Spaces

I'm at my new desk staring out the window at the house next door, as I've been doing for much of the past week. In a few months I'll be blogging Rear Window-type observations about my neighbors. I'm sure this is legal.

I've got rewrites to do--some small things and some big, intractable things. They are due in a week, and I've been having trouble getting going. My available hours seem filled with urgent minutia--each tiny crisis seems to beget another one. It's hard to pump up your antagonist's presence when you're trying to explain to your credit card company the intricacies of getting mail forwarded from the great incorporated incompetence of Cleveland, OH.

My apartment will remain unfinished for awhile. There are curtains unhung and a half-assembled desk drawer unit sitting in the middle of my living room floor. I don't have time to assemble it, and it's too heavy to move. Anyway, it's the biggest piece of furniture in my living room. In a rash of I can make my own decisions! mania I ordered a large purple sleeper sofa, which hasn't arrived yet. This is generally why people don't let me make my own decisions.

My landlady has been out of town for ten days. She asked me to take of her cats and her orchid. It turns out that by Take care of my orchid she did not mean Please let it slowly dessicate and die. The cats are still alive, though, and I think I should get credit for that.

One of my cats is in diapers, as he pees on things with abandon. I use the little boy's old diapers and cut a hole for the tail and thread the tail through. The other has, like, mange. She lies on my bed at night and scratches herself perpetually. I could rent her out to cheap motels--just put her in the room et, voila!--Magic Fingers vibrating bed. Mange is bad. I should take her to the vet. I should buy a new orchid. I need to do laundry. I need cat litter and, you know, food. I need to find some child care for next week so I can write. Or at least so I can stare out the window and think about writing.

I have child care today, and, other than trying to perform CPR on all the outdoor plants (that works, right?), not too much else to do. I woke up, determined to clear my head and look at the task before me. I made coffee. I sat down at my computer. My litle boy burst through my door and announced with glee, Mommy, I peed in my big boy bed!

The question is, how do you find the head space for writing when there is no space in your head?