Motivations and Impediments

One of the reasons I have such energy for writing here at the moment is as a kind of proof-positive against my perpetual fear: that my professional and voluntary roles at Concrete University will drain my energy reserves and leave me unable to do anything except work, eat dinner and go to bed early.  The present time of year, in which I am between semesters (we run on a slightly different calendar from the undergraduate university proper) is a time in which such a worry seems to flourish.  So there’s a defensive element to my prose, getting as much down as possible so that when the time crunch comes I won’t feel I wasted it when I had it.  (The final chapters of my manuscript could benefit from the same kind of fidelity, it must be said.)

It’s natural enough as a blog and journal reader to wonder or even worry when the usual suspects don’t post for a while, but as msconduct‘s post, cited below, shows, this may be for the happiest, nay fluffiest, of reasons:

I need a whole new mathematical concept to encapsulate the amount of work that does not get done with three kittens in the house. And another one to describe the even larger negative volume of work both left undone and actually undone that occurs when three kittens are sitting on my keyboard and batting at my screen.

The lives of cats and dogs form a certain thematic among my LJ friends (among whom, fusco‘s kitkats are a highlight).  About this, I am not complaining.

My Arthur, nine years old on 29 May.

My Fern, one of Arthur’s pups, prettiest of all and bottom of the pack.  In the background are the harvestparents.

Tagged as: cats, dogs, writing