Man, I fuss a lot.

And now I have those really deep hiccups where my diaphragm shoves my lungs up through my trachea and it's completely beyond stifling.

But I'll get over it, at least sort of.

Holes, Hoot, Matilda...

This is the character of story to which I aspire as writer. Engaging, charming, memorable. ‘Tis a gift, and you can’t have it if you don’t. Which explains why, at present, I’m stuck at about 1/3 of the way into a work which I recognize to be as flat as everything else I’ve squeezed, forcibly, out of the empty toothpaste tube which is my creative imagination.

But, says Thomas Edison, don’t forget what I said about genius being 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. And I do not. Forget, that is. But I recognize that the soufflé only poofs if you, in fact, have that all-important 1%. And a darn good percent it must be, at that.

I have searched the mental files, exhaustively, for my personal 1%, and it appears to be one of those things, like athletic coordination, that they left out of my accessory package. Too bad. Because I think I’ve given it a pretty good shot. Really. After grinding out three books, I should at least be showing a spark of magic, and--not only do I feel about as magical as a tin can--I have to adjudge my works to be merely tolerable tales which will not kill you to read. Not the effect I’m going for, yet not surprising given the painful dry scraping my inner storyteller has to do to write a paragraph more.

So it makes me feel really cranky to sit here on this silly stool feeling compelled to inject something creative into the world and having no tools with which to do it. And there, in truth, is where my ability to believe in the narrative of life runs out. It’s not because I have a spouse who needs care, or because other things aren’t always so great. It’s because, although Goethe might have said “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it,” he was mistaken. Or, it only works for some people. I’m not complaining about life in general, because it has many excellent aspects to it. I’m just pointing out that it’s a real nuisance to have to carry around an urge or “calling” (and I use this word with caution, because I don’t think anyone is actually doing the calling) that you’re not equipped to carry out.

So, on to busywork. Tomorrow perhaps, sanding and painting the patched bathroom drywall. Yep.

One Day More...

For a couple days there I was thinking that I must be horribly inept when it comes to achieving a neat drywall finish adjacent to the colossal glu-lam beams that hold the roof above our heads. I have done my best with putty knife, utility blade and spackle, and still the corners most resemble the dark side of the moon, minus a landing module. But I hadn’t checked out comparable edges other rooms with beam exposure, and the truth is they ain’t much better, despite having been--in theory--finished by someone with more experience than I. It’s an iffy proposition, getting smoothness in such joints. So, we will have to write these spots off as another nod to rusticity in architecture, and paint anyway.

In other news, I have found a source for a replacement sash for the Hurd window in the family which suffered the sling of fortune a couple years back, (from a rock, not an arrow, as far as I can tell.) Whether we will be clever enough to install it, once ordered, is yet to be established. But I am also gratified that the same vendor offers replacement screens. Not gratified by the price--$107 per--merely by the availability.

This Youtube video came to my attention a day or so ago. Don’t miss Obama, as the blue, white and red Les Miz gamine, on the wall posters. I had to smile, and I also had to buy the soundtrack to the symphonic recording of the musical as I am highly susceptible to melodramatics put to a soaring score, and I haven’t seen the show in some time. In fact, and sadly, I have never seen it live. Olivia’s suggestion is that we fly to London where it’s currently running on the West End. Practicality obviously notwithstanding.

Today I came upon this quote from an old Dave Barry column on weasel-poo coffee:

But I came to need that coffee, and even today I can do nothing useful before I've had several cups. (I can't do anything useful afterward, either; that's why I'm a columnist.)

I do miss Dave Barry, and found, in this nugget, evidence that I must have missed a life cue somewhere along the trail. Unless, of course, there are other careers which are ideal for those of faulty focus.

huh...

I can’t believe I’m sitting here watching Survivor, season...whatever. It’s because I’m at loose ends. Actually, I don’t even know what loose ends are, but here they are and I’m at them. (You have to laugh when the footage editors make it look like a gorilla is just on the other side of a shrub listening in on private Survivor conversations.)

Anyway, rain is pattering relentlessly on the roof. Gabe is computering across the house, as usual. Fredfred, in one of those ridiculous belly-up dog postures, has the prime spot on the couch, and I’m on the floor in the hopes that my left hip bone will quit irking me.

And you know what? I have nothing further to say, because they gave me neither a script, nor a clear assignment, nor a roadmap.

Saturday, and a nice one at that.

It will be a record for me to get to the Renaissance Faire thrice in one Fall, but it could well happen this year. Tonight just Jeff and I went, because it was a lovely, cool afternoon, and I wanted to eat fish and chips, drink a beer, and listen to music. Thus, we did. It is so much more relaxing to go anyplace with either just-Jeff, or anyone else and not-Jeff. Perhaps I actually should get myself one of those silly, most-decidedly-NOT-Renaissancy horse tails, and insist he hold onto it at all times, except in the port-a-john.

I am one baby-step closer to completion of the neglected details in the girls’ bathroom. Remarkably, the raw and uneven edge of drywall, which has been befuddling me since I first realized I couldn’t leave the bathroom as-is forever, sanded into a fairly neat and smooth place to spackle. Baby-step two will involve the application of enough Great Stuff™ Spray Foam to fill in an ugly gap between between the drywall and the segment of massive roof beam which runs along the diagonal roofline just above Becca’s sink, and step three--the actual spackling. Then we’ve got a toe-kick to face, several shelves to cut and install, and...then the real fun: chiseling up the hex tiles where I need to level the floor so that errant shower or tub water will no longer threaten to undo the kitchen ceiling. All that will be left is to wish that handy-person tasks could give one the clever-member-of-society cachet that writing an actually-interesting book would deliver.

A thought from Gabe: He thinks it would be the coolest thing to be an expert pickpocket who could breeze through a crowd slipping playing cards into strangers’ pockets on which he’d written “is this your card?” A thought from me: Why would you discuss irregularity and yogurt with Jamie Lee Curtis? Well, why not I guess.

And thought for the day: Watching CNN’s forum with 5 former Secretaries of State. Couldn’t we just appoint Madeleine Albright or Colin Powell for prez?

scary stuff

I would like the new organic market in town to thrive, and--as such--settled for just a half-gallon each of lactose-free milk and o.j. (to be guzzled by Gabe and Jeff respectively.) Maybe the stocking protocol will reach equilibrium if they get off to a good start. In the meantime, will Giant’s facelift--still in the heavily bandaged stages--entice me to partake of its vision of a mainstream grocery store? Seems unlikely I will crest the hill of indifference where Giant is concerned. Indifference, though, could be an improvement.

The roads in and around Washington D.C. were designed, I submit, by sheer accident. They make me feel as if I’m driving through a sleight-of-hand act: In the right lane you think? Presto chango! There is no right lane! (please don’t plow into the parked cars.) Oh, in the left lane now? Alakazam! There’s only one lane, and you and that sheet glass truck next to you are both in it! It’s all pretty wack...and I wonder--as I do with the beltway--how it remains as relatively free of sideswipes and fender-benders at it seems to, and why someone, somewhere along the line didn’t start a successful trend to swath all vehicles in foam rubber. Still, once again, we got in and out with a brief pit stop at the Greenbelt Starbucks to chase away my afternoon groggies, and I was left wondering: Why isn’t Starbucks coffee very good? Tomorrow, it will be the streets of Baltimore we take on--full of jackhammers and lane-impeding delivery trucks--in an attempt to get Gabe from school to his orthodontic appointment on time. So that I can, once again, hear Dr. Tull say “that hygiene is scaring me, man,” while I make a face that attempts to convey how sincere my efforts to lobby for improvement were.

Chapter more-or-less-eight of the book-of-uncomfortably-dubious-value is staring at me, in rough sketch form, from the mottled coffee-paper page of my working notebook, wondering if I would go ahead and inspect it already so I can carry on with the written-out version. “That uncomfortably dubious value is scaring me, man,” I say to it, as I turn instead to see whether Gabe is doing his oral hygiene.