Rick Nelson and Claude Peck dispense unasked-for advice about clothing, etiquette, culture, relationships, grooming and more.

CP: Who was it who famously said: Why do today what you can put off till sometime in mid-July?

RN: I don't know. Me?

CP: It seems like only yesterday that I successfully spent 11 hours not doing what I had set out to do with my Sunday. And it was so easy. Thank you, social networking, telephony, gorging on sugar, daydreams.

RN: Please. I've got procrastination down to an art form. Just ask my editor.

CP: When I used to edit you, we didn't have a problem.

RN: That's because I was better at masking my proscrastinating ways. I would sublimate them into, say, scrubbing every square inch of my apartment, and then working all night to make my deadline, cursing my dawdling nature.

CP: Shoot. And I thought it was because you were all intimidated.

RN: No comment.

CP: Maybe the trick is to engage in productive labor while not doing what we're supposed to do. In which case procrastination becomes a force for good in the world, not ill. Me, I tend to fritter.

RN: Well, I'm mentioning toothbrushes and Mr. Clean to impress you. I can easily lose untold hours in the time-sucks that are Hulu, Comcast on Demand and the six magazines that just landed in my mailbox. I'm not just a couch potato. I'm the whole darned can of Pringles.

CP: It's nice to see you flagellate yourself, especially in this just-over Lenten season.

RN: My pull toward doddering totally goes against my work-ethic Lutheran upbringing. My parents will be so ashamed of me if they ever discover the truth.

CP: Sure, they may wonder whether you really need to view your battered VHS tape of City Ballet doing "Agon" six more times before writing a 150-word restaurant spotlight for Thursday's paper. Beyond that, I'm sure they have every confidence in you.

RN: That tape was worn threadbare years ago. I switched to DVD the second it became available. Funny, you don't come off as the sluggish type to me. Or is your organization and discipline all just a for-the-office show?

CP: More manic than sluggish. On Sunday, for example, I swept the garage, checked to see how many Q-Tips remain in the box, ironed five shirts, flossed, had four lengthy phone conversations and introduced myself, for the good of market research, to the new Snickers Peanut Squared bar. And wrote two sentences of my writing project.

RN: Don't beat yourself up. Two sentences? What some would derisively label "procrastination," others would hail as "progress." Remember, Suzanne Somers didn't write "Sexy Forever" in a day.

E-mail: witheringglance@startribune.com.

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