If I write a blog entry, it is because I'm at loose ends with no serious work to accomplish, or none right at hand.
I could just as easily begin writing a novel that has been in the back of my brain, fermenting, for at least twenty years. I call it my book about religion. The hero is a smuggler. But the lead character is the smuggler's long lost cousin, an upright, honest citizen who, by accident, meets the smuggler and begins to question his own beliefs and values.
Yes, I could begin writing that, but when I start telling that story, I don't want to be interrupted. And right now, there are things pending, commitments that might impose themselves right when I'm beginning to burn with that novel whose working title is, and has always been, Undercurrent.
Yes, there are boats involved. A kayak at first and then a commercial crabbing boat. But it isn't really a story about boats. Or about water. It is about honesty, I think.
Instead of writing Undercurrent, I could be putting the final touches on our home. My friend and former employer, Bill Haldeman, gave me a suggestion for a quick and inexpensive way to add a touch of class to our entrance hallway. (I guess it isn't an entrance hallway because when you step through the front door, you see a set of stairs straight ahead. The hallway is to the left and leads back to the laundry room, pantry, bathroom and a couple of bedrooms.)
In any case, the ideas is this: You take old five-panel interior doors, set them on edge against the wall, end-to-end, and they give the place the look of paneling.
Bill also helped me acquire seven of the doors. That was about four years ago, and they have been propped against a wall in the basement workshop, gathering dust and supporting a pile of scrap lumber, ever since. This past weekend, I began cleaning the basement, and when I was done, I had unearthed the doors.
I removed all the hardware, and now the doors are ready to install. The job probably will take two or three days, plus painting. But I won't have that much time in one shot until I get back from skiing next week.
Therefore, I am not panelling the hallway, not writing the novel, not doing much of anything except reading. And eating.