« Man Plans, God Laughs | Main | A Plethora of P-words »

April 8, 2007

A PLETHORA OF PARADOXES

Or How That Devil Murphy is Alive And Well

paradox


1540, from L. paradoxum "paradox, statement seemingly absurd yet really true," from Gk. paradoxon, from neut. of adj. paradoxos "contrary to expectation, incredible," from para- "contrary to" + doxa "opinion."

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper

Okay, that's rather a mouthful of a definition. Especially if one (i.e., me) happens to not be an etymologist. But it's not as if you have to discuss the Greek roots of the word to understand its basic nature. After all, I stumble across paradoxes all the time. Murphy's Law, you might call it. But I say Murphy was a Greek etymologist. No. Really.

Here are just a few examples:

The more free time you have, the less time you have That's my paradoxical thesis, and I'm sticking to it. As proof (to mix linquistics and geometry), I can offer up my weekend. A long weekend, actually, because my husband was scheduled off for both Good Friday and Easter Monday. Yay, we thought! We can get things done around the house! (Actually, I was probably more "yay" than he was, but he's a sport and was willing to pitch in.)

The shelves I blogged about last week have, in fact, created a monster. For a long while, we've hated the carpet in the back of the house, particularly in the bedroom. (My husband has bad allergies. Carpets are evil. 'Nuff said.) So the plan was to pull up the carpet and tack, and sand down the glue lines on Friday. On Saturday, we'd prime. On Sunday, stain. On Monday, seal.

To that end, the girls and I made yet another one of our infamous trips to Home Depot, where I followed the guy from flooring around like a puppy as he told me how to do all this. (And, no, my life doesn't really revolve around Home Depot, but I'm in a redecorating sort of ilk at the moment. What can I say?)

Friday comes. We sleep in. We realize we're out of groceries. We realize we're 1 day shy of the 30 day expiration of my husband's Lenscrafter's Guarantee.

We go out and run errands. And, because we have two small children, the quick errands take a long, long, long time.

We get home and decide that relaxation makes more sense (who wants to move a king size bed in the evening?).

One day gone.

Saturday blooms bright and early. We move the bed. We pull up carpet. Immediately, my husband starts having a nasty attack (and, lest you are the suspicious type, it really was an allergic reaction). This is good, I think. Proves we need to get rid of this yuck. But then: This is bad, I think. Now I have to do this stuff by myself.

No problem! I have tools. How hard can one small room be? SEVEN HOURS hard. But I got up all the carpet tack, filled the divots, sanded the glue lines, and cleaned up. I'm stiff and sore and calloused, but reveling in a sense of accomplishment. Yay me!

But not so much yay for the schedule. The last divots were filled at 6. They need 24 hours to cure. That means priming has to wait until Sunday night. Which puts us completely off schedule!

In other words ... suddenly my leisurely weekend of working on the house isn't nearly a long enough weekend at all!

See? Tons of time, and yet not nearly enough time! A paradox. Plain and simple.

There are other paradoxes cropping up in my life, too. Here are a few of my top examples:

-- The more you clean the house, the more frustrated you will be when your children track dirt in and spread toys all around! Best to just let it stay messy, then!

-- The more work you put into a meal, the less interested your kids will be Best to stick with the uninventive basics ... and eat out a lot!

-- The week that you are pacing by the phone waiting for your agent to call about a proposal is the week the entire publishing community decides to go to Florida for a sales conference. No silver lining for that one. It just sucks.

-- When you are DESPERATELY trying to finish a book, that's the day that copyedits will arrive, needing a two-day turn-around. Worse, galleys.

-- And if you're in a huge hurry, that's when the galley's will be a huge mess.

-- And, of course, there's the Number One Universal Paradox of All Time ... the more pairs of socks you own, the more single, unmatched socks will be in your sock drawer!

Cliche, maybe, but oh, so true ...

This blog was brought to you by The Prada Pardox, Julie’s hip, funny novel about sex, adventure and fashion – not necessarily in that order.

Posted by Julie Kenner at 2:16 AM | Comments (8)

Comments

Posted by: Laura Fitzgerald at April 8, 2007 10:53 AM

Posted by: The LC Eileen at April 8, 2007 4:25 PM

Posted by: Julie at April 9, 2007 1:54 AM

Posted by: beth at April 9, 2007 12:27 PM

Posted by: Alesia Holliday at April 9, 2007 12:40 PM

Posted by: Whitney at April 11, 2007 1:03 PM

Posted by: Whitney at April 11, 2007 1:04 PM

Posted by: Julie at April 12, 2007 2:13 AM