Yeah, blogging is so not happening

... for like two weeks?  Let me check the calendar.  Hmmm.  Lemme see...

June 4th?  Check back June 4th?  A pivotal draft is due on the 3rd, maybe I can talk then?

Maybe?

Please???

Overwhelmed

Ohhhhh, I don't LIKE not being able to have the time to explain what's going on, and I don't like trying to blog under the threat of If You Dare Mention What's Happening, It Could All Go POOF!  POOF, I SAY!

What I can say is that I'm very very tired, and more than once I've caught myself wishing that God would send a car to hit me so that at least I could get a break from the madness.  Plus Ethel the car is on her last legs, and she's hoping for a quick death as well.

But alas, we have to keep going.

The part I CAN talk about is one of the main contributing factors to why I'm dead on my feet - I have my dayjob, I have my writing in the off hours, and I have my dogsitting gigs.  Since the end of March through tomorrow, I have spent 32 days dogsitting four different clients, versus 15 days not dogsitting.  Five of those days were double booked with two separate clients: my landlord's dogs Pepe and Pablo in one place, Basil Diva Dog at his house.  

(In my defense, I double booked those days at the beginning of this year, thinking there was no way that Basil Diva Dog was gonna live to the month of May.  Come on.  He was like this in August of last year.  His sister Ginger Puppy already departed in October.  No possible way he could make it to May.)

And yet he has.  He is still aloof, he can't climb stairs anymore, he stumbles over doorsteps, he's totally deaf, and it was usually 50/50 whether I came home to him covered in Code Brown because he doesn't always make it to a standing position to utilize the bathroom.  But he's still here.  And I'm weirdly admiring of that.

But double booked meant I'd have to get up at Basil's house, get him fed and outside for the day, go home to the Shabby Shack, run Pablo and Pepe two miles, get them fed, get myself cleaned up and sometimes fed, and then off to work.  After work, I'd come home, get Basil Diva Dog inside and fed, back over to the Shabby Shack to play with Pablo and Pepe for awhile, then back home to Basil Diva Dog.  For five days, I did this madness, and nearly died.  The irony is, the worst was yet to come, though it wasn't in the form of dogsitting gigs.  And maybe in a few weeks, I can talk about why.

Now I'm finishing up this Grand Tour De Bark at the Beagle House, the same place I started back at the end of March.  The beagles, who, much like Pepe and Pablo, think that 5:45am is a perfectly respectable time in the morning to get up.  It ends tomorrow, it cannot come soon enough for me.

Here is a rare picture of me and Basil Diva Dog.  It was nice weather on a Saturday, so I thought we should have a change of scenery in the backyard.  He slept, while I worked on my scripts.  Shortly after this picture was taken, I fell asleep, and the script pages nearly blew into the pool.  Pretty much says it all right there.

Berlin The Bear Says Happy Cinco De Mayo

A day late, but still counts.

Spot The Bar And Close Your Eyes

I’ve been taking an Aerial Class since last September or so.  There’s a bigger story behind it, but I don’t quite have the time to get into it here.  Projects that may or may not be happening are sucking my time away.

So just pretend when I say “I’ve been taking an Aerial Class since last September or so.” You nod your head knowingly and say, “Oh yes, right.  I remember.”

This particular Aerial class has a Static Trapeze component (as opposed to the Swinging Trapeze component, this Trapeze doesn’t move, and you do tricks around it), and the move I was practicing was a simple pull up and over.  Deceptively simple, because while I had no issue whatsoever doing this move on my neighbor’s swingset when I was six, I for the life of me can’t do it here.  I can pull up fine (which is no small feat in and of itself) but can’t get my body over.  I get stuck and gravity works against me and I return, frustrated, to the ground.

There’s nothing worse than trying to do a move you KNOW you could do when you were younger, and not being able to make your years older body bend and stretch to those long ago whims.

So the instructor says, “Okay.  Close your eyes and spot your bar.”  I think about that for a second, then look over at her.  “How can I spot the bar if my eyes are closed?”  Amy The Literal Writer asks.

And she grins and says, “Good point.”  I apologize, but explain that I’m really literal when it comes to hearing these instructions and trying to implement them.  It’s why this instructor can frustrate me, because she’s telling me to move my left hand when she means my right and la la la.

But okay, sure, close my eyes and pretend to spot the bar with my mind’s eye, or some such.  No problem.

So I close my eyes…. And do the move perfectly.  I open them up and I’m on the trapeze, right side up, the bar resting on the top of my thighs. 

“WHO DOESN’T NEED TO SEE!  WHO DOESN’T NEED TO SEE!”  The instructor is yelling, jumping up and down on the ground.

I do the move a couple more times, each time closing my eyes.  It’s hilarious how shutting out all visual stimulation is actually helpful in this instance.  I wonder if there are blind aerialists.  I should go look that up.  When I have time.

So here’s your metaphor for the week – You don’t need to see in order to keep going.  Just spot the bar and close your eyes. 

Heh.