I wrote that long title because I'm avoiding other Issues.

From the how-to be a writer books in my collection I gather that it's usually the other way around: Writers sometimes resort to doing other things, things that are normally far more heinous to do to oneself than having to will fiction out of thin air, just to avoid writing. This condition sounds really terrible, because some of those poor, tortured, masochistic souls will even do... GASP!... the laundry!!!! instead of their writing.

So I suppose my last slender hope of ever becoming a real, authentic A*U*T*H*O*R has just evaporated, because I can't even get the procrastinating right! (Well... at least not in this case.) You see, when I procrastinate writing I honestly don't feel the need to cover it up with productivity. (How else do you think I manage 206 hours' of television per week? WHADOYOUMEAN THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE?!? The fact that there is only 168 hours in a week, you say? Well, that just makes my weekly television viewing achievements all the more remarkable, doesn't it?)

And I've almost forgotten that the reverse was possible... until last night.

Let me explain: The boy has been out of town since last week.

He finally came back at midnight last night.

Unfortunately he walked into a disastrous house... looks as if a tornado's twirled through here.

Alas, despite the funky weather we've been having these past few days, nothing more serious than me has hit the place.

You see, I really did have every intention of cleaning the house for (and before!) his return, honestly I did!

I even tackled the job with an unusual amount of enthusiasm. And that word right there, the one that says "enthusiasm"; that alone is a sure sign that my career of unemployment and television viewing, however impressive, has officially driven me into the flailing arms of delirium.

So I cleaned, but being the focused, highly disciplined creature that I am (stop laughing like that! You'll wrinkle!), I got side-tracked and started unpacking closets.

But instead of doing it like I suspect a normal person would (which means none of you will be able to tell me either, har har) - possibly one closet/room at a time, I suppose - I became possessed by the eager Spring Cleaning Fairy (she's a manic depressive who's stopped taking her lithium because it 'stifles her creativity and besides, she's been feeling MUCH more balanced these days, thankyouverymuch', and so she happened to breeze through here during the peak of one of her maniacal highs. Unfortunately her high was brief) and before I knew it, every cupboard, cabinet, closet... had its contents strewn on the floor.

The sight was overwhelming to my sensitive self... It's a war zone: a gigantic explosion of clothes, papers, food (yes, I got my paws on and in the kitchen cupboards too) EVERYWHERE.

What's even funnier... when the boy called me from the road last night to
tell me that he was on his way, and before I even had a chance to warn
him about my "little" on-going project, he informed me in a very
wistful tone (and this will speak volumes and will give you a big hint
as to the kind of housekeeper I normally am): "By the way, I dreamed
that I came home to a clean house."

Oh, how I laughed!

Hey, at least I had the best of intentions! Pity that I decided to
take a coffee break just as I had thrown everything on the floor, though.
'Cause as soon as I sat down with the coffee, I grew very, very tired. The fairy had vanished and she'd taken my strength and will with her, the cow.

I finally devoured a path out of the kitchen (which, in this house, is
better known as The Coffee Maker's Private Quaters) and now I'm going to rest my weary head on a stack of how-to be a writer books.

Hopefully, when I wake up later today, I'll be a real writer. And hopefully, by then, the boy's dream of a clean house will have miraculously come true as well!