Pink Teas, Travel Shares, Oscar Contenders...and Writing

After all, I have a choice. I can sit down at my laptop, toss the cats aside when they jump on the desk and curl their tails around the monitor, shove Natty's snout away when he tries to lift my wrist from the keyboard, and get my story about an anxiety disorder written.

Or I can:

• Don a hat that once was worn (not by me) in a local community theater production of The Music Man, and relive the days of the suffragettes at an AAUW "Pink Tea" in Spokane.
• See all five movies nominated for Academy Award Best Director.
• Browse Amazon and Barnes & Noble websites and order the books on the mandatory reading lists for my upcoming University of Cambridge history courses: The Triumphant Reign of Henry VIII, The Spanish Civil War, Napoleon and His Enemies.
• Write a tribute to Peter S. Beagle for the spring issue of Uncle Jam.
• Write a story about Ken's reluctance to read maps and submit it to Chicken Soup for the Soul.
• Edit some "side trip" copy for an upcoming Wine Wherever book on the wineries of California's Santa Cruz, Santa Clara and Monterey Counties.
• Dust and vacuum my house and host a "travel share" party for Colville Branch AAUW.
• Attend a Horizons retreat to plan coming attractions.
• Go to two book group discussions...Kingsolver's The Lacuna and Wolfe's A Man in Full. Oh, and read both books, totaling 1500 pages.
  
• Review complaints and cases for the Medical Quality Assurance Commission.
• Read and answer e-mails.
• Watch the Lakers win some and lose some.
• Shop for reasonable airfares to Heathrow.
• Apply lemon oil to the bathroom cabinets and louvered doors.
• Watch DVDs starring William Hurt: "The Yellow Handkerchief" and "The History of Violence," with "Beautiful Ohio" to arrive Tuesday.
  
• Clean out an underwear drawer.
• Keep up my daily correspondence with my writing partner, Annie.
• Take Tsunami outdoors for combing since she's shedding yet again.
• Water the 25 house plants.

But now that I'm beginning to feel anxious about getting the anxiety disorder story written, I think I'd better write it.