At Random: Why I Seldom Have Time to Write

For a bit of thin humor

By Paul Clark
(aka motomynd)

Following some commiseration from a friend who reminded me that people who really want to write will find a time to write, I sent an email explaining my situation...and it became a column – according to Moristotle, anyway.
    For a bit of mutual thin humor about what happens to my writing schedule, here is a most recent example of life in microcosm.

When renovating and restoring a 170-year-old house is your part-time job – after you deal with your full-time job of raising an ultra high-energy six-year-old who goes full throttle 14-15 hours a day – you already have scant writing time, even with the best of schedules. But then come the unexpected distractions, like an antique trellis.

I could take a
couple of hours
each weekend
to write

    With my wife back home on weekends and a couple of days during the week (after being gone for months, dealing with her father’s death from cancer), we agreed I could take a couple of hours each weekend morning to write, as long as we weren’t overrun with an urgent house project.

“Do you
want my
antique trellis?”

    So last weekend was looking good...until my niece texted me Friday afternoon. “Sadly, my antique trellis doesn’t look good with my 100-year-old house now that I had the parking area redone. It would look great with your 170-year-old house: Do you want it?”

Of course,
I had to
get it

    So I went to look at the trellis: 2 pieces, both 8-foot x 9.5-foot, real wood 3/8" thick by 1.5" wide lath, nailed together (not stapled), antique and solid. Of course, I had to get it, even if it would take most of a day to cut it in half, trim to size, load on a truck and haul and unload, and put up: Maybe a day lost, no big deal.
    My wife actually pitched in to help load and unload and as we carried it toward our front porch I said, “We need a board to cover the seam when I fit this back together. Would you like a shelf to set potted plants on?” And she of course said, “Sure. That would look great!”
    And we spent about two hours measuring, re-measuring, cleaning debris and detritus off the porch from the previous week’s project, thoroughly sweeping the porch, and so on. Then she retired to her computer to research pots, while I tore out one small piece of existing trellis covered in a clump of English ivy I’ve long wanted to get rid of, decided what I needed from Home Depot, and such.

And then
I made
the mistake
of getting
out my level

And then I made the mistake of getting out my 4-foot level and – just for kicks – checking the 170-year-old porch roof. The corner was 1/2 to 3/4 inch lower than the middle...hmmm...never noticed that. Maybe because of the piece of old trellis? So why would it be lower? Oh hell! The bottom of the 170-year-old chestnut post was decayed enough that the post was – like us old folks – losing height.
    What to do? Two options: half-ass it and hope it doesn’t fall and let my son deal with it someday – like my father handled numerous projects because he somehow instinctively knew I would someday buy the place and do things right – or, do it right?
    And so I ordered 4x4 posts and accessories from Home Depot, ordered “lolly columns” from Amazon (which should actually be Lally columns because they were invented by the U.S. inventor John Lally, who owned a construction company that started production of these columns in the late 19th century, but which we know as adjustable jack posts with a screw lift mechanism at the top), discussed double digit re-design ideas with my wife, and...this coming weekend there will again be no writing because I will be jacking a heavy-ass 170-year-old porch roof and adding new support posts and putting new bases under the old posts (because I just can’t stand the idea of ripping out 170-year-old chestnut posts...because they literally haven’t made any more since the chestnut blight hit about 100 years ago). And I am guessing there will be no writing the following weekend either because I see no possible way this could go smoothly.
    To paraphrase that credit card ad:

Trellis: free; putting up trellis: price not yet imaginable, much less knowable. But when it is done it will look fairly amazing, with metal-handle hanger pots of various bold colors arrayed about it (instead of placed in a boring row along a boring shelf) along with some large metal ladybug figurines and a couple of metal dragonflies, and a 3-foot x 10-foot landscaped area at the foot of it, covered in white pebbles and a bag of seashells we somehow came up with, plus a couple of larger rocks and a piece of whitened driftwood for accents.

    And thus we have at least the next couple of “writing” weekends: I may, or may not, be crushed by a porch roof, but I most assuredly will not be writing.

Photo of
finished
trellis
possible for
next year?

I forgot to take a “before” photo but I did take one when I already had half the English ivy down. I will take more as I attempt to use the new “lolly column” (jack post) that UPS delivered after dark last night, terrifying the gigantic opossum who was cleaning up leftover cat food and the UPS guy who almost stepped on the opossum.
    We recently installed one of those RING electronic doorbells with photo/video capability, so we have a photographic record; the imagery is always entertaining. Hopefully we don’t wind up on a UPS “don’t deliver” list!

Copyright © 2020 by Paul Clark