If there’s anyone out there who feels bored and would like to give me some of their extra time, please send it post haste.

Don’t you wish it worked like that?

I remember boredom.  I remember being in grade school and, after several weeks of summer, feeling bored.  And I’d say, “I’m bored,” and my mother would say “Boredom comes from within,” in this theatrically wise voice, like she was dispensing prophecies in a carnival tent.

Man, I have a great mom.  She was right about all the things.

Here’s the statistical time breakdown for the past week.  Don’t worry, this is highly mathematical and accurate, in that I am making it up as I go.

TIME USAGE:

90% – Sick child
75% – Teaching, prepping for teaching, meetings for teaching, substitute teaching plans
50% – Dead car battery resulting from broken auto lock mechanism, and oh guess what a rotator belt or some other kind of special belt, who knows, you’re not a mechanic so you can’t fight this anyway, needs replacing. So there, budget.
40% – Dealing with the bills that are starting to roll in from the surgery, which is even more fun than you would think!
30% – Trying and totally failing to provide any meaningful support to younger sister who is about to have her first child (about 2 weeks to go!)
20% – Carving unnecessarily elaborate pumpkin, then abandoning other two pumpkins to the ants.
5% – Futile attempts to make house unfilthy

0.0000001% – Writing

The thing is, the writing’s going great.  I’m about 75% of the way through this revision, and I believe it’s a big, strong step in the right direction. But I can’t get near it at the moment – there’s too much in play.  Sure, you say, but you have time to write this blog post.  You could be writing your book.  True, I reply, but let me paint you a picture.  As I write this post, sick child (whose fever just broke and so is now acting like nothing bad ever happened) is putting stickers on my feet, Cars is playing in the background, there is stale apple juice all over the left side of me, and I think the cats are doing something weird because there is a smell. In a few minutes we need to go pick up husband, who has no car because of dead battery/broken belt thing. I can write under these circumstances, but what am I really going to get?  This blog post.

So it’s not a writing week. Okay. Sometimes, time can’t be made, or squeezed, or borrowed, or stolen.  Sometimes, you just gotta let it go.  Cue Frozen soundtrack.