The Lure of 100%

You'll be happy to know that even though I've had a long six month break from blogging, I'm returning just as neurotic as ever.  And to prove it, I'm going to show you just how nuts I can get about perfectionism.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that perfection is a dangerous plaything.  It's a shiny bauble that the three-year-old in me is always reaching for, tempting me with its beauty and elusiveness, convincing me that once I have it in my greedy hands I'll be well and truly happy.  Being aware of the truth of perfection is possibly the only thing that keeps me from diving headlong into the pursuit of perfection with abandon.  Reality keeps me grounded, at least to a certain extent.

The problem is those rare occasions when something presents itself in which perfection is attainable.  I know I'll never be the perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect Mormon or Republican or Whack-a-mole player.  All of those things are subjective, and perfection isn't possible.  But if achievements can be quantified or measured against an absolute, then maybe a person can be perfect.  You know where I see this in my life?  School.

School, with its multiple choices, true/false tests, grade point averages and SAT scores, is my perfectionist's nirvana.  Every day I have the chance to turn in a piece of homework or take a quiz and get in return a piece of validation.  There is nothing that thrills me more than seeing a paper declaring "100%" or, less clinically, "A+."  You may as well slap a gold star on my forehead, it makes me that happy.

My adolescent lit professor made the mistake of indulging in my fantasy of getting a 100% not just on one test, but in an entire class.  She was an extremely liberal grader - every paper or project we turned in would get 100% if the requirements were met, but any bit of creativity that was above and beyond the requirements would earn extra credit.  I figured that a little bit of extra effort would put me on easy street for the class, and it did.  By the end, my grade was over 100%.  It's no wonder that this was one of my favorite classes ever.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to replicate my feat in any other class, and even though I know I am being completely unreasonable, I still go into every new semester thinking that this class I'll ace.

Yeah, I know, I'm messed up.

I learned that lesson in school, too.  My American Lit class was discussing something off-topic, I don't remember what, but I mentioned that I put my A papers on my refrigerator, just like my kids' good grades.  The teacher stared at me and said, "You don't really do that, do you?"  Well, if backwards bicycling was an Olympic sport, I would have qualified right then for how fast I backpedaled.  "Oh, no, I was just joking," I assured her, realizing for the first time that not everybody takes their grades as a measure of self-worth.

Today I'm shaking off the lure of 100%.  I'm working on a group project with two other classmates (aside- I am convinced that people in Hell always have to work in groups.  Or on committees.)  I'm already feeling antsy about the outcome of the project, since I'm not convinced that everyone is on the same page as to what the teacher is asking of us.  Then yesterday, I forfeited my assignment, putting together a slideshow of Vietnam War photos (which would take maybe an hour to do, tops), and instead took on the writing assignment, which is definitely the harder part.  Why?  Because I got a 95 on the midterm paper, and the girl who was originally going to write only got a 91.  Now I'm seeing the emailed slideshow that this girl is putting together and I'm tempted to polish it up a little, you know, tweak it here and there to improve it.  Why? BECAUSE I AM A CRAZY PERSON.  And a control freak.  And completely unable to even fathom the idea of getting anything less than an A on a project with my name on it.

Someone needs to help me.  Seriously.  Maybe I need to take a super hard class and fail utterly so that I learn that failure is not so bad.  Maybe I need to quit school and move to a Zen monastery where I can learn how to live in the moment and embrace pain and what not.  Although, knowing me, I'd be waiting for the monk in charge to give me a silent nod of approval at my excellent lotus position, which is at least 4% better than my Zen-mate's.

I definitely have a problem.

Division of Labor

Right now I'm supposedly working on my latest project, building myself a new website!  I'll be moving my blog over there, plus adding some new sections for book reviews and other stuff.  Eventually my goal is to take my favorite blog entries, revise the crap out of them (literally), and assemble them into a book, which will, of course, be available to purchase on my website.  It's all in an effort to build a "platform" - an online presence that will magically make publishers etc take me seriously as a writer.  It's all the rage nowadays; I don't know if you're even allowed to publish a book without an accompanying blog/newsletter/message board/Twitter feed.  And you know me - any bandwagon that passes too close, I've just got to jump on.

So, if I'm thisclose to having the perfect website that will not only propel me to fame and stardom but quite possibly also usher in Web 3.0, whatever that is, why I am over here, blogging?  It's simple, actually - as it turns out, I absolutely stink at building websites.

Yes, it's true.  Jane-of-all-trades I am not.  The logistical part of website creation isn't so bad - I bought a domain name, set everything up with a webhost, installed Wordpress - and that's as far as I got.  Because everything after that is all the pretty stuff.  What should the header look like?  What color scheme do I use?  How about matching fonts?  Not to mention layout, background images, widgets, templates, and on and on and on.  Wordpress tries to make this easier by allowing developers to create "themes" - they do all the color picking and laying out and all that stuff, you just pop it in and add content.  The problem is, there are about 7 gazillion different themes out there, and I swear I have looked at every single one.  I started with an idea in mind of how I wanted my website to look, but after staring at theme after theme after theme, I stopped actually caring what it looked like.  I grabbed the next one I came across, slapped it up there, and started writing stuff.

The problem is, I now have what is arguably the most boring website on the planet.  Seriously.  It is gray and blue and has absolutely zero personality.  I'd show you, but one of the (many) articles I read about website design told me that the design of the website determines if people are willing to stick around and read the content.  Frankly, I'm not willing to risk driving you all away, sending you running into the arms of a blogger with a better eye for color.

Fortunately, there is someone out there with a better eye for color, and I happened to be married to him.  This is where "opposites attract" plays out quite nicely - the only thing that interests Ryan in putting together a website is the way it looks - I only care about what it says.  We did the same thing with the kitchen remodel - he picked the asthetics, I did the functionality.  I created a "favicon" this morning - the 16x16 pixel image that represents the website in your browser - and it took me two hours.  TWO HOURS!!  The thing is so small it requires basically no detail.  I could have slapped a single letter in a plain white box and called it good, but noooo... I had to fiddle and play and scrap things and start over for two whole hours.  And that is what drove me here, to my blog, to spend a few minutes doing something that I'm good at.

So, yes, I'd rather write about building a website rather than actually building the website.  That's probably how it should be.  I'll be drawing a picture of what I want my website to look like and handing over to the master later today.  And as soon as I know the site won't put you in a boredom-induced coma, I'll let you see it.