No whining when it’s hard to write/revise because:

1. because a dog charged your cats at 6:00a.m. and in her haste to control her animal, the owner, lunging across your front yard and bashing into the wall below your kitchen window, managed to turn off the water for your entire house, a thing you will discover after you—in a sing-song voice so as not to alarm the little boy eating his breakfast before Diego saving Baby Jaguar—dash outside in your mini-nightie to call your terrorized cats, finding one on the roof (the nimble one) and one on the ground by your back wall, huddled over an anthill, staring at you as though you’ve betrayed him and as you cuddle his largeness and carry him back into the house, you notice the woman with the offleash dog is whipping the dog with the leash she had all along and moving off and you can’t go after her because of Mr. Big in your arms and anyway you aren’t wearing anything under your mini-nightie, nor have you had any coffee so you simply head inside, hoping for the best.

2.  because as your large, traumatized cat sleeps on your son’s oversized giraffe pillow and you vent enraged monolgues to the woman with the offleash dog who can’t and will probably never hear you, you notice your living room floor needs mopping.

3. because you Googled Scotchgard last night and found out it is full of nasty-sounding toxins, and yet the new (inherited) Oriental rug is already smudged because it’s so fun to move the coffee table and build pillow forts with your son as rug is so soft and gentle on the knees and also perfect for rolling around on when engaging in tickle fests and of course the dog loves to sleep on the rug and really it’s clean days are totally numbered and you need to take the time this morning—while your son enjoys preschool—to Google all-natural (if such things exist) carpet protectors; gah.

4. because you don’t live within sight of the ocean (yet).

5. because you are blogging about carpet protection instead of writing/revising.

And so you exchange your ridiculous, out-of-tune, puny violin for gratitude, remember that all is, in fact, exceptionally well and you return to work—after another cup of coffee. And taking a moment to proclaim: Long live Mr. Big.