Christmas is over, the parental units have gone back to their primary residence and I finally have a chance to unpack the boxes that time forgot. Hidden underneath my grade five report card, my swimming certificate and various bizarre elements of my past (best fisherman trophy. Go figure) I found my diary, as in datebook, from the last year of my life on the gold coast. Curious as to ‘what was I doing this time two years ago?’ I flicked open the pages, removed the random art show postcards and whacky Coke Zero adverts that I used to pretty up the pages, and found Jan 15. One thing was instantly apparent as I starred at the pages. Other than being able to draw the cats from Strange Emily like nobody’s business, I was Wonder Woman. I used to think it was crap that Superman always managed to be on the scene of disaster and Louis Lane’s latest PMS mishap, changed clothes several times a day, and yet still made deadline at the Daily Planet. It came down to his super speed right? That had to be the only way he could get it all done? Nope, the boy just had kick-arse time management skills, as did I.

 

Okay, so I didn’t have a whip (sorry fellas), but I did have brass wrist cuffs and could manage time better than The President’s secretary. (Segway, could you imagine a more irritating job? “Well, you can tell the leader of the communist world he can call back, because the President is booked until three… I’ll tell him where he can put his sub if he’s messes with this calendar again”) I don’t exaggerate when I say my day started at 6am and finished around 9.30pm, when I got to watch TV for an hour, brushing my teeth and readying for bed in the ad breaks so that I could be lights-out at 10.35. I took care of my dog, my house, my car. I studied full time, worked part time and had an internship. In there somewhere I even managed to have a best friend and fall in love with a beautiful, if conveniently absent, man. I was so organised I would even play chauffeur to transport challenged friends. I was a well scheduled, well oiled, (social life vacuum) machine. These days life is much, much, different. I have all the time in the world available to me to finish my book and yet I get NOTHING done.

“It must be great having the freedom to set your own pace,” said Princess M when I related my latest self-pitying neurosis.

“You would think, but no. If Wonder Woman had all day to save ‘whatever his name was’ from the bad guys, thus robbing him of his masculinity one more time, do you think she’d run off and do it straight away, or would she have a nice sleep in and eat lunch over Oprah so that before she knew it the day was gone and she’d have to get to it tomorrow?”

Did Superman only save the world from Lex Luther because he knew he had an article due at five and needed time to pump up Louis’s ego before four, so LL would have to be thwarted and back at the drawing board by two? To me, he always seemed like a last minute kind of guy. I mean really, he couldn’t have stopped things in Superman IV before the rocket that could “strip the paint of your house and give your family a permanent orange afro” (thank you Dan Akroyd) was launched? Cutting it kind of close there weren’t we big guy?

I’m a firm believer in the idea that things only get done because people are too busy to put them off until tomorrow. A friend once told me that there are no heroes, just ordinary people in extraordinary situations. I think they’re just ordinary people with extraordinary calendar considerations. Nothing gets done unless you do it yourself, and you’ll only do it if you have absolutely nothing better to do, or nowhere else you need to be.

 

So the question is, when the world is safe, and ‘whatever his name was’ manages to mind his own business, how does Wonder Woman motivate herself to get up on time? After all, the vacuuming will be there tomorrow… As long as Superman doesn’t run late next time.