nap

verb (naps, napping, napped) [ no obj. ] sleep lightly or briefly, especially during the day. she took to napping on the beach in the afternoons.

noun short sleep, especially during the day: excuse me, I'll just take a little nap.

PHRASES catch someone napping Brit. informal find someone off guard and unprepared to respond: the goalkeeper was caught napping by a shot from Carpenter.

ORIGIN Old English hnappian, probably of Germanic origin.

Still digging among my clippings and files of ideas, I found a review of a book, The Procrastination Cure, by Jeffery Combs. He is Jeffery Combs is “an Internationally recognized trainer, speaker, coach and author in the Network Marketing, Direct Sales and Personal Development. Jeffery specializes in Prospecting, Leadership, Live Presentations, Personal Breakthrough Coaching, Addiction Coaching, Prosperity Consciousness, Mindset Training, and all levels of effective marketing.” That’s from the blurb about him online. He is a self-help merchant, I gather. So why was he being reviewed (seriously?) in the New York Times? And why did I save the report of an academic conference on procrastination held at the University of Oxford, citing Combs as a source of help in crushing “the beast”, procrastination, because it’s considered a symptom of mental illness.

And I think I’m suffering from it in my current struggle with files.

Some famous procrastinators of the past were described, including one fairly well-known, fairly recent author, Egyptian-born French novelist, Albert Cossery (1913-2008). Apparently he had a “strict schedule of idleness”. He is praised for his “masterfully unprolific work”. He wrote eight novels, three of which were made into movies. ( Not bad!) He considered ”laziness” not a vice but “a form of contemplation and meditation”. It doesn’t sound like mental illness to me.

No help at all.

I’m getting a lot of other things done while I look at my unbudging , recalcitrant, stubborn mess of files. Dither, dawdle and delay. Also decide - slowly. I remember telling you the reward I discovered when I found a mysterious cardboard box on the top shelf of a cupboard shortly after I had moved. It contained mending that I didn’t need to do any more because it didn’t fit anyone I knew. Bliss. So with these files, the few I have looked at. I am finding imperatives, noodges, deadlines and reminders that I no longer have to do anything about. Past their date. I guess I am too. I have to think about that.

After a nap.

“Grub first then ethics.”

Bertoltd Brecht said that, in outright denial of the religious reminder: “Man does not live by bread alone.” Brecht was right; people can’t absorb much doctrine on an empty stomach.

I thought of his words this morning as I woke up with a firm resolve. BLOG FIRST. Blog first and then what? Well, almost first. I checked the daily digital news but more fleetingly than usual, and I checked my email - very little as the weekend begins. Wait till Monday. So it’s blog time. Blog before grub. Actually, I’ve had breakfast. I’m always hungry after my swim.

I had saved, as a reward for my patience and yours, a few file folders I had accumulated:, all labelled: “Ideas”, “Blogs”, “Seed Beds”, “Files” and “On an On and On, a veritable treasure trove of thoughts that I could pass on with commentary. Unfortunately. It’s now an hour later or longer , and I have just riffed through the first collection. It comprises mainly, reviews of books that I subsequently bought and read, intending to insert the review in the book it belonged to. That was easy and enjoyable. But I found a few reviews of books I never tracked down, and now I want to. I want to NOW. And I want to google them, one writer, in particular, but it’s almost noon, and I am getting hungry. (What’s that about grub?) Oh dear.

I came across a review of a book I didn’t get, The Information: A History. A Theory. A Flood. published in 2011, by James Gleick, illustrated, 526 pp, Pantheon Books, $29.95, and it sounds necessary. But there’s a cautionary quote from the reviewer ( Geoffrey Nunberg) in a sidebar:

“Even in the 17th century, people felt overwhelmed by what Leibniz called ‘the horrible mass of books.” Overwhelmed. Yes, we know what it means, but look again:

overwhelm verb [ with obj. ]

1 bury or drown beneath a huge mass of something, especially water: floodwaters overwhelmed hundreds of houses.

• give too much of something to; inundate: they were overwhelmed by farewell messages.

2 have a strong emotional effect on: I was overwhelmed with guilt.

3 defeat completely: [ with obj. and complement ] : the Irish side was overwhelmed 15–3 by Scotland.

• be too strong for; overpower: the Stilton doesn't overwhelm the flavour of the trout.

This, you see, is what I have been suffering from lately, as I wade through my files. How am I ever going to get my blogs in order? Let alone my files?