Slogging or My Muse must be on Vacation

When I woke up this morning my plan was to write a post. Sometimes this only takes a couple of hours because I’m in the groove and other times it takes the entire day because I have to slog through ideas that went nowhere, ideas that went somewhere I didn’t want to go, ideas that turned me into an angry Harpy or, most likely, no ideas at all. But today I was optimistic that it would be the former; I slept good and I was in a relatively good mood given that I wasn’t on vacation and I wasn’t a Millionaire. And I even managed to play with the Feline Fiend before I had coffee. I hoped the play time would buy me some uninterrupted writing time but Izzie is never that gracious. Still, the Writing Gods were obviously in my corner.

Or not.

In hindsight, I think I mistook the Writing Gods for the Just Kidding Gods who were, most probably, laughing. It was barely past 9:00am when I opened my email and realized that my plans for the day were……well……fucked. Hunkered down in my In Box was the offending email. “Your parts have arrived and are ready for pick up.”

Shit.

I am the parts picker upper around here. The low wo/man on the Totem Pole. The Gopher (basically a rodent when you don’t sugar coat it). There is no one else that I can foist it on. The buck stops here.

The Viking has fairly firm rules regarding the position at the bottom of the Totem Pole:

He/She who makes the least amount of money shall be The Rodent and shall perform all Rodent-y duties including picking up parts, making meals and doing laundry. Also, The Rodent shall help look for lost tools, the misplaced telephone, missing keys and small parts that have been put down somewhere and now can’t be found.

Addendum: The Rodent shall also smile, nod and make appropriate sounds of support during random outbreaks of cursing, finger pointing, and blaming.

For the most part I totally agree with the rules, except when it’s inconvenient and then I start looking for loop holes. Unfortunately there’s very little wiggle room in the ‘earnings’ section of the rules. So, I am the Gopher / Gnaveren / La Rongeur / Das Nagetier! Whatever you want to call it……I am the rodent.

And don’t get me wrong either.  I don’t usually mind picking up parts because it keeps The Viking busy so he doesn’t bother me with little things like accomplishing something. Ordinarily, I like driving; I turn the music up too loud, sing terribly but loudly, conduct the orchestra and enjoy the sunshine. But I had plans!

Sure, I needed to go to the grocery store and pick up Lottery tickets but that would only take an hour out of my day. I would have plenty of time to write, right? Adding a jaunt to the other side of the city and back would take a significant chunk of my time though – especially when the City insists on throwing Construction zones in my way.

I can’t say for certain but I suspect that construction sites are where guys and, to a lesser degree, girls go to just hang out – like a daycare center for grown-ups. They laugh and play and generally do nothing until someone (The Viking?) tells them I need to go somewhere and suddenly they spring into action and stop traffic in all directions.

They also put people on the road with huge signs that say “SLOW”.  I don’t know why.  Don’t those people have enough challenges without being forced to stand on the side of the road with a sign? Are the Construction Gods hoping that I will feel so bad for the slow people that I won’t notice the Construction Zone? If that is their reasoning I would really like to see people standing there with signs that say “STILL DRUNK” or “SLEPT WITH THE BOSS’S WIFE” or “NOT WEARING UNDERWEAR”. Now that would brighten up my day and make me far happier slogging through construction zones!

Once I’m finally through the construction zone, I think people abandon their earth movers, backhoes and hard hats and informal games of baseball or soccer resume. It’s only a theory but it certainly would explain the ridiculous amount of time it takes to put an overpass together.

Anyway……….

I didn’t get my post done yesterday. Who knows what brilliance might have happened? Instead, I can only complain about lost opportunities and foiled plans. When I finally finished with my errands for the day and found myself sitting in front of the computer I was completely stumped. Zero inspiration. I trolled through Facebook. Nothing. The clock kept ticking and the cat kept laying on my boobs (It’s hard to think – not to mention type – when your boobs become lodgings for a pet). I played Solitaire for half an hour and felt guilty. I scrolled through my Reader. And then…….

The Bloggess has something new. Inspiration! She hadn’t accomplished anything either except forgetting something that she didn’t know she knew. It makes more sense when she says it. However, I managed to slog through useless ideas, and several construction zones and found enough to say/complain about for a post.

I’m pretty sure that I’m not going to win a Pulitzer with it.  Not a single word of this post has fallen onto the page the way some posts do. This one was a slogfest. Edit after edit after edit. It seems less than what I would expect for two days work but here it is.

PS: The cat accidentally stepped on the adding machine paper advance and scared the living shit out of herself. Best thing that happened all day.  Or yesterday, for that matter.

Slog