Young boys and their plastic trucks. I breathe slowly to control the pain budding in my head. A werewolf hair grows from my arm. I resist ripping it out. It’ll come, the inspiration, eventually. What’s it going to take to get there today? What am I looking for? As long as I keep my eyes closed, it’s under control, the pain that is. Range finding for an emotional blast on a dizzy day where righteousness and a diamond sky rape the land. Without yummy caffeine, my concentration wanders and I search to put one word in front of the next.

Zonkers over easy with a side of potatoes and greasy bread. Warming up to write beats the alternatives—what I’ve been busying myself with lately, viz., sitting around and feeling sorry for myself. I run from the rules of grammar. Let them flee I say to myself standing on the wooden table and flinging my arms wildly. The world as we know it may end, but that’s no excuse for dirty underwear. I take two steps forward and two steps out, over the curb and into the rushing traffic.

Tired eyes and dinged brains. A red number holder with a three-dimensional bend. I’m number 13 today as they fly to Denver to prepare my omelet. Hidden in a corner, the little man walks by. He’s no little man, he’s a boy, two, for accuracy’s sake. The little one grabs what the bigger boy finishes playing with: the hierarchy of school age. If the 5th graders do it, it must be cool. Not so cool, however, when you’re a sixth grader. Where’s my food, I would yell while banging my forks against the table. But I don’t, and it comes.

It’s another beautiful Sunday, and I’m struggling with my latest creation. I drank enough yummy caffeine to get through my morning headache (a first in a long time) and tiredness (probably the cause of the headache). I’m sitting in an espresso joint trying to finish my thought. The problem, of course, is that I don’t know what the thought is, which is hamstringing my writing attempts.