"Running Commentary"
No Time To Write
I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to write a newspaper column.
You OK with that? Actually, don’t answer that – because frankly, it doesn’t matter. I’m in the middle of ten or twenty different things, and a creative and interesting column – due today! – is the least of my worries.
You know what I do when I’m lazy? Or when I don’t have time to write something creative and new? I punt. Even worse – I lie.
That’s true. I write up a fake Editor’s Note and say something like, “Michael is away this week visiting his girlfriend Melissa in Colorado. In his absence, this newspaper will run one of Michael’s favorite columns which he wrote when he was six years old …”
One of my mother’s favorite expressions is, “You lie like a sleeping dog.”
My response to her: “Woof!”
You know, it’s rather interesting how many times Mother says that to me. Once? Twice? Two lies per week ain’t so bad, is it? Actually, there are surely other times I have (ahem) fudged the truth with her. But who’s counting? Not me.
All of which is to say – even if I had time to write a column, I wouldn’t have time to edit it. It would have to be something totally like stream of consciousness in written form.
Speaking of stream of consciousness, the master of that form was Dostoyevsky, probably my all-time favorite author. Believe it or not – and I assure you, I’m telling you the god’s truth – I read “The Brothers Karamazov” while riding the subway in Philadelphia. Yep, going back and forth from my office to wherever I was going downtown – City Hall and court appearances. Hundreds and hundreds of pages, a few pages at a time until I was finished. It’s a very complicated novel, yet somehow I managed.
Amazing book! I highly recommend it … along with another Dostoyevsky classic, “Crime and Punishment,” which is another all-time favorite book of mine. But I digress …
I do apologize, but I truly am insanely busy and can’t be bothered with a stupid new column. I have no inspiration, no energy and no time. A lethal combination.
So when you get your paper tonight, you can at least say to yourself, “Well … at least he didn’t lie about it. He just didn’t have time to write. And heck, I can certainly forgive that kind of honesty.”
One reason I don’t have time to write is that Melissa is driving to Concordia today. As I write this, she’s probably getting close to the Kansas border. YIKES! Which is to say – I’m under the gun. I don’t yet have everything “just so” for her arrival. I have a laundry list of things to do longer than a month of Sundays. And there’s a heck of a lot of things that aren’t checked off. OK?
This will be Melissa’s first trip to Concordia. Due to COVID-19, I haven’t seen her since June, which is about as long as we’ve been apart in the year and a half we’ve been “together.”
I put “together” in quotation marks because with the virus, and with my desire to stay with Mother during this difficult time, the word together is something of an euphemism. It ain’t honest to say you’re together when you ain’t – one more attempt on my part to be honest with you.
This time? No Editor’s Note. I ain’t lying.
One reason Melissa is coming here instead of my going to our home in Colorado is that she has yet to see my new digs.
Ah yes, it’s true – I have purchased a house in beautiful downtown Concordia. And THAT is another huge reason why I’m too busy to write.
You know how hard it is to clean out a storage unit and move everything to a new house – by yourself? And some heavy stuff, too! Well, that pretty much defines my past month.
Moving is one thing – décor and decoration is quite another. Figuring out what works and what doesn’t. I’ve been told that I missed my calling. Instead of law I could have been a decorator … because I have a good eye for design, color and merging everything together.
I’ve actually been told that by professional decorators. You believe me, don’t you? I wouldn’t lie about something so trivial. I don’t think it’s boasting to say you’re good at something.
So now, finally, everything is almost finished. WHEW! What a job.
Yesterday, my friend Dave Clark – not the rock star, the plumber in town! – Dave installed an outdoor shower for me. That’s the good news. The bad news is – it faces the Nazareth Mother House.
Friends, if you hear a report from eBay that there’s been an unusual run on binoculars delivered to the Mother House? What can I say? (Sssssshh!)
Well, I seem to lack the space to run one of my favorite columns from when I was in first grade. So, you’re just going to have to accept this lame excuse and my apology for not writing a column. I just don’t have time to write. Maybe next week.
And THAT is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but!!
So, who are you going to believe?
Me or your lying eyes?
Editor’s Note: the author of this column wishes to emphasize that although an outdoor shower has indeed been installed, he denies any form of impropriety with regard thereto.