My life is plagued by random zemblanity at the moment. It’s definitely not a case of misfortune favouring the ill-prepared, nor is it just a simple case of being shit outta luck. I never bank on accidental beneficial outcomes, and am normally happy to reap what I sow, yet I find my most precious commodity (time) slipping through my fingers like (cue music) sands through the hourglass, and so are the days of my life.
I’ve taken on too much. Work has kicked up a gear going into summer, and my family have increased commitments outside of work and school hours. The second part of my novel is due in eleven days. And I’ve taken on NaNoWriMo, with only 44 thousand words to find by the end of the month. While I like being busy, this is stupid and un-fun.
But it got me thinking (when I should be sleeping) that maybe the two are connected. Maybe your ability to discover nice things you weren’t looking for switches off when you are time-poor, and instead you make unpleasant discoveries on purpose. For example, the woman next door farts in the bath. I didn’t want to know that, but like some fetishistic pervert I was listening anyway, and now I do. Unlooked for, I’m sure she would sound like a nude Maria Callas instead of a submerged tuba.
Back on topic, to right my universe, I have to reclaim some time. But not yet. I’ll continue to be irritable and snappish for as long as possible, and nothing nice will unexpectedly happen to me until I break and admit that maybe fifty thousand words in the month of November 2014 was not the best spur of the moment decision I have ever made. For now, fo llustrate my understanding of serendipity and its evil twin, here are two books I read. One I pre-ordered in hardback and paid top dollar to have mailed from the U.S. Another I picked out of the fifty-cent bin at the local library’s annual sell off of retired paperbacks. Guess which?
