Raccoons; August 22 2022

Raccoons are a fun new problem to have. You see, our upstairs neighbours – may they live in infamy – have a tendency to leave their garbage strewn about, and they don’t sort their trash the way they honestly should. Food scraps go in either the recycling or regular black garbage bins, instead of the lockable compost.

So now we have raccoons taunting our cat through the windows every night, and we’ve seen them literally climbing the outside walls. One of them hissed at my roommate recently, so they’re getting bolder. Sigh.

I’ve been in hyperdrive when it comes to housework and little tasks. Making big, prep-heavy dinners; sorting all my kid’s clothes in order to donate the stuff that’s too small; finally getting around to cleaning out stuff that honestly requires regular maintenance anyway, like metal water bottles or my CPAP machine’s removable parts.

I don’t know what it is, but writing has just been insurmountable for me lately. Or rather, I do know exactly what it is – executive dysfunction says I can’t, and shouldn’t, work on a new novel until the ones I have are represented. But that’s completely counter-intuitive and I know it.

Still, I’m waiting on so many replies and can’t seem to stop obsessing over them.

It’s a short blog post, today… I just don’t have more in me. There’s loads to talk about but no energy to find the words.

I do, however, have enough brain juice to give you the next snippet of our story:

The house was relatively small, compared to the others erected nearby. The young woman sat them down at a tea table, promptly going to the pantry to scour for something – they hardly paid attention, in truth, still reeling from the shock of that inexplicable warmth.

They only snapped out of it when the remaining third of a load of bread was set in front of them.

“I’ll make tea,” the woman said brusquely. “Eat. You look half-starved.”