My 6 year old had a writing assignment for first grade homework. He had to write “3-5 sentences about our trip to see Junie B. Jones.” His class had gone on a field trip to see the play earlier in the week.

He sat at the kitchen table, fiddling with his pencil and paper. After a couple of minutes, he got up and was fiddling around with everything around the table. I asked him why he wasn’t writing, and he said, “I can’t think of anything to write about.”

Writer’s block. The bane of anyone who works with words. Some days I can’t think of anything to write about, and then some days I have so much I want to write about that I can’t figure out where to start.

I asked my son what they did at the play. (We had already discussed it the afternoon after the trip, but asking again would get him thinking about something to write.)

“How did you get to the play?”
“Where did you sit in the theater?”
“Who did you sit beside?”
“What was something funny in the play?”
“What was something weird in the play?”

He answered the questions, and I directed him to write the answers down. Unfortunately, his writer’s block had already killed his initial enthusiasm for the assignment, so I had to really keep on him to make sure he started writing and finished writing. Eventually he wrote three sentences, and I let him call it finished.

A few hours later, I sat down to write this blog post. I couldn’t think of anything to write about for several minutes, and then I came up with this idea to write about writer’s block.

Writing about writer’s block when having writer’s block is sort of like looking into a mirror that shows a mirror behind you. It’s a reflection of a reflection of a reflection, and on and on. It’s silly, but at least I wrote something.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I had to run out to the grocery store last night, in the cold for the first time in six months. I was going to be there for only a few minutes, so I just had on jeans and a coat over a t-shirt. I wasn’t very uncomfortable, but the cold combined with my hurry led me to notice something about the layout of the parking lot.

The shopping center has seven stores, one of which is the grocery store. In front of the stores are seven double-rows of parking spaces, and each of the seven has four handicapped parking spaces — the first two of every row. That’s 24 handicapped spaces.

I’ve never seen more than one or two cars parked in the handicapped spaces, and easily half the time I see someone getting in or out of their car in those spots, they have no wheelchair, walker, cane, or even a limp. What’s wrong? Do I just not shop at the times that handicapped people do, or are the parking lot designers really over estimating the number of disabled in our town?

I see far more moms and dads with small children in need of close parking than I ever see truly handicapped people. They should take away at least three of those seven groups of handicap parking and make them spots for shoppers with small children. Or, hell, just make the spots open for anyone. That would at least let everyone park two spaces closer. I have no problem with some young guy parking in the first space to run in for two minutes to buy a loaf of bread. It’s a stupid waste to take up two dozen parking spots for what probably isn’t necessary for more than two people at a time.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

The phone rang until our answering machine picked up. At the beep, the caller started leaving her message, “We’re on TV tonight. You should tune in to see. . .”

The voice sounded like a friend, so I grabbed the phone. “Hello,” I said.

The caller continued talking, and it turned out to be not a friend, but a recorded commercial for some TV network. She was telling about the shows coming on tonight. I listened for a few more seconds, not recognizing any of the show names, and not at all caring, anyway.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “They’re calling with TV commercials, now?” I decided to vent at the stupid message. “This is really pathetic. If I don’t watch TV enough to see your commercials on TV, you’re going to call me on my phone to bug me in the middle of dinner? This is stupid.”

I thought I noticed the woman’s voice quaver a bit when I started ranting. I went on for a few more seconds and the voice seemed to stammer.

I stopped my complaining and asked, “Is this a real person?”

The commercial continued, but did I detect a pause after my question? I listened another several seconds, and then repeated my question, “Is this a real person?”

There was a quiet, “Mm-hmm,” and then the commercial continued.

“You’re not allowed to say anything other than the script?” I asked.

No answer. The commercial continued. I felt kind of bad for having ranted at the woman. Even telemarketers are people.

“Well that’s kind of a waste,” I said. “If they’re going to have a real person make the commercial call, they could let them answer questions.”

She finished her script and said good-bye. The call ended and I hung up.

Okay. That was weird, I thought. That’s definitely going in the blog.

And then I woke up. Yep, the whole thing had been a dream. At first I was disappointed; the phone call would have made a good blog topic. Then I thought about going ahead and writing about it anyway.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I know it’s technically just an hour longer after the time change, but Sunday really felt about 4 hours longer. The boys got up at 5:00 a.m. (6:00 for their body clocks), and all day long, it seemed my own body clock got further and further ahead of the real time. Ten o’clock felt like 11:00. Twelve o’clock felt like 2:00. Three o’clock felt like 6:00. And, by God, 7:00 felt like 11:00 p.m.

By the time we got the boys to bed, between 7:30 and 8:00, I felt like it was midnight. How is it one little hour of change can totally wreck a person’s sense of time?

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com