Single-Tasking

When I was six years old my mother packed with me a $10 bill I needed for a field trip. She placed it in an envelope that was labeled for my teacher, and then placed the envelope in my pocket.

My teacher never received the money. I had forgotten to give it to her in the morning, and by lunch, after doing a series of snow angels, the money must have fallen out of my pocket. I searched for it my entire recess period, but it was gone, lost somewhere in the field of snow.

Ten bucks was a lot of money to a six-year-old. I would still bristle if I'd lost a ten-spot! But back then I felt like I'd lost $1,000. I was ashamed and learned early on my penchant for distraction. Not like this trend was to end any time soon after.

I lost a lot more stuff in the years that ensued--lunches, hats, mittens, you name it.  As I got older, along with stuff I lost information--appointments, addresses, critical things I needed to ask for when I got where I was headed.  I learned to adjust by building fairly complicated organizational systems--initially written ones, but now most of them digital--that helped me remember the little stuff, so that I could continue pursuing the big picture.

But lately, I've reached a period of such overload that I'm starting to lose my mittens again.  I'm wondering if there are such things as those clips you wore on the ends of your coat sleeves in kindergarten that can hold a Blackberry.  Initially I could blame it on the travel: I would lose a computer cord, buy a replacement and chuck it up to the pressures of catching a plane.  Earlier this month, when I went to New York, I realized that I hadn't brought any jewelry for my eight-day trip.  I could live with feeling a bit underdressed, but when I got home and looked inside my travel jewelry box I saw that my new black pearl earrings--a gift from my husband on Valentines Day--were missing.

When I told him that "I must have put them down somewhere in the house" H-band just hissed an exasperated puff of air, as if to say, "Here we go again..."

"You lost them?" he said.

"No! Not lost ... misplaced," I replied, subtly sneaking a glance behind the toilet. You never know.

"You don't know where they are, do you?"

"Of course I know where they are. There are only so many places they could be."

I wondered if, perhaps, I had accidentally worn them to bed and then chucked them out the window in my sleep. It sounds far-fetched, but with all of the usual places where I carelessly flung my jewelry now searched and yielding nothing, I started to consider the far-fetched, even the paranormal.

I called my sister to see if I'd left them at her place in New Jersey.

"I thought you said you'd forgotten your jewelry when you came out," Julie said.

"Yeah, but maybe the last time I was at your house I might have taken them off," I said.

Great, I was so clueless as to the whereabouts of my stuff that I didn't even know WHEN I might have lost my earrings. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility that they could have been there. Once I lost a T-shirt that showed up on my niece.  My sister, who normally doesn't wear baby tees, figured it could only belong to her (then) 1-year-old.

I walked back into my home office and pouted.

"Relax, honey," H-band said, in a bout of strange, almost pitying, understanding, "we can always replace them."

"No, we can't!" I said.  We ... I can't keep replacing!

That weekend, H-band and I embarked on a long-weekend vacation, driving down the West coast, staying in Santa Barbara, and then with his parents outside San Diego. It was the most relaxed I've been in months; so relaxed that I only checked my Blackberry once an hour or so. I even drifted off to sleep for a few minutes... until I remembered.

"Can we maybe stop and shop a little bit?" I said to H-band.

"Yeah I guess, where were you thinking?"

"Dunno. Maybe we should find a Victoria's Secret. We might find some interesting stuff there ..."

H-band was intrigued for all of a minute, but he knows me too well by now to know that R&R for me is not underwear shopping. "You forget to pack underwear?" he said.  I nodded.

"Fine," he said. "But let's make it quick."

The next day, in Santa Barbara, I bought a few pair of underwear, and we were back on the road. In San Diego, I discovered that I had left my pajama bottoms in the hotel room in Santa Barbara.

"Just stay cool, Jory." I thought to myself. "You have not yet completely lost your mind. You are on the mend.

"You know," H-band said. "It's not the stuff that I'm worried about.  It's WHY you are losing things. You just aren't present. You always have your mind on work, and as a result you don't think about your surroundings. I'm afraid that one day you'll get in a car accident or something because you just don't think sometimes."

H-band had a point. In trying to get a grasp of why I tend to lose things I've envisioned my brain to be like a water balloon--full of sloshing things to remember, and with a limited capacity. In focusing so much on work and intricate details like the companies I need to call, the email I need to write, and details behind the proposals I write, all the water sloshes to one side of the balloon, throwing the rest off-balance.  Now, I like to fool myself into believing that, when other stimuli come into the picture, that I can handle it all, and to the untrained eye, I do.  But come closer and notice: I'm not wearing a belt, as I forgot to pack one, the eyeliner is on one eye only--as a call came in while I was applying makeup this morning and I forgot to finish the job--my socks don't match, and in my purse is the remnants of a meal I ate a week ago, decaying in a Tupperware.  I just never got around to cleaning out my bag.

"I worry," H-band said. "That when you are not present with your stuff, that you are not being present with me."

Enough said.

The next day H-band, M-in-law and I went shopping in a trendy neighborhood near Encinitas, where I had sworn not to buy anything for the sake of buying things.  As H-band looked for clothes I spotted them, a pair of sunglasses.

"I want these!" I said to H-band. He looked at me meaningfully, as if to say, "are you ready for these?" And I looked meaningfully back, as if to say, "Dude, lay off!"

To provide a bit of context, sunglasses are my albatross. I've never been able to hang onto a pair for any length of time. Most of the ones I have are ones that I never meant to have in my life, they just showed up, and I needed a pair. Though the ones that I've actively sought out and purchased are another story.  Anyone who has hung out with me at BlogHer conferences knows my sunglass saga. In '06, I put them down in order to hold the mike during a closing session and never saw them again. Hotel staff got to know me quite well as I showed up numerous times demanding someone search the trash bags of lost crap found at BlogHer for my tinted Smiths.

BlogHer 07: Having just lost a pair of Sunglasses, Renee Blodgett and I shopped for new specs at Sunglass hut, and I splurged for a new $150+ pair--a lot of money, considering my history with sunglasses. The next week, in New York, I left them in a cab in-between meetings--a fertile situation for me for losing things.  How I haven't lost my wallet yet, since I typically have to dig out everything from tampons to breath mints before finding my cash to pay for something, perplexes me. Wait, I actually DID lose my wallet, once, in Chicago, and found out when I had to pay for a cab ride. My colleague, Sue, covered for me, and through a merciful act of God, some woman at the conference we were at had found it on the floor, with my shiny mug on my drivers's license face up, and turned it in.

For the past year I've only purchased $10 pairs of sunglasses on the street and been more or less happy to lose them since I haven't found the ideal pair. But this pair that I was looking at was the best of all worlds--stylish without screaming knockoff and only $20. More than the usual sunglass budget, but hey, I was turning over a new leaf and not going to lose things anymore.

I purchased the new sunglasses and a water bottle, since I was now vowing to drink more water during the day--one more thing to remember. I vowed to live life in-focus!  In another shop I found a cute headband that I had to buy, as the last one I'd purchased was lost two days later on an airplane. This one had staying power--it was comfortable enough to keep on my head, whereas the last one I had taken off, and consequently lost, because it wasn't.  As I rang it up I noticed H-band sipping water and was about to ask him for some, when I realized: I'd just left my new water bottle in the bathroom of this shop.

"At least I remembered while I was still IN the place where I'd left it." I said.

"Next time," H-band said, "you won't be so lucky."

When we got back home to the Bay Area, the box with my forgotten pajama pants was there waiting for us in a UPS Ground box. Things were looking up.

This past weekend my resolve began to chip away as life began, well, chipping. The "computer" (a term that gives the brain of the Jetta far too much credit) went haywire and started spewing such messages as "brake is on", and "air bags not working", which, in car parlance is like announcing a terminal illness and having six months of operability left, or a huge car expense, like a new, lackluster motherboard, which will begin to tell you it's broken in nine months.

And (Gross Topic Spoiler Alert) on Tuesday, I woke up with a chunk of wax in my ear that I must have compacted by ramming a Q-tip into my right ear (Mom, if you read this, do not call me up and remind my of the first 18 years of my upbringing I KNOW this was the wrong course of action). I literally lost my hearing in that ear, and the resulting experience was like living underwater for three days (the time it took to coordinate a time that I was not in a critical meeting and I could get an appointment to flush out the dang thing).

All of this (literal) build-up, plus 24 scheduled phone calls with clients and sponsors is meant to illustrate the typical "loser" situation, when the amount of input and distraction begins to outweigh my ability to absorb and handle it, and things start to disappear.

I had some meetings to attend at the W Hotel, right next to the Web 2.0 conference. I forget sometimes, that conferences mean lots of people, and while I was just expecting to meet with one or two peeps at the bar and be on my way, the situation increasingly became like high school, with swarms of people I hadn't seen in ages filling up the lobby, and my desire to catch up with them rising like a buoy to the top of my flooded priority list.  At the same time, I was working on a campaign launch and needed to steal away for a few minutes at a time to firm up details, chat with my team, and the like. Hence, the typical well-intentioned but increasingly chaotic situation I find myself in by the end of most work days.

Suddenly, there seemed a window of reprieve, when I could, or should, gather my stuff and go. I closed up my laptop, which at some point I must have opened to email someone, grabbed my bag and was about to go.  Except for one thing.  My coat.

Clearly, I must have left my coat in the last place where I was sitting, which admittedly there were several.  But at least I knew I had walked into the hotel with a coat; how far could it have gone?  As I began searching subtly, then less-subtly, asking people to get up so that I could inspect every single item of clothing on the couches, then the bathrooms I knew I had used, and then those I had not used, then hit up every staff member--from the concierges to the non-English-speaking busboys in the restaurant, then resorted to having Stephanie Agresta Twitter the loss, in case anyone in some corner of the world knew of its whereabouts, I realized, the shit has hit.  I've been royally f&*ked.  Someone had taken full advantage of my flightiness and walked off with my coat.

I mumbled to myself, walking back to the bus depot freezing, "Good luck fitting into THAT COAT Bitch! ... as that coat had been tailored to fit me, and anyone over 5' 3" would have to strain to get an arm in it.  But I knew that all the rationalizing would do me no good. That even if my coat didn't fit the person who stole it, he/she wouldn't be returning it to the W with a note, saying, "Didn't fit, so I'm un-stealing it."

I met H-band at the bus terminal. We sat on the bus mostly in silence, while from time to time I just shook my head.

It had been gray most of the day, but the sun was starting to peek out.  H-band took out his sunglasses from their case, which had been nestled in the pouch he'd always reserved for them, in his briefcase. I decided that I, too, needed to put on my new sunglasses and began to dig for them in my bag, reaching past my computer cord, my Blackberry charger, my business card holder, which I temporarily mistook for a sunglass case before remembering that I didn't have a case for my new sunglasses, fingering my wallet, a few lipsticks, an errant mobile computer mouse.

"Don't tell me," H-band said.

"You know it takes me time, sometimes," I said, as I searched all the usual places, then began to feel around in other sections of the bag, then checked them again. The piper was earning his fee now, the fee for my negligence. I contemplated how my new, cool, sunglasses looked on the freak who had just stolen my coat.

 

Comments

[GoingLikeSixty]

And yet you can recall all those details for a post.
Meh.
If you misplace your Blackberry - THEN you should worry.
This is a revealing insight as to why geeks dress like they do. :-)

[Denise]

Jory, Jory, Jory.

(shaking my head)

[Joy]

Sigh. Oh my sweet baby. Can you hear me now? ~xo

[asiriusgeek]

Jory: I can SO relate. I hope it makes you feel better to know you're not the only one who has this problem! What a bummer about your coat (and the sunglasses) :-(. Hope the earrings turned up.

[Maria Nardi]

Jory, Jory, Jory.....
I think we might have been separated at birth. Not only do I lose sunglasses on a regular basis, but ATM cards, cell phones and house keys. Allen is forever walking behind me to pick up whatever item I leave behind.

[kat]

But what about what the H-band pointed out?
-----
"I worry," H-band said. "That when you are not present with your stuff, that you are not being present with me."

Enough said.
-----
Really?

[Tre~]

i'm hugging you for the humility it took to write this. but i'm feeling the hug of sisterhood therein as well...BECAUSE haven't we all been there before? and who's writing about it and admitting it. You are an example of integrity and courage--for being willing to show what you see is clearly a situation you want to improve...and for offering for all to see your heart of hearts longing to be better.

anyone who scolds or shames isn't being honest. who among us hasn't had so many awesome goals--not to mention ones that are worth being top priority b/c they're pushing the whole liberation of womanhood/humanhood forward--that 'other stuff' gets left behind?

ever notice most women who are changing the world don't sleep? many with money and fame have STAFF to care for the details.

i invite you to consider something as you move forward in trying to single task:
single task the small stuff. the accessories, dress, even the meals....seriously.

multitask up the wazoo the stuff in your heart of hearts that you know you can't let go.

in the end, none of us remember what someone else was wearing...(I MEAN NOT REALLY though I am a good visual memory and i tend to)...WE REMEMBER SO MUCH MORE how someone MAKES US FEEL...the IMPACT of their THOUGHTS, EYE CONTACT, EMBRACE, their WORDS, TONE, etc...

You NEVER forget how to be real...how to be genuine...how to be a whole woman.....and your example stays with me oh so often. i'm not saying this to get kudos or have you read my blog :) i'm saying this because you DO GET WHAT MATTERS JORY.

the other stuff may be societal pressure stuff that can be let go a bit. I used to live in SF...and Boston and I GET the whole pressure to be dressed to the 9's often. see what you can let go. not many will notice if you adorn the same jewelry..mom only wears real stuff b/c she kept losing other stuff. I don't wear hardly any unless i find it handmade somewhere :) (but ask me about my contacts, glasses, contact solution....i've purchased saline and solutions everywhere i've ever repeat visited so my 'stash' is there :)

sorry for the long comment...but you are not a forgetful mind on the stuff that matters.

hugs, tre :)

[Whimspiration]

Wow Jory, thanks. This is so me, that I'm reading it to my husband. Maybe now he'll understand! *chuckle*

You aren't the only one!

[Tracee Sioux]

My husband asked my daughter what my daughter needed and she said, "more attention from mommy."

I work from home and I'm with my kids all day.

Like your husband, her request is really about my mental presence.

[Tara Anderson]

What an awesome post! Jory, you've done a great job putting into words what so many other women go through. We're so busy taking care of the BIG things that little things take a back seat. Thanks for sharing and for making me smile!

[Rita Arens]

I don't lose things, but I don't listen. My husband will tell me something, and I'll be looking at him, reading his lips almost, but my mind will be blowing through all the things I should be doing. I'm totally there with you. I have started making a really concerted effort to do one thing at a time, and to do things right the moment that they occur to me, to ensure they will be done. Which led to me shop-vaccing out my car wearing my office heels two nights ago. My neighbor thought I was crazy. My daughter ate late. BUT I DID NOT FORGET.

I recently bought a paper calendar to put in my purse, because my PDA died, and I'm not certain I can go on.

[MikeT]

There's a reason why entire religions have been built around the whole be here now thing: it's hard. Really. People spend their entire lives working on it and still come up short all the time.

Start small. It's like learning to juggle. Pick one thing and work really hard to not lose it for a while. Once you've got a handle on one, try two.

Either that, or train hubby to pick up after you. That's what my wife did. ; )