a little bit perhaps...

the lovely smoking monkey I got at a yard sale last week and took to the Babes' Overnight. I also got a magic 8 ball, a small button accordion and some paper mache vegitables. Ah stuff!

Monday morning is upon me and quite bossy with it. 'You need to get back at that novel Missy!' it tells me. And 'furthermore you have a lot of little other things to get at - bills to be paid, appointments to be made, gardens to be laid, etc...' But I just stick my fingers in my ears and go 'la la la I can't hear you!'

Gwen arrives for an early writing day and we write. A bit. And we walk Hoagy and pick mayflowers and make sandwiches for the road for both of us have to go into work. I go in and one of my clients comes and the other doesn't. Arggghh. I go home through all the road work slowness. My sweet-patootie is making lasagna. We chat for a bit and then I read Saturday's paper with more attention. I like to let my newspapers mellow and age. Easier to digest then. I think about the people I know who lost their home in the fire and their dear young dog too. I think about the tyranny of stuff and how quite nice it was at Shibui (the little cabin where I wrote) with its ever so simple layout that was all quite enough except for perhaps the hardness of the bed. So then you see I start improving things. I can't resist. A little paint, some nice cushions - wouldn't it be better if? NO! It is fine except perhaps just a softer mattress. That's all really. And now I'm back in front of this eternal damn machine that would melt and stink in a blaze - blaze forth with all the words and pictures stored in its little head. And what would I grab in a fire. First the living and then the Inuit whale bone sculpture of dancing men, the ulu Ron brought me from his Dad's workshop, the photo albums but too many to even think of, the Chinese robe on the wall upstairs, rings and things, my camera, the computer, the batik that has lived in all my kitchens since the boys were babes, the statue of Tara, and letters from long ago when people wrote letters and ...see it is so that. The rugs, the paintings, the pots, the china, the dolls - I have hundreds of dolls which would look at me in terrible pain if I left them here to burn. Oh, stuff is a tyrant.

Tomorrow, I have the day to write. All day - no one coming, no nothing to do but write or revise for that is what I will be doing. So now I need to make another deadline for myself with you, dear readers, as witnesses. I will take no more than the next five weeks to get the revision done. Then my six or so readers will get copies. Five weeks should be plenty. I hope but what do I know? That's what I'm giving myself anyway. So by June 9th I will have this part done. OK. There. No counting every day though so I'll have to figure other ways to gauge my progress.