The Sacred Art of Avoidance

So, I’m spending my weekend writing report cards (the pointlessness of which I could discuss at length with you, dear reader, should you elect to join me in sharing the pricier bottle of tempranillo at that tapas place in Kensington). Yes, it is an exercise in composition (which is supposed to be my bag), but if asked, I might compare it to repeatedly jabbing a sharpened pencil into my eye: that is, quite unpleasant.

Back in the day, when I had to complete such writing assignments as essays and lab reports (and the odd poem, god bless those Creative Writing courses), my living space would be at its cleanest because I felt I couldn’t work unless every last piece of dust and debris had been seen to. The more metacognitive individual might have referred to this process as procrastination.

Well, as I look around my apartment maintenant, it remains in a bit of a state: clothes strewn on chairs (not on the floor – yet), dirty dishes awaiting lavation, diaphanous clusters of dust bunnies secretly growing under chairs and behind electronic devices…

And my report cards, nowhere close to completion.

Why am I forsaking this oft-tested method of house cleaning?

The answer, my friends, is the internet. When I am trying to decide the repercussions of assigning little Johnny a D rather than a C in Science, all of a sudden the need to know the movements of Kate Moss and Posh Spice become of the utmost importance. So does checking to see how many people have read my blog in the 15 minutes since I last checked (oh… none). And maybe I’ll just check the BBC website to see if anything important has happened in the world since checking that news feed 20 minutes ago.

The internet, especially this high speed “always connected” form, has proven to be quite the distraction. One wonders if having the dial-up version might limit my need for the immediate gratification of answers to random questions that pop into my head (I wonder if I can find that Swiss guy I met in Alice Springs in 2000. I know, I’ll check facebook again).



The internet, generally, and facebook , specifically. I have eschewed the popular mySpace and ignored invitations to join facebook in the past, because I thought it was very high school, with its visual list of “friends” and shameless self-centredness of a webpage devoted entirely to oneself. But hell, that is essentially what this blog is, and I am my own biggest fan, so I signed up.

And so, let the addiction begin. You could spend hours getting lost in the web of friends of friends’ friends, occasionally stumbling upon a boy you liked in grade 5 (oh, Adam Purcell) or used to go out with your roommate but is now married to a girl who is friends with your friend’s little sister (yes, you, Carey Avery). There’s also the distraction of messages, friend requests, wall posts and pokes, a feature which remains unexplained, even in the FAQ section of the website.

At this moment, not only are my report cards unfinished, the demands of my household are not being attended to (nice use of the passive voice, eh?). But my knowledge of the whereabouts and associates of a number of people who I used to know has increased tenfold. And yes, I do see that in composing this post about the art of procrastination, I am actually indulging in it.

Now if only I could explain why Johnny’s knowledge of the inner workings of animal habitats and communities has actually decreased tenfold, I’d be on my way…