I‘ve got dishes to do downstairs. Not much more than a baking tray and some bowls and maybe a glass that I drank some fernet from, but that’s all. It’ll take five, maybe ten minutes. I’m not dreading it or anything, not complaining, but I’ve got to go do it, and I will, once I’m done writing this. I did some work too, before I wrote this. 

I prayed about six months ago for patience. Not being a very patient person historically, it felt like a good thing to pray for, despite being famously the thing you oughta be careful praying for. It was not an enormously fun lesson, but it was effective. 

Now I pray for focus. It feels silly to skip from virtue to virtue, choosing things to work on like I’m picking out toys on the wall of a gift shop. But I suppose it’s just required that it not stop there, that it continue for the whole long painful process too, and that the irony and the whimsy be something I’m grateful for, too. And I am.

We live in a world of such humor and irony.

Oh, you want to be more patient?

Enjoy the dangle of this life-changing job, inches away, redolent with that new car smell, for half a year. Also your dog needs surgery, and your house needs to siding, and a coat of paint. Shame you can’t pay for that, but you could.

“Americans always make the right choice, after they’ve exhaused all other options.”

That’s me now, focusing. Doing work at 8:30 and writing the blog instead of playing some silly video game...those are good reasons to not have done those dishes until 9pm. Focus by way of absolute unrelenting busyness. It’s like a play.