Sol.

Denver said...

This reminds me of my 10 year high school reunion. A majority of the women when asked what they do said, "Well, I'm just a stay at home mom."

JUST, really people, JUST. I finally had to yell at someone to stop saying JUST a stay at home mom, when I see this as one of the biggest jobs in the world.

So often we dismiss all the hard work we do in our daily lives. We say we are slackers, lazy, or what have you because for some reason we find it easier than telling someone the great journey of learning how to paint your house for the first time, or that though you might not spend every minute writing you did figure out a new detail that is intricate to the plot of your novel. We feel as though we don't compare to those with great titles, so we are lazy.

Why do we need to place a title on to ourselves so much?

O.k. I will leave my soap box moment now and laze about the coffee shop and enjoy the background music of Bob Marley.

Anonymous said...

WOW, Ann! You hit a nerve! What fascinating comments. I know there is a national procrastinators club, but is there a slackers club? If not, there should be. Who wants to start it up? Hmmmm, that could be a problem, couldn't it?
Anyway, I wish I would have joined all the amazing slackers at the Richard Peck appearance. I heard him at the UCTE Fall Conference in 2008 and fell in love with him.

Gosh, I'm so wordy. My comments are longer than most of your posts! Hmmmmm. You are the Ernest Hemingway of blogging! A minimalist blogger who can say SO much in SO few words! Do you Twitter? If so, do you limit your keystrokes to ... say, 50? You're fun and awesome, and now I'll quit slacking as I'm supposed to be at church 7 minutes ago! Renae