To Do List - Week of March 14th
Carolyn Hiler

Monday

- Wear something cheerful. Not the dismal black sweater with all the pills on the sleeves that you always wear 'cause it's "comfortable" and you don't like to stand out. Black is dreary and doesn't look good on you.

- Drink banana-flavored Zone shake for breakfast.

- On your way to work, think only positive thoughts. Try to recapture the feelings you had on vacation with your friend Ellen last summer, hearing the waves lapping against the rental home, the gulls with their bird cries saying Charlene, this is your life, the clear blue sky is harmless and open! Think about how strange you felt when you heard those birds, free and hopeful in a way you never experience in your life now. But don't think about that part, how you never feel that way now.

- Do some yoga stretches before work. Don't let the small size of your apartment deter you. Squeeze yourself onto that strip of carpet between the couch and the front door.

- Do your yoga stretches in the car if you wake up late and hardly have time to put on your makeup or fix your lunch.

- Do your yoga stretches at work, with the door closed, if you wake up really late, without enough time to put on makeup or dry your hair, and as a result have to run out of the door forgetting your tuna lunch in the Tupperware and looking like a drowned rat, with no choice but to apply your makeup in the car at stop lights and attempt to dry your hair by leaning sideways over the steering wheel with the car heater on full blast, resulting in ropy hair all day no matter how much you brush it.

- Don't worry about the yoga stretches at work if you become self-conscious about closing your door and the vibe just isn't right. Getting all stressed out about yoga defeats the purpose.

- When you answer the calls, try not to use that sing-songy voice.

- File the reports with a sophisticated air. Allow yourself to be mysterious.

- Stop talking when you notice others nodding off.

- Create a puzzle for yourself. How many words you can make from the word flower? Write them all down. Flow. Low. Ow. Elf.

- Slap the men on the back when you greet them.

- Write down your accomplishments in a spiral notebook you keep in your desk drawer underneath the sour-cream-and-cheddar rice cakes. 1. Put gas in the car. 2. Got to work. 3. Didn't yell!

- Ignore Janice McDougal and Dana Carnsworth from Marketing when it looks like they're laughing at you. Look the other way with your nose up in the air. Or stare at one of the lapels on Dana's jacket with a strange expression, as if you see something horrible. And then cover your mouth in shock.

- Find out who stole the company gift pen you received last Christmas. Write down the names of people who look suspicious or guilty.

- Take your boss Gene's name off the list. He only writes with a Shaeffer fountain pen.

- At the special events committee meeting, blow up as many balloons as you can.

- Don't think about anything uncomfortable or saddening on the way home from work, especially when you pass by Cresper Street. Don't think about how the route to George's house is so burned into your kinesthetic memory that you could turn your steering wheel automatically with your eyes closed and get yourself perfectly into his driveway without running into anyone's house or dog house. Don't think about George's dog, George Jr., and how you can still feel his furry face in your hands and smell his bad breath.

- Instead, think about how the sun looks orange on the mountains, and about how some people pay a lot of money to visit this city that you're lucky enough to live in.

- Return Mrs. Gerlack's call after work. She probably wants to know if you can baby-sit her cats when she's on vacation in Barstow. Tell her of course, you love cats. Then start to feel nervous about whether or not your apartment is presentable enough for Mrs. Gerlack's cats. Spruce up your apartment. Throw away the giant panda costume that's been sitting in the hallway since Halloween, when you tried to scare all the trick-or-treaters in your apartment building. For God's sake, it's March! Get rid of it already!

- Begin to shriek when you open the catalog and see your high school friend Jane.

- Eat the leftover Chinese food from Happy Bowl for dinner.

- Commit to decreasing your water usage.

- Recall the taste of Aspergum before you fall asleep, how it was supposed to be taken for headaches or fever like aspirin but you loved the chalky orange taste and chewed it for no reason. Wonder if they still make Aspergum, and where it's sold. Decide that they probably don't make it anymore because too many kids chewed it like you did, and maybe one of them died. Feel grateful to the Food and Drug Administration for regulating dangerous substances.

Tuesday

- Wear periwinkle. According to Color Me Beautiful, periwinkle is a "universal" color that looks good on everyone, a Summer, Winter, Fall, or a Spring, like you. Wear khaki if the only periwinkle thing you own is a dish towel.

- Do twenty-five crunches on the slip of carpet between the couch and the door.

- Do the crunches later, when you're feeling better, if your stomach feels funny from the Chinese food.

- Take the tuna to work today. It's about to go bad. Isn't that some sort of national thing-Take Your Tuna To Work Day?

- Greet your colleagues with spunk.

- Carry around your copy of Who Moved My Cheese? Take notes to impress your boss Gene. Bring up some points from the book in the next staff meeting, and look through your wire-rimmed glasses at Janice McDougal and Dana Carnsworth, who aren't even paying attention and whispering about something completely different, you can tell.

- Learn to forge signatures.

- Tell at least one person today, "That's ridiculous!"

- Locate everyone's personal mission statements in the confidential files, and rewrite them.

- Try to hide your glee when you discover Mark Henderson staring at you in the cafeteria. Remember that Mark is known to be something of a "womanizer," a "casanova," a "ladies' man." Take on a parental role as you talk to yourself about it, or what you imagine a parental role might be, since your parents were very preoccupied with making each other miserable when you were in the tender formative dating years and going out with losers like John DeFuente, who tried to make you cry for no reason, except maybe that he actually hated himself deep down inside and the only way he could feel better was by saying things like "You look like a slut!" or "My friend Kevin thinks you're ugly," to people he supposedly cared about, like his girlfriend.

- Put your ideas on the back burner.

- Think only pleasant thoughts on the drive home from work, especially when you pass by Cresper Street. Consider how in the future you might run into George and George Jr. in Union Park when you are out jogging with Mark Henderson and the golden retriever the two of you might pick out shortly after you move in with him. The dog's name could be Kenny. Or Vince.

- Use Eeyore's voice, from Winnie the Pooh, when speaking to the phone solicitor.

- Write at least one letter to that guy in jail, like you promised.

- Crave something salty. Search the kitchen looking for chips or pretzels. After a moment of pause, go with sardines.

- Make an escape plan.

Wednesday

- Wear pink to create an aura of femininity and mystique. If necessary, off-white will do.

- Retain the positive feeling from your dream, in which your uncle unfortunately passed away but fortunately left you a castle in Germany, which was actually some kind of college but without any students, and the food was prepared by a cafeteria staff of very polite ex-cons who were political prisoners with off-the-charts personal integrity and sensational operatic voices demonstrated in their performance of Puccini's Turandot. Think about how your bedroom in the castle had an enormous Chinese rug on the floor, that made you feel rich, not materialistically but in some other way, just like the rug in your uncle's house in Massapequa.

- Use the last of your mint floss.

- Meditate on the temporal nature of reality, while sitting on a pillow on the strip of carpet between the couch and the door. Just as this Journey poster is here today, but won't be here tomorrow, so too will my own life pass away, and so will Mark Henderson's, and Janice McDougal's and Dana Carnsworth's lives, and my stupid high school boyfriend John DeFuente's life, and not a moment too soon. Amen.

- Sing along with the radio on your way to work, even though there's really no music and it's just "Wake Up With Ben and Dave," with Dave ranting about some hot babe at the drive-thru.

- Consider applying makeup before using the drive-thru.

- Get a paper cut when opening the mail. Suck your index finger momentarily.

- Repress your envy when your boss Gene compliments Janice on the "stick-to-it-ive-ness" she demonstrated on the state contracts project.

- Resolve to improve your own "stick-to-it-ive-ness."

- Call Mark Henderson at home to find out why he's absent from work. Leave a message on his machine.

- Fire your pistol into the crowd. Or leave it at home, since it only shoots water and the weather's been chilly enough these days.

- Dedicate yourself to protecting the innocent from the corruption of popular culture.

- Design new stationery & envelopes.

- Think only about nice things on your way home from work. The way the roads smell after it rains. How elegant Mark Henderson's house must look on the inside. Drive by his house using the address you got from the company directory. Notice that no one is home.

- Wash out your Tupperware. Learn to prepare squid the Castilian way.

- Go to your sister's house for her step-son's party. Wear something exotic, like an Indian blouse with little mirrors embroidered around the hem. Tell your step-nephews and nieces that the mirrors tell the truth, that mirrors never lie, and hold them up to their wide eyes. Raise your eyebrows and pretend there is a flashlight under your chin. Or wear a tan sweater, for practicality.

- Surprise your loved ones with a George Foreman Grill.

- Look up the name Mark Henderson on the Internet. Drink red wine.

- Ignore all your detractors. They are simply jealous.

- Collapse onto your twin bed in exhaustion.

Thursday

- Wear a bright color, like tangerine or turquoise. If the closest thing you have is a very pale blue, really more like gray, that's fine too.

- Forego the meditation or exercise. You're too tired!

- Discover there is nothing to eat for breakfast. Become disgusted at how little cereal is in a regular-sized box, and visualize the empty box falling end over end from your fourth floor window, smashing into smithereens as it hits the ground. Eat saltines.

- Think about only positive things on the way to work. That TV show from last night. The TV show from the night before.

- Call Mark Henderson to find out why he's not at work again today. Leave a message on his machine. Mention that you liked what he was wearing yesterday. Remember after you hang up that he wasn't at work yesterday so you didn't see what he was wearing. Leave another message clarifying the situation.

- Notice spots on your hands. Consider when they emerged, and how there must be some mistake. You're not old enough for spots.

- Excuse yourself frequently when moving through a crowd.

- Play that word game. Mesmerize. Rise. Seem. See. Mere.

- Laugh uproariously at Dana Carnsworth's joke, so hard that you start to cry, and then just keep crying and crying, until people gradually leave the room. This is how you show them your power. Don't hide your light under a bushel.

- Call Mark Henderson to find out if he's coming to work tomorrow. Leave a message on his machine. Mention that you'd like to see what the inside of his house looks like. Describe how you picture it, the tastefully framed photos of the Greek Isles, the room with the cream carpeted walls. Give your name again. Charlene.

- Jeopardy. Pare. Dare. Dope. Drop. Parody.

- Think about only nice things on your way home. Not the last time you saw George Jr. or your grandmother's funeral, or your co-worker Angela's recent nervous breakdown in the staff room, just because the copier said "Low Toner." Don't think about how you feel when the copier says "Low Toner."

- No. Think about nice things. Like fresh flowers, even if you haven't gotten them for a while. And fresh asparagus. Don't think about how the asparagus in your fridge must be wilting by now, or about the lettuce, or how slimy lettuce looks when it goes bad, how it would taste if you were forced to eat it, sour and sharp and sliding all over your tongue. Pull the car over and spit, to get the taste out of your mouth.

- Blur your eyes on purpose when looking at the mail.

- Return Mrs. Gerlack's call. Learn that her cats have come down with a cold. Try to persuade her that you don't mind. Insist upon seeing the cats. Become tearful when she says no. Cause Mrs. Gerlack to hang up the phone on you.

- Dye your hair burgundy. Decide that it looks wrong, all wrong. Try again with red. Then bleach. Then cut it off.

- Find those little pills you stashed in your underwear drawer. Pour them into your hand and look at them. Put them back in their amber plastic container.

Friday

- Wear black, even if it's not clean.

- Keep denying that you had any involvement.

- Confuse others with frequent repetition. No. No. No. No. Sorry. No.

- Let the anxiety build about the lie-detector test. Shield your eyes from the glare.

- Make predictions about rainfall.

- Promise to find all the lost files. All the lost lunches. Swear that you will, swear on your life.

- Steal the tape when no one is looking.

- Press erase.

© 2005 Carolyn Hiler