How to get out of the waiting game
Oh, hi friends!
Are you playing the waiting game?
We wait for acceptances, rejections, feedback.
We wait for the end of the sentences we write, the novels we start, the Zooms that go on and on.
We wait for good news, bad news, even the tail end of a blizzard.
There isn’t much we can do about it.
But I do know that if you’re sitting in a waiting room, it would feel better if there is no clock.
It reminds me when I would pitch an article to an editor and think, “Maybe they’ll respond in an hour!” Three days would go by. Three weeks. Nothing.
And because I watched the clock, the waiting game won. I usually grew bitter and, worse, disinterested.
When really, instead of waiting for weeks to elapse, I could have busied myself. Made a plan. Sent it elsewhere. Ditched the clock. Took back my time.
Don’t let the waiting game win.
“I just don’t understand how people get out of the house without having coffee in order to go buy coffee.
Sarah Jessica Parker, I get you. I need coffee the second after my eyes open.
This was from her delightfully charming Grub Street diet in which we also learn that her husband Matthew Broderick buys giant bags of dried beans and soaks them to make “very complicated, beautiful bean recipes.” It also feels like a little love letter to New York and all the restaurants we miss so much.
You Gotta Love the Drama
Don't tell me not to live, just sit and putter
Life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter
Don't bring around a cloud to rain on my parade
Don't tell me not to fly, I've simply got to
If someone takes a spill, it's me and not you
Who told you you're allowed to rain on my parade
A get-up-and-go song is there ever was one. Thanks to Brass Ring reader Tiffany Cooper for reminding me of it and sending along. Now if we can just replace “rain” with “snow” it’ll work for this week's 20 inches!
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Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara