My computer desk is not well lit. I don’t know why, unless it’s to keep company with my flailing vision. I know it’s “failing,” but if a writer can’t have a little fun, who can? Surrounding me, floor to ceiling, are remnants of my former craze for genealogy.  In the new digital robotic age, nobody cares, not even me. If we should meet ancestors in the sweet by and by we can introduce ourselves, surely!

And my books! They say writers should read, but… three copies of a book because I like it so much?

So much personal history! Who gives a hoot, as the old owl says.  My old report cards—with comments from teachers— Mrs. Arvesons’ two A-pluses on my term paper in ninth grade, my  National Honor Society certificate from high school and my tennis team letter, not to mention a drawer full of Christmas cards and correspondence from friends and acquaintances for more than 50 years;  at least 100 videotapes shot by me for Public Access line my shelves—many shelves.   Last week I came across a letter of congratulations for a forensic evaluation I did 25 years ago, which brings me to the question of why am I in two writing groups and maintain a busy blog and volunteer for public access when I need to spend a year dispensing with my junk?

Given my propensity for hoarding, how can I write anything, you might say?  Well, it has to do with escaping the melee I have created and continue to create. And oh yeah I forgot to mention  my blind deaf cat who requires his sanitary floor sheet changed daily.

After having an earlier computer fine-tuned at Staples, I lost it when I put it on top of my car and drove away. Now I have an hp  guaranteed to last a year, most of which has expired. My huge blonde computer desk sits more or less inside a vacant closet, whose doors are stuck under my bed in another room ..

Self-publishing three books last year was a step forward; I had file folders full of short stories, journal entries and info from the last job I held, so I published them to get rid of them.

Due to short cords and other unknown factors, I have to type—such as I am doing now—with my keyboard in my lap. As I survey the top of my computer desk I see the dregs of a glass of a cocoanut rum mixture, reading glasses from Dollar Tree, two new pairs of socks that are too small for me, a pack of hearing aid batteries, 4 paperback books, three flash drives, a screwdriver, a Diet Coke bottle top, a computer cord that I don’t recognize, an antique toy rolling pin I bought as a gift but never gave, and a green pair of pliers left from loosening  a recalcitrant   bottletop. Oh, then on the pull-out lap computer shelf there is a banana peel sans banana, a checkbook,  a journal and a free copy of a book by Bill Cosby.

I do love to be able to start writing at midnight  if I like, or groggily tap out a dream early in the morning.  See, it is 1:15 a.m. now.                                                            Nan