Overload

The Ides of April are upon us and I've let things get atop of me again. Here's what's happening today:

Last year's tax return due (did that in February, already got the refund - yay Block!);

First quarter estimated taxes due for us self-employed types (wrote the check two days ago, it's sitting in the mail slot waiting to go out; since I can't predict my income I take the money I made in the relevant months, divide by 3, donate 1/3 to the gummit and 2/3 to savings. This pretty much guarantees a refund rather than a nasty surprise at tax time.);

Manning the SCBWI booth, #2649 at TLA, 2-5:30 (printed the instructions, have backpack partially loaded);

Support Teen Literacy Day (Zoned completely on this one till Cyn mentioned it to me; however, looking at the SA Library Event Calendar, the Enchilada doesn't seem to be doing anything specific for it, either, so I refuse to feel bad);

Operation Teen Book Drop (Aagh! I've dropped the ball on this one, and no excuses. Technically it's not too late if I can get my act together. Perhaps if I drink more caffeine and clear my head - get thee behind me, Meniere's!); and

Getting together with friends at TLA. Often when there's a big convention in my town I'll do a lot of welcoming prep, take responsibility to coordinate everybody so we can meet at a specific place at a specific time - one year I even printed and distributed maps for my ALA company - but - not this year. The only person I've met so far is a friend of my husband's, for whom we acted as native guides Tuesday and Wednesday.

I'm a good native guide. She's writing a paper on O. Henry, so we took her to the O. Henry house. We took her to three restaurants (Twin Sisters, La Margarita, and The everlovin' amazing Cove) she probably couldn't have found on her own, took her to see some of the Missions and the egret rookery at OLLU, walked her all over downtown to show her selected highlights and get her as oriented as we could, brought her home to see my husband's Sherlock Holmes collection, and even managed to get her to Cheever's Books, though not to any of the other used bookstores on Broadway; all with a steady infodump on how various places were haunted, what happened to who where, what used to be here, what's going to be there, why I regard the Guido Brothers as heroic despite their being part of the overdevelopment of my beloved town, and all the other stuff that spontaneously spills out of me if you dare to accept my help. But that was two afternoons I didn't spend doing other stuff.

It's always like that. It's always going to be like that. More stuff should be done than anybody can actually do. So I chant my mantra - All I can do is the best I can do - and now I need to find my center and figure out what I can still do about Teen Book Drop (I don't feel good about leaving books lying around for people to find; it's supposed to rain all week - maybe the bus drivers would let me leave something on the wheel well? - and I don't think I have any backed paper to print the bookplates on) instead of fretting about how hard it all is. Then it'll be lunchtime and then time to head downtown, and no housework done, and I haven't had a moment to look at the historical maps on the CD I bought at the San José gift shop yesterday but - at least the birds are fed and the blog is posted, right?

And I'm only a little lightheaded. Nothing is spinning. Physical limitations suck.