easily distracted

It’s amazing how many things I can find to do when I don’t want to do what I should be doing.  Studying.

Yesterday I had planned to study two chapters of twenty for my real estate exam now scheduled for early December.  Instead, I leave my home at ten and:

    Go with a friend to look at chairs. 

    Spend a few hours at a sample sale, buying a dressy black cashmere cardigan with a fur collar.

    Stop by my doctor’s to pick up a prescription.

I get home after four with no energy to study.  And besides, I have nothing at all planned for tomorrow day or night.  I’ll go to the library to insure against distractions.

But now it’s tomorrow, and I decide to run a few errands.

    I go back to the sample sale (on 37^th and 8^th) and return the dressy black sweater, after sending a photo to my good friend M and getting this response:  A tad prissy.  You're cooler than that.

    I next head over to 13^th and Park to bring my Nikon camera over to PhotoTech to be repaired.  I see boxes and movers.  Not a good sign.  Turns out they are moving to a new place, right near where I just came from.  I must look distraught because the tech manager offers to take my camera in and bring it over to the new location himself.  When I go online to recheck the address I see this pop-up:

This was not there when I double-checked the address this morning before leaving.

    I then head over to Bloomingdales and buy a blush that I’ve read is the best blush ever.  It’s by Illamasqua (had never heard of them before I stumbled on many online rave reviews).  While there, I accept the salesperson’s offer to try their face makeup.  I leave feeling like I look embalmed.

    I pass a sign on a Korean nail place:

I have no idea what the sign is intended to mean, but whatever it is, it is not spelled right.  I tell the store owner about the typo, thinking she'll care.  She doesn't.

    The doorman tells me my neighbor down the hall died three days ago from melanoma.  He was in great shape, in his 70’s I’d guess, always cheerful, and had a very neat apartment.  I write a condolence card and slip it under his door for the family to collect.

    I answer emails.  Make  a few calls.  Have lunch.  

It is now almost two, and still, I have not opened my voluminous real estate book, nor have a gone to the library.

Around 2:30, I finally start studying, and by three I need a break.  It's all definitions and legal terms, with few concepts.  It is brutal.  

My five minute break extends for three hours.  

    I go to Agata.

    I help my mom buy a phone online, which involves a three-way conversation with a very nice Verizon rep.

    I play some WWF.

    I buy that gorgeous Horizon task lamp for a friend and negotiate for a 55% discount and free shipping directly from Humanscale.  I even amaze me.

Yes, there’s a lot to do besides study.  I just shouldn’t be doing it.