How do you Deal with Failure?

I have a confession that is painfully evident to anyone who knows me: I'm a perfectionist. I like things to be a certain way, I get very hung up on the details, and I believe--deeply--that there is usually a "right" way to do things.

Maybe not in life (or in my house cleaning), but certainly in work. Whether you're building artisanal cheese boards or working as an accountant, do it well. Don't be sloppy. Check, then check again.

This even applies to my text messages and gchats. Usually I double check and copy-edit them...

...and when I hit send too fast and miss something, I follow up with a "sic" to whomever I'm corresponding with. Because I hate the idea that they think I'm sloppy THAT MUCH. (No, I'm not kidding about this.)

I think this is my factory setting, but I also think the drive towards perfectionism was reinforced by rewards. Growing up, I was bright, but if I was also anal-retentive, I could be the best. I could get a perfect score on every test and paper, get the right grades, get into the right college, and generally attain all the rubber-stamps of approval I could want because I was, in my dad's words, "disciplined." Obviously this character trait had serious downsides--like several years of "eating" diet coke for lunch--but by the time they started showing up, it was too late. I was stuck on this track, and why, really, would I want to get off of it?

So I must be a masochist.

Things Worse than Monday

I just got back from the NESCBWI conference, and it was awesome. And occasionally disheartening. And inspiring. And a little terrifying.

All things that are important to the writing process, basically, so I'll just call it a resounding success.

But the weekend of working WAY harder than I ever do at my job has made this Monday even more terrible than usual. Which made me wonder, what could be worse than doubling down on Monday?

So far I'm thinking:

* If one of my coworkers were replaced with a colicky infant
* A world without bourbon
* When you can't find out where that smell is coming from in your kitchen
* Genocides
* Also war
* In fact, let's just put all atrocities in a second, "actually terrible things" category
* When you're in a very public place, and a very private part starts to itch...badly
* Wrecking perfectly good cake with toasted coconut
* Watching young children play baseball
* The horrible truth that, in the end, we all really die alone

Thankfully, Monday's almost over. So it's just the rest of these things I need to worry about...

Decisions, Decisions

Can anyone explain to me why it is that the decisions that are hardest to make--cripplingly, mind-meltingly, curl-up-in-a-ball-and-weep-ingly hard--are always the little ones?

I flipped a coin to decide where to go to college (no, literally). I don't think I ever even consciously chose a career path. And I regularly decide to drastically switch my haircut--we're talking mid-back to pixie--based on a single morning of "meuh" in the mirror.

That might sound less momentous than the first two, but I think the ladies are picking up what I'm throwing down there.

I can make major decisions with (apparently frightening) ease, but the little ones? I am completely and utterly un-womanned by them.

Last night's decision trauma: business cards.

I didn't even NEED new business cards. I currently have four sets: one for my writing; one for my day job; one for the day job BEFORE this one (which, frankly, I should just recycle); and one for a place I used to write for that disappeared, and whose remnants I'm too sentimental to abandon totally.

But I kind of hate the "for my writing" set, and OHMYGODASALE was happening, so clearly I needed to pull the trigger on this immediately.

By "immediately," I mean "it took me hours--seriously, hours--and the input of multiple people to figure this out."

Do I like the quirky image I actually like, or should I go with something simple that I find boring (but maybe it's more elegant)? Heavy weight, regular weight (cheaper!), or weird (but maybe more memorable? but maybe more lose-able?) mini-cards? Is my title "writer," or "author," or "freelance writer," or "humorist," or some Frankenstein's monster of all of those, sutured together with ampersands?

HOW  DO I SPELL MY LAST NAME??

I wound up with...something. I purchased something.

But was it right? WAS IT?