On Procrastination (And also Candy Crush)

            That’s an all right title, right? It sounds like some kind of Strunck and White type thing. I wanted to go with something more creative but then my phone buzzed and there was a Facebook update about Candy Crush and I got distracted and then everything got a bit too meta for my liking.

            But procrastination! For any MFA, and probably any Grad student, or student, or person, the word creates an aura of shuddery horror and looping spirals of shame. Or maybe it only does that to me. My name is Megan Hesse and I am a procrastinator. Sometimes it’s not such a bad thing. Instead of grading papers I got inspired and wrote three chapters of a story. Instead of writing more of that story I cleaned the house and took out the garbage which, after procrastinating on that for a good week or two, was piled ever so slightly past my head. I’m procrastinating right now - I have responses and readings due and I might not even do them after I finish this. I’ll probably play Candy Crush. And here’s the really insidious part: sometimes I’ll hit a level on Candy Crush that is so awful, so purely blackly evil (like the ones with the time bombs) that I will procrastinate on playing it because I know I’m still stuck on that level. So I have to find a new game to play until I get around to Candy Crush because come on, it’s not like I’m just going to go write that next chapter.

            I try though, I really do. But the focus never lasts. I’d like to blame society or technology or a documented condition like ADHD but I have no excuse. I’m just a weak-willed individual with too much entertainment at my fingertips. I’ll move to different rooms of the house, ones without TV, but my phone is still with me because how can I leave my phone in another room? What if there’s an emergency? What if someone needs me to fulfill a random, time consuming task that isn’t staring blankly at my computer willing words to happen and I’m not there to answer it?

            It’s an uphill battle. Why just today I was in my living room, stolid and determined and with a new app that knows when I’m doing work and smiles a happy face and keeps time and when I click away to the internet turns red and frowns with disappointment like I just told it I was quitting school and joining a drum circle. According to said app I was productive for approximately fifteen minutes and twenty-two seconds and then hey, I wonder what’s on TV at eleven in the morning on a Wednesday. Golden Girls! And I’ve seen this one!

            “Thank you for being a friend, travel down the road and back again! Your heart is true, you’re a pal and a confidaaaant!”

            Oh those girls. I wish I could say I would be Blanche because she’s the one who gets all the geriatric booty. But in truth I’d probably be Dorothy. I wonder if there’s an online quiz to find out which Golden Girl you’re most like. Oh who am I kidding, of course there is. Still, may as well look to make sure.

            Oh man there’s this video, look at this video. This guy reviews videogames after eating a jalapeno pepper. Look at him suffer! I’ll just watch, maybe, one more. Or ten.

            And now it’s three in the morning and my app is so red and so angry I get worried that apps can internally hemorrhage themselves. And then I wonder if Cutthroat Kitchen is on. That Alton Brown is so sassy.

            In short, I have a problem. I know that this is a problem I should probably fix soon, and I assure you that I am totally going to get around to it. After I beat this level on Candy Crush. And take this quiz…Ah, what the hell, it says I’m Dorothy’s mom?

Megan Hesse is currently in her second year as a graduate student in the FAU MFA program. She enjoys fighting evil by moonlight and winning love by daylight. She is the one named Sailor Moon.