Yesterday tomorrow came too soon so I missed it, not the day but the Blog. A friend of mine told me about ordering a cab to get to the airport to catch a flight to somewhere - details are vague except for the punch line. The cabbie was late picking them up and they ran into traffic so he chose an unfamiliar route and got semi-lost, and seconds were ticking too fast because they were on their way to being late for the plane. The cabbie was muttering to himself but as he got more and more flustered and apologetic, he started saying out loud, "It's not my fault, it's not my fault, IT'S NOT MY FAULT!! They would have missed the plane but the flight was delayed by some act of Someone. It wasn't the airline's fault, either. Ai, me and ah, well. So, you see, yesterday was not my fault. It proceeded very efficiently without me, and I tried to catch up to it, and here I am and it's today already. I think it was Mark Twain who said "never put off till tomorrow what you can put off until the day after." So here I am and today will go on, too. And so will I. And you. Anon, anon.

This is what happens when you, that is, I, procrastinate: today is almost gone and I'm just getting to my blog for the day. Procrastination happens when you get too busy doing other things, perhaps not useless, irrelevant things, just things that took precedent, whether by choice or by necessity. I'm certainly not going to tell you what I did today; that's for my diary to know. I'm not going to castigate the fact that I procrastinate (couldn't resist that internal rhyme) , because sometimes the act - no, it's not an act because it's inaction - sometimes, then, the neglect of a prescribed or assigned activity can provide relief or even lead to innovative achievement. When I moved from Stratford to Toronto, lots of boxes didn't get unpacked right away. That means I didn't unpack them. Months, almost a year later, I found a cardboard box on a high shelf in a closet and opened it, wondering about the contents. It was clothes that needed mending and though some of them still possibly fit the people who used to wear them, they were either out of season or too tacky to revive. What a relief! Coupons provide a similar pleasure when you examine them and see that the expiry date has passed and you can toss them with a clear conscience. I do not procrastinate about food because, as I've said before, I'm the Leftover Queen. I never let food go mouldy or sour or stale or dried out. And as a writer I have always prided myself on never missing a deadline. Procrastination is a no-no there. That's not to say that one doesn't often wait till the penultimate moment to complete an assignment. Don't knock last minute inspiration, though. One could call it productive procrastination. Someone I never heard of (I looked it up) called procrastination the thief of time. I guess it depends on what alternative use you've made of the time you've stolen from. Or not. I can't sew and I hate sewing, or maybe I can't sew because I hate sewing . Anyway, my line is that if I lose a button off a garment I have to throw it away -- well, sometimes not quite so drastic as to discard it, but if decency has not been threatened, then I keep on wearing it buttonless. Know what? It's now tomorrow so I can put this off until the day after.