I crave excitement and I have a need to achieve. Sometimes, though, it seems that all my projects overlap and the pressure feels crushing. One way that I handle the pressure is to avoid it, which in turn makes the pressure even worse by the time I get back to work on what I’ve been procrastinating.
So, what are all the things I’m doing (and/or avoiding doing) right now? Well, there is the matter of taxes. My husband’s employer somehow forgot to take out any taxes for him in 2008, and he somehow never noticed this. So I have to pay his tax debt with my tax refund. But to get my tax refund, my tax accountant needs to return my phone calls and e-mails, which so far he hasn’t. The sooner I get my taxes filed, the sooner I get my return, and the sooner we can file my husband’s taxes along with the money he owes. I would be nice if filing jointly were an option for same-sex couples.
Then there is the Arizona RID State Conference this weekend. I am presenting a workshop on Saturday afternoon titled “Knowing What They’re Going to Say Before They Say It: Using Genre Recognition to Improve Your Predictive Skills.” I’m in a competing time slot with Ari-Asha Castalia, Sharon Neumann Solow, and Teddi Von Pingel, so no pressure there. 😉 Oh, and the company I work for, Purple Communications, tasked me with staffing the booth in the exhibit hall with at least one or two Purple employees at all times during the weekend and recruiting in-house interpreters such that there are four of our interpreters in the conference interpreting team during all the workshops on Saturday and Sunday. So far, I’ve succeeded in staffing the exhibit hall and the interpreting team; I’m just crossing my fingers that everyone shows up when they’re supposed to. Note to self: send reminders! In addition to teaching a workshop and staffing Purple’s presence at the conference, I will also be taking workshops to earn my much-needed CEUs so that I can remain nationally certified and licensed to interpret in the state of Arizona. And while I’m there, I’ll have my camera with me to take photos, as I’ve been asked to do this as well. One last thing: I really should attend the business meeting at 4 PM on Friday since I am the Bylaws Chair, but I work until 5 PM at HOVRS, so I don’t see how I’m going to make it. I’m going to need to see about that.
So, that’s this coming weekend. The weekend after that is my husband’s 50th birthday party. So there are preparations to be made, things to be cleaned around the house, invitation reminders to send, etc.
Plus, there’s the little detail of preparing to interpret William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice for the Southwest Shakespeare Company on April 18 at 2 PM. Somehow, I have to find time to work on that even this week when things are so crazy.
I’m also, along with my husband, the vice-president/secretary of our neighborhood association, which is trying to take the neighborhood historic. We have a meeting tomorrow night which I need to send out reminders about today and I must preside over tomorrow because Andy will be working. I’ll have to ask someone else to take minutes. Then we have our big meeting with Vice Mayor Tom Simplot on April 28, at which we hope that many residents will appear to show the vice mayor how keen we are on going historic. (Many dollars and hours have been spent by residents before me and my husband even moved here four-and-a-half years ago to document this neighborhood and apply for historic designation, and it looks as though, with the Vice Mayor’s help, all those years of efforts may finally pay off.)
So, there you have it. That’s what I’m up to these days. And that’s just the planned stuff. We all know that life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. I probably shouldn’t have even spent the time to write this blog entry, but at least it’s productive in terms of getting these projects out of my head and onto the “page,” as it were. And by stating these things publicly, I hold myself accountable and perhaps I ask for help. Or, at least, patience. 🙂
Daniel Greene 
Comments welcome