the dogs did not eat my homework

I did not finish Pajama Jones today, but I do have a real excuse.

I really would have finished, except I spent the whole day on the phone talking to the sheriff’s office and the insurance people not just about the Girlchild’s accident on Friday, but because last night somebody broke into the Mathematician’s truck. Smashed windows, took stuff. Including his cell phone, which they then used for three hours nonstop, until we realized what had happened and called Verizon to stop service.

Verizon gave us the numbers that the dopey car smashers called, and we passed them along to the sheriff, and if they make an arrest (fat chance) they’ll call to let us know. But I ask you: how stupid do you have to be to make a lot of local phone calls on a stolen cell phone?

Most likely this is the work of a gang of teenagers who specialize in vehicle smash and grab. I hope they do catch them and then you know what? I want them assigned to me for about a thousand hours of personal and community service.

In all of this, I got very little writing done and I’m maybe twenty pages from finishing. And now I have to feed the troops and then I have to get ready for the reading… still don’t know what the heck I’m going to actually read … and then I go off and take care of that, and when I come home?

Too tired to do much but collapse in front of the television.

But tomorrow, come hell or high water or (dog forbid) even another car incident, I will finish this novel. And then I’ll go dance in the street… but not barefoot, because there’s still lots of glass in the road.

Except. I just remembered that tomorrow I have to get my blood drawn first thing in the morning.

Oh, shit.

Here are things I would prefer to having my blood drawn:

a root canal
a pelvic exam
a tax audit

My venipuncture phobia is alive and kicking, to the point that I have to stop writing about this now and in fact, I will close the comments for fear that somebody will talk about this topic in detail, which really: no. I can’t. Can’t have that. One time a year I take Valium, and that time has come.

Writing in a Valium haze is probably not going to work out so well, but I will do my best. After I’ve come home and collapsed into a quivering heap and let the Mathematician make me tea and tell me it’s all over for another year, no more.. you know, then maybe I’ll be able to write.