Exhaust Fumes From the Word Mines

Author's note: My deepest apologies to my gentle readers for the appalling lack of quality in this post. As a peace offering, I have offered you several links to good things to read. You may just want to click on those and ignore all of the rest.



I had a writing breakthrough today. I will share my secret. I moved my laptop two feet. Kelly at Southern Fried Children posted about the state of her desk the other day. I can honestly say that I had not thought about my writing space until then.

We have a coffee table that lives in a corner up against the back of the couch. We moved it back there when the Hooligan was still the age that goes careening into sharp edges leading with his head and we never moved it back for one reason or another. The laptop lives on the coffee table there so when I write, I usually just sit on the floor in the corner and use the coffee table for a desk.

Last week I was complaining that my neck really hurt and the Chief Lou suggested that it might be from hunching on the floor to write and perhaps I should consider moving this new-fangled laptop invention to another locale where it might be more comfortable to sit and write. It took me a week to do it. But today I threw caution to the wind and picked up the laptop and moved it two feet to the dining table behind me so I could sit in an actual chair at an actual table. Brilliant, I know. The difference was amazing. Not only did I get a considerable amount of work done, I also managed to send a rather lengthy email to a blog friend of mine commenting on her thought-provoking post rather than just responding in the comments section like a good blogger, and I also managed to offend two of my friends' husbands on Facebook. How's that for productive? Look out world, I've got a chair and I can feel both of my legs now. Nothing's going to stop me now.

I had a long discussion with a complete stranger about the nature of introversion, parenting styles, and whales today while the Hooligan got to show a small girl the wonders of climbing through a tube and hooting. I don't go out of my way to talk to people, usually. If you may recall, I'm a little bit challenged in this regard. I'm proud to report that I didn't blurt a single inappropriate or embarrassing thing while I chatted with this woman for an hour. I really think that moving the laptop has helped me not only work better, but to grow as a person.

I had a long, meandering chat with my real estate agent today, too. She is a fellow blurter, I've discovered. I knew I liked her for a reason. So today she called to tell me that the house she looked at for us seemed fine if we wanted to come take a look, but that it gave her the creeps. She also informed me that she attended yoga class this morning, that she has no fax machine at home, and that she was still in her pajamas. I trust this woman implicitly to help us find a house. She probably uses her laptop at the table. She's a professional.

I had a heady post to write today about the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. Really I did. I'll write it soon. But for now, I suggest you go and check out Michelle at Buttered Toast Rocks because she forgot to shave her legs today, and then read the comments because it appears that Larissa from Papa is a Preacher also forgot to shave hers. And then I remembered that time I forgot to shave my legs for six months. And then you should swing by Tara's place: Faith In Ambiguity. She's got a fantastic discussion going about how we are all being strangled by our children, or about how the French made up for being surrender monkeys by being better parents, or wait. That doesn't sound right. It's about how we can all be better women if we would just move our laptops to the table.