Simplify your life, say all the experts. Remove the excess, organize what's left, and it all becomes simple, say the experts.
Well...not...quite.
Because (despite the attack organizers shown on TV, who have (IMO) execrable taste and far too much smugness) writers with deadlines do not have time to clear out and re-organize.
But--all that aside--I had been in a near panic because I could not find the password I needed to get to the part of the site that I needed to print out stuff I needed for the trip next Monday. I had not printed it out when I bought the ticket, because I knew I'd lose the it if I did it too early. But then I couldn't find the password.
Now all you smarter people have realized what I should have done. I should have gone to the site and said "I can't find my password/have forgotten my password" and they've issue me a new one. But I kept thinking "I can find it--and besides, what if they *don't* issue me a new password. What if they think I'm pretending to be me (copy edits will produce this kind of confusion in some writers, me among them.) So for days I searched, or stared at the stacks of paper and thought about searching, and got more and more tense. I told myself a dozen (more!) times "Just go to the site and see..." but I couldn't make myself do it. Until today. Why today? I have no idea.
So I went to the site and sure enough they had a procedure for requesting a new password, and it worked, and I got my itinerary/receipt thing and I printed it out and now all I have to do is not lose that. Which is easy because it goes in a particular case in a particular pocket.
Most of the time my brain works fairly well, and I don't have this problem. But every once in a while, it goes into panic-freeze, rather than panic-do and refuses to do the most obvious thing *first*.
Sigh.
I know I'm not the only writer who ever said "If I get rich, I'll hire a secretary/personal assistant." This is tagged as "the writing life" because I wouldn't have needed the stupid tickets if I weren't going off to speak at a university. Someday if I get rich I will not only have a secretary but occasionally travel *for pleasure*. Just that. (Mind you, a lot of the business trips I've taken have also been a lot of fun, but it's been way too long since R- and I went off on our own for even a single night, just for the fun of it.