Sometimes Life Gets In The Way

I WANNA WRITE!!!

And looky here - I’m squeezing a little wordsmithing in the cracks. Thing is, this is a quick knock off to keep the juices flowing and to fill space, and not a bona fide thousand word essay on phalluses, or a thousand words on my new novel, or a new poem, or even a three hundred word ad spot for a finnicky client.

I knew when summer hit and the kids started staying home from school every day that my overall productivity would go down. Kids need stuff like food and attention, and sometimes the reward for playing or talking with your kid is much more immediate and gratifying than churning out even the most satisfying blocks of copy you can possibly churn out.

Alas, though, it is not the children which have wrecked my productivity this week. The fault for THAT lies with my material possessions.

I tried to mow the grass today - the shear key, whatever the fuck that is, went funky, and the mower won’t stay on. I refuse to pay someone money to fix the damn thing - the repairs will likely cost more than buying a new mower - so I’m gonna take the engine apart myself when I have time (ha, ha). I’ve done it before; I can do it again. When I have the time.

Meanwhile, I borrowed my neighbor’s electric mower to finish the job. What a strange device that thing is. The cord on it was pretty annoying.

Besides the lawn mower, I have a leak somewhere in my washing machine and its adjoining pipes. I’ve narrowed it down - the leak is NOT in the 14-year-old machine itself, and that’s good news. The bad news is I can’t figure out WHERE the leak is. Tomorrow will see me under the house with a flashlight, checking the cold water pipes. There is also a possibility that the roof is leaking, and not the washing machine at all. What fun THAT will be.

Add to that the kids being home all day, which equals added distractions as well as extra housework, and you can understand why this little chunk of oh-woe-is-me is all that I’ve gotten written in the past couple of days.

That said, I DO have a lot of things in the pipeline for this site: two book reviews I intend to write, but that I want to write thoughtful reviews of; another War Between States podcast; an essay from my friend Caleb Wynn; and a summary of the latest several episodes of Table Top.

These things must wait, however. I have a leak to find.