Around 7:30 this morning, I started putting together the to-do list for the day, and I had briefly thought maybe I should try to get my scooter license, but I didn’t put it on the list.

It was late in the morning, 7:30 AM. I wouldn’t get out the door until 8:00 AM, and it would probably be 8:30 AM by the time I arrived at the DMV. There are a limited number of road test slots available each day, and they tend to disappear rather quickly. People have been known to show up at the DMV hours before they open just so they can take the test. I knew I would be off work next Friday, so I would plan on taking the test then when I could leave the house a little early to get a slot.

Anyway, around 8:30, I was online with Todd and Cindy, and Cindy suggested that I go take the test. I didn’t tell her I had already considered it, and dismissed it. About a minute after that, I decided that since Cindy suggested taking the test, I should reconsider the idea. No, I thought, if I reconsider, I’ll find some other way of talking myself out of it. I took it as a sign. I’m not going to reconsider whether or not to take the test. I can’t. It’s not really up to me. But I can definitely put myself in the situation to find out if I can take the test today or not. Do or do not, says Yoda, right? If I can’t take the test, I’m out a couple of hours, and I just come back next Friday, but at least I will have doubled the chances of getting a slot. If I can take the test, I win. If not today, then I still have next Friday in my pocket.

When I showed up at the DVM at 9:00, I was surprised to see only eight or nine people there. I was even more surprised when they gave me a test time for 11:30.

While waiting for my test administrator in the parking lot of the DMV, I thought about why I had been so ready to dismissed the idea for taking the test today. I think the reasons are pretty much the same for anything we put off:

Fear – What if I fail? I should wait until I’m better prepared. But the only way to move past the fear of failure is to risk failure. Oddly enough, whether or not you succeed or fail doesn’t matter much in the end. It’s taking the risk that counts. Win or lose, it’s likely you’ll overcome the fear of failure simple because you took the risk, and found out the world didn’t end (this time).

Tomorrow – This is tied to fear. We don’t want to do something today, so we put it off until tomorrow, and when tomorrow becomes today, we say again, tomorrow.

Too Busy — I can’t do __________ right now because I just have all these other important things to do. Sure sure, I understand that. I get it. I do. But I bet, thrown in with all the important stuff, there’s a bunch of bullshit items put on that to-do list to keep us distracted from having to deal with the fear of failing at the things we really want to do.

It basically boils down to these three things, I think. We’re afraid of doing something big, so we make excuses about being too busy or we find ways to keep ourselves distracted and occupied to avoid the things we really want to do, and we soothe ourselves by imagining we’ll do it someday.

You can decide to do something, but deciding to do something is not the same as doing it. But you won’t actually do something until you’ve first decided to do it. The tricky part is getting yourself from the decision to act to taking action. (And this is why you should read Catch-22, btw. Pay particular attention to the character Orr.)

And lo, I got a slot, I took the test (an hour early, at 10:30), and I passed…and I still have next Friday off to spend however I want.

1. Vote. Elect new president!
2. Celebrate the election of a thoughtful, intelligent President-Elect Obama. Status: IN PROGRESS FOR THE NEXT 8 YEARS! (Yes, I said 8 years! Of course, he’ll be President Obama soon enough, but you know what I’m saying.)

Now, the crazies will come out saying how we’ll all be speaking Arabic inside 6 weeks of Obama taking office. Seriously, these people are out there, and they are to be pitied.

I’m writing this entry from Traci’s house. Of course, they would get called out on the first night of the new schedule, Election Day eve. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m way more excited and hopeful about the election this time around than I was in 2004.

So, as odd as it sounds, I’m going to have a cup of coffee and go to bed because I’m voting tomorrow, dammit!

Things I need to do soon:

• Pack a bag with a change of clothes and toiletries for Traci’s house.
• Make sure I can watch the workout DVDs on the computer, so I can still do them when I’m not at home.
• Keep the iPod Touch charged daily.

In a way, I think this will be good for me because it forces me to more organized, and aware of my eating and sleeping habits. It’s going to suck having to get up at 3 AM and drive over to Traci’s, but at least when I get there, I can go back to sleep for a few more hours. And I’ll have most of my weekends free again. Who knows what I could get done with all that time…besides sleeping in.

This whole week has been pretty much a bust. I did manage to get some packing material today, so we can start moving into storage all the stuff that will be moving with us in a couple of years.

Anyway, it’s only about 10:40 PM now, and I’m tired as hell. Between my unfocused eyes and the tiny keyboard on the new computer, I’m making a ton of mistakes, so I’m calling it a night.

Hopefully, I’ll get some things done tomorrow (and the rest of the week). I’ll let you know.

We went over to Chris and Traci’s house for Halloween. She was having some of her friends and their kids over for dinner and trick-or-treating. After the girls left with the kids, it was just the guys left in the house, with me and Chris taking turns handing out candy.

At one point, I said, “Hey, if I make a ham sandwich and wrap it up, will you hand it out to some kid?” Of course, Chris he would. Throughout the night, Chris would ask random kids if they wanted the ham sandwich, and the looks we got were hilarious, somewhere between confusion and terror. We never gave the sandwich away, but we did agree that if some kid showed up dressed like a hobo, he would have to take the sandwich. It’s the hobo code.

Okay, I’ve had beer, vodka, and Woodchucks, so I’m a little tired, and unfocused. ‘Night all.

So, over the next few weeks, we’ll get whatever is left at the old house and whatever we can’t find a place for here, and into storage it goes.

79 days to go. 19 days until the next weigh-in picture.

There’s clutter and junk in every room of the house, in the garage, in the backyard, and we even have stuff at the old house that needs to come over here. If you think about it all at once, it’s overwhelming. And when I’m overwhelmed, I tend to avoid dealing with it because I know that trying to deal with it will lead to frustration. Frustration of not having the time, or not having the money, or not being left alone long enough to deal with it.

Luckily, there will be a few hours this weekend where I can get some more cleaning and sorting done. Dealing with all this clutter, it’s not just about the stuff. It’s about not being able to find the important stuff easily when I need it. It’s about constantly feeling unsure of what I’m doing with my life. Like the clutter, the more I purge, the more room I create, the better I feel about what I have left, because what I have left are the important things. I have all these things I want to do, but I never get to them because I’m always busy spending my time dealing with unimportant shit that has to be dealt with for whatever reason. And usually, the reason is simply because it’s on top of the pile.

I don’t want to live that life of quiet desperation that Thoreau talked about, so I must simplify.

80 days to go. 20 days until the next weigh-in picture.

We have a lot of construction going on at work, so I’m taking one day off a week for the next three weeks, so I can get through it with my sanity intact. Wednesday is my day off this week, so maybe I can get back on track a little.

Obviously, I’ll let you know.

On a side note, I should be getting my new computer on Friday. I need put some racing stripes on it or something.

81 days to go. 21 days until the next weigh-in picture.