Warm weathery loveliness

[desperance]

Ooh look - springshine! It's been a long and dreary winter, but at last I can stroll into town in a tee and feel actually a little overdressed. Clear skies and bright high sun, no more than a gentle breeze: it's lovely out there. Barry thinks so too; he's in the back yard as I speak, imperiously claiming the sunshine for his very own, and chasing little flying things. Leaping like a salmon, sometimes; he is coiled steel within, it's extraordinary. Sometimes he even catches little flying things. And chews in that open-mouth way cats have, that is the very expression of disgust; and spits, and wipes his paw over his mouth to say how foul it was. And of course learns nothing, and goes off all bright-eyed and hopeful in pursuit of another minuscule mouthful of vileness. He is the definition of hope triumphant over experience. Which is perhaps another way to say 'he's not a very bright boy, is he?' - but I always accuse my cats of having IQs in the low single figures, and it's not fair, and I must stop it. He's probably terribly clever, in his own adorable way. He has finally figured out that his scratching-post is actually a good place to do scratching. That's as well as the furniture and the wallpaper, of course, not instead of. Give a boy a break...

Besides, if I'm so clever, what am I doing stuck in here on a self-confessedly gorgeous day? Doing writing, is what I'm doing. I may have mentioned this before (just once or twice, over the years of blogging) but what I resent more than anything is the way events conspire against me, just at the worst possible times. Like now, when I am both under the cosh deadline-wise and on a roll wordwise, when a month on my own and uninterrupted would just do it for me, and suddenly interruptions are a daily business. I know that I bring them down on my own head, to some extent - but some of them you really can't budget for. Like yesterday afternoon, I download a few security upgrades for my system, which is a good thing and you're supposed to do this, yes? - only in the process of installing them, said system undoes a crucial part of the good work that m'friend Alex did for me a couple of Sundays back, and now I dursen't turn the machine off for fear of not having a functioning video driver when I turn it back on again. And yes, I do know how to fix this my own self, but it's a complex shuffle between two computers and involves editing files that say PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE!!! in big letters all over them, and I get scared very easily.

So I just left it running overnight, and Alex is dropping by this afternoon to sort it for me; and it'll be lovely to see him, and I will feed him and we will doubtless do other things as well; but it does all eat into what ought to be writing-time. And what with being summoned out tonight to a poetry reading on top, it's going to leave the second half of today pretty barren workwise. Which, after several other pretty barren days - for all good & similar reasons, stuff that must be done - was just threatening to depress me utterly.

Which is why I got up before six this morning, why I've been at my desk here since half-six, just to try to get a half-decent day in before the afternoon. Wrote four pages already, finished a chapter - and went straight on to the next page to start a new one, which is not a thing I would normally do, but I'm desperate. (There's a story I heard about Georges Sand, who would allegedly work very specific hours, very inflexibly - and if she finished one chapter within her time, then she would take a fresh sheet and start the next chapter; and if she finished a book within her time, then she would take a fresh sheet and start a new book. That, I think, is over-and-above, but right now I do wish I had that kind of application. I used to give good concentration, when I was working; this days I have the attention-span of a gnat. Or any other little flying thing of your choice. For the full smorgasbord, see Barry.)