Why I Stopped

by Mel Gilden

It's been at least a month since I stopped writing little blogs that I add to my website in the hope of attracting some attention to me and my work. I didn't run out of ideas. I ran into pain, or at least extreme discomfort. I believe the common expression is, "My back went out."

You see, we have cats. One of them is a rescue named Chandler. He's had a hard life and currently has one eye and no tail. Still he's better off than he was on the street, and we're hoping to find him a permanent home. The thing about Chandler that is important as far as this story goes is that he enjoys playing with toilet paper. He can unravel a complete roll in a couple of minutes. Loads of fun for him but not very, as they say, green to waste all that paper.

Therefore, I began to store the roll on the towel rack above and behind the toilet. The problem with this was that sometimes I forgot to take the roll down before sitting down to do my work. One time a few months ago I finished, then turned and reached. Apparently, this is what set off the going out of the back.

The chiropractor I went to told me that I had probably been mistreating my back for years, and that this was the final insult. Could be. Maybe at this point it doesn't matter.

Anyway, there is pain involved. It is not constant, and I'm sure not as bad as the pain some folks have withstood, but really, it is plenty bad enough and I don't care to have it any worse. I try to ignore the pain when I sit down at the computer, but that is not always possible. And I find it difficult to be creative when I hurt. There you are. That's the reason I haven't been writing my blog lately.

I've been working on a fiction project for the past week or two. And even though fiction doesn't make me hurt less, money is always an important consideration when deciding whether one hurts too much to work.

I am improving, though not without the occasional backslide. I'm hoping that any day now, I will be able to settle down to work without any excuses.