Go Directly to Starbucks, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200

 

This is not me. It is, however, totally awesome.

I have a very hard time getting back into writing when the house is cluttered.  Or at least, beyond the normal threshhold of clutter.  I’m sure it’s just my procrastination gene letting me know it’s fully functional, i.e. “How can I possibly write when there are taxes to do/boxes to unpack/laundry to wash/anything else in the world to do instead?”  But I also can’t bear it when I haven’t written for awhile – I get, for lack of a better term, emotionally constipated.  Yuck.  I really need to find a better term.  Anyway, this weekend I focused on just getting my desk in order so this morning I was able to look at my pristine desk, tell myself that the house was neat, and imagine myself with horse blinders on as I went through the rest of the house.  Do not look right at the piles of mess in the dining room, do not look left at the piles of mess in the living room.  Do not pass Go, do not collect $200, just leave and walk directly to Starbucks with your laptop. 

Yeah, I’m one of those writers.  And speaking on behalf of my kind, while I can’t speak for all of them, for myself I can say it is NOT because I want to be “seen.”  The opposite, in fact.  Stay with me for a second while I explain.  For some reason I can’t write fiction in my own office.  It’s too quiet.  There’s something about the hum of conversations that I don’t have to listen to or take part in that’s very soothing.  Kind of like being a kid and coloring and playing at my own table while the adults are all talking at the big table.  (Hmm.  There’s food for thought.)  And I can’t be at the same coffee shop every day either – I have to mix it up.  I’ve written at IHOP at 2am when I was on a deadline (I just get coffee but I tip really big), I’ve written at the airport,  I write at community colleges that I do not attend, I write at any restaurant where the wait staff doesn’t glare at me and make some sort of comment about “fine dining.”  In fact, I’m working my way up to writing at the IKEA cafeteria – it seems a little weird to go to a furniture store with my laptop but I can’t help it, I’m crazy about those meatballs!

I was sick for a few weeks in January and early February, and then we moved.  Everything is still in boxes although I’m hoping to get through a bunch of them this week.  I’m lucky that I wasn’t too sick to pack the boxes intelligently.  I mean, if it says Master Bedroom on it, it’s highly/mostly/somewhat likely that the items inside do, in fact, belong in the master bedroom.