The exercise:
Write about: a fine line.
Spent the morning with Max while Kat got some work done in the garden. Was feeling a little better after a decent night's sleep but most of that had faded away by mid-afternoon. So that ended up being nap time for me.
After dinner I went out and finished mulching the fifth row of the strawberries. There are eight rows in total but the final two rows have never produced much in the way of berries, for whatever reason. I'm ignoring those and I'm mostly okay with that.
Row number six? It's more patchy. I'm tempted to weed/mulch portions of it but if I'm being honest with myself I've run out of time. I need to shift my focus to harvesting the strawberries and getting other stuff done around the farm.
Which means, for better or for worse, the mulching of strawberries is done for this year.
Mine:
"What do you think?"
"Of what?"
"What do you mean, Of what? This! Right here!"
"That? It's just a line on an otherwise blank piece of paper."
"Yes, but what do you think of the line?"
"... I have no idea how to answer that question."
"Is it a good line? Is it a poor line? Is it... is it a fine line?"
"... Remind me to never cut you off chocolate again."
3 comments:
Just wait till Max is old enough to tell you that if he can't have an afternoon nap then neither can you :-P
It sounds like you should consider taking out the last three rows and replanting then as that would reduce the amount of effort (and worry, since you're a perfectionist!) that you need to make for them.
I like your story today, as it's the kind of thing that I write occasionally, too, but it does of course worry me that you might have been cutting people off from chocolate. That's not a nice thing to do.... I do like the idea of asking people if a drawn line is a fineline though. I may try that when I get bored in a meeting next!
A fine line
"You're treading a fine line, Mac!" Natasha Monkeybutt, Commissioner of far too many things in this city, hung up on me. Which was fine by me as it happened, as she'd been calling me in the first place. I put the phone back in my pocket and relaxed again, feeling the chill of the overflow morgue settle around me and numb my aches and pains.
I like the overflow morgue, it's where I come to lie down and think about things in peace and quiet. Mostly I go undisturbed since Patrick, who's the pathologist here, doesn't mind me as he reckons it keeps the body-snatching incidents down; its definitely true that people who think everyone's dead turn a funny colour when someone sits up and starts trying to arrest them. It's funnier still when they turn out to be students. The smell of formaldehyde is soothing and reminds me of my childhood, but the memories there are hazy and distant and I've never really wanted to pursue them too far in case they turn out like too many others: disappointing and sometimes sanity-threatening. I was just remembering that chloroform is another smell that reminds me of my childhood when the phone rang again.
"..."
I never got a chance to answer as Monkeybutt launched into a character assassination colourful enough to stun Jackson Pollock. As she ran out of breath and gasped out her last few insults, she finished with, "...and don't you ever – hang up – on me –again!"
"I didn't," I said placidly. "You hung up on me."
There was an incoherent scream on the other end, and it went dead again. I put the phone back in my pocket and wondered how many calls it would take for Monkeybutt to spit out her demands. It's said that there's a fine line between insanity and genius but this was definitely the first time I'd seen anyone trying to get to genius by walking the entire length of insanity first.
I lay back, and started wondering again, as to why the city would need an overflow morgue. Just how many people died and needed an autopsy here anyway?
Can I follow you down
Those broken yellow lines,
To a place unknown?
Can I balance between
The past and the last days
Of our life as one?
Can we stay the same
As we once were, when
We could trace the other’s
Face in the dark?
Can I walk with you now
On this fine line of ice
And asphalt, and keep
Ahold of you whilst
Remembering who I am?
Greg - that's when he can go hang out with Kat :P
These plants are coming to an end of their production, so I'm not going to worry about them. I am hoping to take better care (and earlier in their lifespan) of the next planting though.
Ah, Mac. I enjoyed the image of him relaxing in the overflow morgue, and appreciate that even Mac has to question why there is a need for one!
Ivy - that's a beautiful poem. I really like the imagery you've used and the story it tells. Really nice work here.
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