“I’m not exactly sure what it was, but there was something about Ohio I didn’t much like,” I recently said to a family friend after a trip to Canton.

“I expect I know,” said Bob in his slow, matter-of-fact, Eyeore way of speaking. “It’s beige. The whole state. Beige.”

“But most everything seemed so clean and new there,” I said.

“Might be new,” he said, “but it’s beige or taupe or tan. Whatever you call it, it’s all the same. A person could get rich there if they had some tan rocks to sell to the builders.”

He told me about a friend of his who has lived in the same complex of townhouses in Ohio for the past four years. She recently pulled into the wrong driveway. After four years of living there.

Although I have somewhat less disdain for neutral colors than Bob, I suspect that he’s right. There’s something sad about sameness, about visual political correctness. About adhering to a color palate that strives only to be un-offensive.

The heck with originality or individuality or going out on a limb. Heaven forbid anyone try something daring and new. Having such rigid uniformity-and restrictions on the types of changes a homeowner can make-does protect the investment of the whole. A single homeowner can’t do something so outrageous to their home or build something so bizarre that it ends up lowering the property values of the rest of the neighborhood. It seems like a sound enough idea, but–yawn–how dull.

Do we really want to live in a taupe and tan world when there are so many other colors to choose from?

My in-laws live in the South Park area of Morgantown, not far from the cow house. I doubt many in the Charleston area are familiar with the cow house, but it has the kind of paint job that makes non-residents chuckle and, I expect in its early days, nearby neighbors cringe. The two-story Holstein-themed house is white with black spots. The exposed part of the basement-udder pink.

I’ve yet to go by without smiling, without thinking about what interesting, fun characters must live in that house.

I’ve yet to experience a beige house that triggers such thoughts.

Unfortunately, there are many parts of Morgantown that seem to be rapidly succumbing to beige-ification, with acres of new, identical townhouses with identical rooflines that domino up and down the tree-devoid hills. And not a single Holstein spot to be seen.

Some towns are choosing to fight back against cookie-cutter communities by instituting “anti-monotony” rules requiring that new developments have varying roof heights and colors. Many builders are opposed, saying “monotony” cuts production costs and allows buyers to get more for their money.

It’s going to take decades of renovations and paint jobs and homeowner customization before these new neighborhoods cab develop any kind of personality. Before anyone is brave enough to paint spots.  

Future Vice President Steven Colbert, when speaking to Ohio Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones of Ohio, once asked, “Twenty-two astronauts were born in Ohio. What is it about your state that makes people want to flee the earth?” 

Maybe it’s because they want to see something other than beige.  

It seems appropriate that I was procrastinating writing this column when I surfed across the phrase “structured procrastination,” coined by Stanford philosophy professor John Perry. It took but a few paragraphs for me to recognize Professor Perry’s brilliance, especially considering that it justified what I’d been unwittingly doing most of my life.

“Structured procrastination,” writes Perry, “is a strategy that converts procrastinators into effective human beings, respected and admired for all that they can accomplish and the good use they make of time.”

I’m not sure about the “respected and admired” part, and I could use some clarification on what’s considered a “good use” of time, but I do accomplish a lot. It’s just not often a lot of what I actually set out to do.

Simple procrastination is putting off things you have to do. Structured procrastination is the art of making this bad trait work for you.

Basically, an ordinary procrastinator avoids doing the most pressing or important task by using up his or her time doing a variety of menial tasks. But a structured procrastinator recognizes this “flaw” and makes it work for them by randomly knocking off other worthwhile tasks - ones that fall farther down that often unwritten list of things to do.

“The procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important,” writes Perry on his Web site, structuredprocrastination.com.

I suspect I’ve long known that if I need to get my house in company’s-coming condition, the best way to guarantee the cleaning gets done is by getting up early to write. Heaven knows I can’t be creative if there are dishes in the sink and crumbs on the counter. I love to write, but even more I love to procrastinate about writing.

Read the rest of this entry »

Those who haven’t been there might have trouble understanding the impact a simple date on the calendar can have on a person. After all, it’s just a date. It’s not something with substance. But those who have been there understand certain dates have a power to transport a person backward through time, making them relive the hardest, most painful days of their lives.

When the pain of a loss or a diagnosis is still new, it’s easy to travel back in different ways. A week ago today, she was opening presents. A month ago today, he was still here.

But in time, it’s the significant dates that become the ones with the power. For my friend Becky Conrad, whose situation I wrote about a few times in 2007, her dates are Dec. 30 and Jan. 1.

“December 30 was the day I fainted in my kitchen,” wrote Becky in a recent e-mail to me. “It’s what caused me to be sent to the hospital. And January 1 was when I had my brain biopsy and diagnosis.”

That diagnosis was central nervous system lymphoma, one of the rarest and hardest cancers to cure. 

“I was told I had a 40 to 50 percent chance of beating it,” wrote Becky. “Even now - a year and four clear scans later - I’m told there’s still a 50 percent chance it will return.” 

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s probably a little out of character for someone who is not much into parties and gets anxious in crowds to enjoy celebrating New Years, but I do. Even though I’m not terribly good at the socializing end of the holiday (and I’m especially not good at making small talk while standing in high heels with my stomach sucked in), I love being with a group of people when the clock strikes midnight.

You see, sometimes I feel like such a screw-up. Over the past year, I haven’t gotten in shape, haven’t finished my book, haven’t organized my anything. There are so many things I haven’t done that I intended to do.

With yet another year of I-should’ves and wish-I-would’ves behind me and no way to get that time back, it seems to make total sense to celebrate the end of an unproductive year and the promise of a new one with a group of people who are, more likely than not, just as screwed up as me. 

Sometimes when my daughter messes up, she pauses, holds up one finger and says, “Do over.” It’s like she rewinds, erases, then starts over again. 

That’s how I see New Years. Worldwide Do-Over Day.

It’s a time to stop and consider what to change and improve, a time when so much seems possible that there’s something enchanting about it.

My husband, who is self-employed, keeps a large dry erase board next to our bed. On the left side of the board, Geoff tracks hours spent on various clients. On the right side is his to-do list. For some reason, one of our cats took a look at Geoff’s slick board and decided it would be a good place to sharpen his claws. Before I could stop him, his rapid swipes managed to erase nearly every To-Do. I thought Geoff would be annoyed with the cat, but he wasn’t at all. He said so much of his list had remained unchanged for so long it was getting him down, and now–violá!–it was gone.

Read the rest of this entry »

There was an amused look on my husband’s face as he opened another Christmas card.  

“What?” I asked.  

He was smiling as he taped the card to the doorframe in our hallway, where he’d displayed several others.  

“Look how loved we are,” he said. “Our newspaper carriers both sent us cards. Our trash guys. Our insurance agent. Even the guy who cut our grass at the old house.”  

“People sure are friendly,” I said. “Used to be no one but relatives sent cards.”  

“Nice to know they care and are thinking about us,” he said.  

“Makes me feel kinda guilty for not sending out cards,” said I.  

I used to do cards. Came up with my own design every year. Then I had a few rough years that I skipped, and now I guess I’m just out of the habit.   

We live in South Charleston, which has the best trash service of any place I’ve ever lived. Three times a week, they’re here without fail. They’re fast and efficient, and they don’t leave stuff scattered all over the streets and yards like I’ve seen other places.  And not only that, but they care enough to send us a CARD.  

Read the rest of this entry »

I seldom score a face-to-face with a bona fide celebrity, so imagine my excitement when granted an interview with one of the biggest names in the business, especially this time of year.  

At least, that’s what I thought.  

If only I were a better speller.   

I thought I was getting the Abominable Snowman, but no. I got the Abdominal Snowman.  

“Happens all the time,” said the amiable abdominal snowman as he patted his well-defined six-pack. “It’s no problem. I’m used to it.”  

In the 44 years since the stop-motion animated version of “Rudolph” first aired on TV, Abdominal said at least a dozen others had made the same error as me.   

Grateful for his kindness, I decided to continue our interview.  

Read the rest of this entry »

During the holidays, some people deck the halls while other people get plastered. I combine the two. I plaster the halls. Nothing says Christmas like a mud knife loaded with spackle.

It began innocently enough (as all my projects seem to do). Before putting up any decorations, I decided I’d first slap a coat of paint on the walls in the entry. Just slap it on, you know, like that’s all it involves. Something as fast as a slap.

There are no slaps in the home improvement world. Well, there are, but they’re generally to the forehead. (Believe me. I know. My forehead is callused and bruised.)

One of the first things I did upon moving into our new old house last Spring was to tear down every bit of wallpaper in the entry way and stairwells. Even the ceilings had been papered. It needed to go.

Removing the paper went shockingly fast, as it was so brittle and dry it practically fell off the walls. Unfortunately, so did a lot of the plaster. After so many years together, I guess they couldn’t bear to separate. Needless to say, fixing the walls was suddenly going to be a much bigger job than the simple repainting I’d naively anticipated when I began.

Some of you are probably thinking that I’ve been a homeowner far too many years to still be so naive. It’s not really innocence so much as it is denial. 

Read the rest of this entry »