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Little boxes
Dec. 14th, 2007 06:54 pmAgain I waited in all morning, for my delivery-which-did-not-come; though yesterday was enough of physical toil and house-sortingness for me, and I spent this morning working on my ghost story [for Monday! The first Phantoms gig! How can it be this soon? If you're in striking-distance of Newcastle, come to the Lit & Phil, Monday or Wednesday! Phone first - 0191 232 0192 - but there are still places, as of today!].
At midday, I bullied myself into phoning, to ask where my delivery was and whether I could actually expect it today. Yes, yes, they assured me, very sweetly: it is on its way. And indeed it was, because of course it arrived ten minutes after I'd done the dreadful phoning. Which of course was the point of the dreadful phoning.
So: I has delivery! Which means, from the cats' point of view, that I has three stout boxes, all joined together by evil wicked cable ties which need a lot of slaying, hurrah!
So there has been much slaying of cable ties, and not so much of opening of boxes. Boxes are disappointing anyway (from cats' point of view), being full of other boxes and hence necessarily empty of cats.
I have a quandary, re boxes (the ones I paid for, not the ones they came in). They are document boxes, and there are sixty of them. Now, I could unpack all the manuscripts that I have lurking disorderedly in filing cabinets and drawers and suchlike. I could organise each of them into their proper document boxes, and label same, and lay them out on shelves. And then I would pretty much have full shelves and empty filing cabinets and drawers, and I would pretty much have used up all my document boxes, and what would be achieved? Order, yes, but progress? I'm not sure. Alternatively, I could leave all those old MSs where they are - out of sight and out of mind, pretty much, they don't impinge - and use the new document boxes for new projects, strictly. I bought a dozen of these last year and used them all, which is why I've gone for the bulk-buy now; if it takes me five years to use the new ones, well, I don't mind that. Except that rather than reducing the kipple in my office, I will have added to it, by three stout boxes...
I dunno. I could take a piecemeal approach and, say, empty the chest of drawers on the upper landing. Then I could technically get rid of the chest of drawers, for it hath no use except to hold manuscripts; but then, where would my two ficus benjamina stand, if not on top of that chest of drawers? And where would the cats lurk? They like to lurk beneath the benjamina...
And then, because I was freed of this waiting-in, I went out. Not far, but it was lunchtime and I wanted lunch; so I went up the road for a couple of samosas, only to remember that it was Friday lunchtime, and my best source closes on Friday lunchtimes because they're good boys and go to the mosque for Friday prayers. So I had to go to my second-best source, which is further, and I don't like the shop and I don't like the people but the samosas are good; and as I went in I realised that after lunch I would have to go to town, to post something expensive to Berlin (don't ask: it's really only to see what I get back), and if I was in town anyway I could go to the library, and I really needed to start work on the dreaded Big Book...
...and as I came out I was thinking about the dreaded Big Book and what I dreaded about it, which is pretty much all its length but does include the ending which is so obviously wrong, and in that very moment I understood that there was a whole new way to deal with that, just an extra couple of pages which would be Hugely Significant and much more immediate and and and.
And I continue to be baffled by the way my brain can do that, because I have been used for years to thinking of myself as single-tracked, one project at a time, thank you very much. And yet, one little peep under the lid of something I had Set Aside For Later, and there it was: still vital, still bubbling away, throwing up new ideas on the instant. How does that work, again...?
At midday, I bullied myself into phoning, to ask where my delivery was and whether I could actually expect it today. Yes, yes, they assured me, very sweetly: it is on its way. And indeed it was, because of course it arrived ten minutes after I'd done the dreadful phoning. Which of course was the point of the dreadful phoning.
So: I has delivery! Which means, from the cats' point of view, that I has three stout boxes, all joined together by evil wicked cable ties which need a lot of slaying, hurrah!
So there has been much slaying of cable ties, and not so much of opening of boxes. Boxes are disappointing anyway (from cats' point of view), being full of other boxes and hence necessarily empty of cats.
I have a quandary, re boxes (the ones I paid for, not the ones they came in). They are document boxes, and there are sixty of them. Now, I could unpack all the manuscripts that I have lurking disorderedly in filing cabinets and drawers and suchlike. I could organise each of them into their proper document boxes, and label same, and lay them out on shelves. And then I would pretty much have full shelves and empty filing cabinets and drawers, and I would pretty much have used up all my document boxes, and what would be achieved? Order, yes, but progress? I'm not sure. Alternatively, I could leave all those old MSs where they are - out of sight and out of mind, pretty much, they don't impinge - and use the new document boxes for new projects, strictly. I bought a dozen of these last year and used them all, which is why I've gone for the bulk-buy now; if it takes me five years to use the new ones, well, I don't mind that. Except that rather than reducing the kipple in my office, I will have added to it, by three stout boxes...
I dunno. I could take a piecemeal approach and, say, empty the chest of drawers on the upper landing. Then I could technically get rid of the chest of drawers, for it hath no use except to hold manuscripts; but then, where would my two ficus benjamina stand, if not on top of that chest of drawers? And where would the cats lurk? They like to lurk beneath the benjamina...
And then, because I was freed of this waiting-in, I went out. Not far, but it was lunchtime and I wanted lunch; so I went up the road for a couple of samosas, only to remember that it was Friday lunchtime, and my best source closes on Friday lunchtimes because they're good boys and go to the mosque for Friday prayers. So I had to go to my second-best source, which is further, and I don't like the shop and I don't like the people but the samosas are good; and as I went in I realised that after lunch I would have to go to town, to post something expensive to Berlin (don't ask: it's really only to see what I get back), and if I was in town anyway I could go to the library, and I really needed to start work on the dreaded Big Book...
...and as I came out I was thinking about the dreaded Big Book and what I dreaded about it, which is pretty much all its length but does include the ending which is so obviously wrong, and in that very moment I understood that there was a whole new way to deal with that, just an extra couple of pages which would be Hugely Significant and much more immediate and and and.
And I continue to be baffled by the way my brain can do that, because I have been used for years to thinking of myself as single-tracked, one project at a time, thank you very much. And yet, one little peep under the lid of something I had Set Aside For Later, and there it was: still vital, still bubbling away, throwing up new ideas on the instant. How does that work, again...?