Sticks and Stones

It rained this afternoon and will probably rain again before morning. That means I can’t trim the bushes in front of the house. My electric hedge trimmer doesn’t play well with rainwater.

A few weeks ago I trimmed all but two bushes, after which the rubbish bin was chock full of leaves, so I had to stop at that point. I had planned on trimming the last two bushes a day or so later, but the weather turned hot (heat index 112°) for a while, and it was simply too hot to finish the job. Then the temperature turned bearable and I had a chance to finish the job, but bearable wasn’t good enough. I wanted comfortable weather. So I waited some more. And now it’s comfortable, but it’s raining. I still have to trim the last two bushes – I’m just procrastinating. It is the way of my people. My personal philosophy is, “Why do today what can be put off till tomorrow?”

I’ve been hit by summertime laziness. I posted two articles in June and, so far, one article in July. Now the end of the month is almost here and I’m just getting around to my second July post. Lazy.

But it’s not entirely laziness. There’s been plenty of fodder for the blog mill, not the least of which has been the clown show in Washington, D.C., and I’ve been tempted to write some commentary. But the clown show has been very adequately covered by hundreds of online news articles, opinion pieces, and late-night comedians. Therefore, I feel like I have nothing of substance to add to the conversation. Strangely, having nothing of substance to write about has never stopped me before, so the cause of my writer’s block is not entirely explicable. (I’ve been wanting to use that word, explicable, for years. Now I have. Next up: sanguine. Or possibly, amanuensis. But I digress.)

I decided I had to write about something. That’s how you get rid of writer’s block: just start writing. So I decided to blog about a product currently available at Nordstrom. They are selling a rock for $85. It comes in a little leather pouch. I don’t know if it comes with instructions, but it probably has a warranty. If it breaks they’ll send you another rock free. Assuming they have another rock. At this date, Nordstrom is sold out of rocks. Which raises two questions. First: why would anyone want to spend $85 for a rock? And the bigger question: how do you sell out of rocks? “Sorry, I’d like to take your $85 but I’m waiting for a shipment from the rock factory.”

I hope my bout of writer’s block has been quenched. It would be helpful to have an amanuensis, but I doubt I ever will. Still, I’m sanguine about it all. (Two birds, one reusable stone – pouch included.)