Suddenly this energy, out of the silence, this desire to write, which was almost entirely taken from me, pushed out by chores (laundry, to do lists, house-cleaning, gerbil-feeding, plant-watering, lawn-mowing, toilet replacing, dinner cooking, doctor’s appointments, play-dates, basketballs that must be found, or pumped up, or bought fresh because they are flat forever), or my cold, which came from who knows where. Writing vanishes, poof, like that, gossamer threads, spiderwebs. You must have a very boring life to write. Still pond. Alexander McCall Smith gets on a plane and passes the time by typing ten thousand words of his novel. He must have some kind of a freak brain, that allows him to block out the conveyor belts, the wands, the bag check lines, the shifting seat companion, the turbulence, the flight attendant demonstrating floatation devices. I can’t pay attention when the phone rings in the background. When a toilet flushes downstairs.