I Don't Have Enough Goddamn Time

This summer has been exceedingly busy. If I'm not running errands, trying to sell the condo, or doing yardwork, I'm eating or doing my meds or at my job. As a consequence, I've developed a significant gaming backlog, I've got a stack of unread technical papers this high, I've got potentially three art projects in the works that I've been unable to put much time into, and my blogging schedule has just gone to hell. If you've been following this humble weblog since its first inception, you'll remember that I used to have a very strict schedule: new posts would go up three times a week, M/W/F, the same as my zithromax schedule. If I felt like it, I'd also blog on the weekend.

See, that was back when I had spare time. Those days are long behind me.

And the helluvit is that I have a bunch of projects I'd like to start, much less complete, my Dinosaurs of Alaska (and other prehistoric beasties) children's book among them. The days seem packed now: get up early, do all my meds, go to work for eight hours, come home, eat dinner, do chores for what seems like eight more hours, watch the news, go to bed. Rinse, repeat. The trend is broken only on weekends, when we do more yardwork.* Every few days, I flip the heat lamp off and cool down the geckos so I can, hours later, pluck Liquid from his log and attempt to force medication into his swollan mouth (he's squirmy) and suck puss from his infected eyeball with an eyedropper. There have been times where I've found and had to remove what appears to be Gak from his eye with my itty-bitty tweezers. What's interesting is that Liquid is infinately more fidgity when I'm trying to give him medicine than when I'm threatening to gouge his eye out. Either he's very smart, very brave, or the medicine just tastes horrible (or all three).

Then there are the peripheral concerns: trying to get a raise during a pay freeze (good luck with that!), planning and coordinating my upcoming trip to the UK (SVP '09, baby!), the constant worry of not being able to sell the condo and having to find new renters, accruing an unhealthy gaming backlog (I forgot how to play a few of them), not having time to train for an upcoming Smash Bros. Brawl tournament, stressing out about affording upcoming games, keeping a close eye on the finances at all times, and finding time to walk two dogs. I think it's just the fact that it's summer in Alaska, and we've got like three months to fix things, do stuff, and sell property. That, and there's not enough goddamn time in the day.

I need to hire an intern who will work for free. Any takers?

*See, our yard was overtaken this summer by dandelions (Taraxacum), the mosquitoes of lawn care, and the speed at which they spread throughout our entire backyard is worthy of study. We've been told that dandelion-pickers only succeed in slowing their eventual takeover, as the root of a dandelion can extend 18 inches below the surface, and any part of the root leftover from a surface plucking will regrow a new flower in no time like some kind of perverted floral starfish. Anyway, the picker did nothing, and my wife understandably resorted to chemicals--the kind you buy at the grocery store's gardening department that promises to only kill "broad-leafed plants" like...dandelions. The horrible toxins proceed, however, to kill "all green plants," which includes grass. Half of our yard resembles a post-nuclear world.

According to the always-reliable Interwebs, the next step was to till the unfertile soil, the tortured earth, which we did. Our backyard now looks something like a post-apoloyptic hellscape that has been invaded by Graboids. Great clumps of soil, heavy with dead or dying roots from poisoned blades of grass, were leveled and thrown asunder. The ground successfully (???) tilled, the raking began. After which there was much seeding and laying of hay. The renovation of one's backyard is what you might call a process.