September 6, 2005
One of the sometimes dubious advantages of being a freelance writer is the flexibility of your schedule. I had things planned for today, but my youngest son's cold--or sinus infection, or whatever it is--is bad enough we decided to keep him home from school today. That's fine. It's an advantage to me working out of the house. But it does require that I change plans and figure out how to be a good dad and still get work done. Probably I will move the laptop to the kitchen table and keep one ear opened for my office phone.

I had a few errands I wanted to run today, but those will have to be postponed. How I approach my job will probably have to be shifted.

All in all, no big deal. Less efficient, probably, but not a big deal.

It reminds me of a little bit I wrote years ago after a conversation with my oldest son--he was 3 or 4 at the time. I liked it so much I wrote it out as a dialogue between Theo MacGreggor (the hero of Catfish Guru) and his son Michael. It's on my bulletin board. It reads:

As I was putting Michael to bed he said, "Wednesday has been my confusing day since the day I was born."

"Why is that?" I said, pulling back the cover.

"It just is," he said. "I'm just always confused on that day." He layed down, made sure he had his stuffed lemur and his stuffed bear in their appropriate places and waited for me to drop the covers over him.

"What about me?" I asked. "Do I have a confusing day?"

"Thursday," he said, not a moment's hesitation.

I thought he was on to something.


Have a good Monday everybody.

Best,
Mark Terry