I didn’t write yesterday because of the writing festival. Ironic, don’t you think? I spent the early morning time I normally spend writing in typing up the kids’ work. Plan B was to work on writing between the festival and collecting the kids at camp, but that plan was derailed by my own personal nemesis: The Meeting That Wouldn’t End.

Which of course, got me thinking, again, about the use of time. Meetings, almost always, are a waste of it, at least as long as I want to maintain the illusion that I’m paying attention to what is going on. Eating is almost never a waste of time in that it is good for both the body and the soul. But what about staring into space? Sometimes it causes good ideas, sometimes not. Shopping? Reading comic books? Sleeping? What is useful and what is not?

It can be paralyzing, this sense that everything I choose to do is a choice against a list of other things. Particularly when I end up doing things like driving, which I don’t enjoy, or watching TV, which can only be justified by knitting or ironing while I do it.

Worrying about that too much, though, I’m sure is the worst waste of all. So I’m going to stop doing it.