Procrastination as performance art

So, I'm leaving for Argentina on Tuesday. Prior to which I must finish up both of my current freelance gigs, one of which involves writing a final report full of statistics and pretty graphs.

The deadline looms. So, what did I do today? Did I crank out my report, saving my final weekend for trip preparations and quality time with my husband? No, I did not.

Yesterday when I called the veterinary shrink for the weekly phone check-in on my crazy dog, I commented that Nelly's furnace fear is now manifesting itself much like garden-variety separation anxiety - she works herself into a tizzy when she thinks I'm leaving the house. Presumably because she's afraid of being abandoned to the furnace, but still, it's a change - less about the furnace in and of itself, more about being left alone with it. So, the vet suggested we video or audio tape her while we're gone, to see if her distress continues after I've left (which would suggest doing standard exercises to alleviate separation anxiety), or whether it stops the minute the car is out of the driveway (which would suggest she's a big fat faker). "Thirty to 45 minutes will do it," the vet said. "You'll know within 30 minutes."

So, this morning when I went out, I turned on the little microrecorder that I sometimes use for work purposes. And when I got home, I listened to the tape. Whereupon the opportunity for prime procrastination presented itself.

Sadly, Nelly did in fact keep crying throughout the 45-minute tape. I could also hear the dreaded furnace turning on and off, so I asked myself - does her whining correlate in any way to the actions of the furnace, or are her little panties just in a bunch the whole time she's alone? The outcome of this speculation? - a tidy, colorful graph in Excel showing Nelly's whining status (at 10-second intervals, for 48 minutes), as well as the moments when the furnace warms up, starts, and stops (conveniently color-coded yellow, green and red). I adorned it with helpful lables and arrows, like "Maximum time without whining: 12 minutes (16:50 to 29:00)."

Hey, it was number crunching and graph-making. I choose to think of it as an analytical warm-up exercise. And now, I have further enhanced my procrastination experience by blogging about it all.