Operation Whey Tub
The previous weeks has seen cloudless nights give way to frosty mornings. This has upset the military style planning of Phil potting her tomato plants. White plastic tubs have been hoarded over the winter in preparation for this plan, Operation Whey Tub, I have named it. These future tomatoes may eventually taste like a chemical approximation of strawberry cream but they will have kick-ass biceps. Execution of the plan has been delayed by the the frosty mornings. I have been made aware that frost is the enemy of the tomato plant so here we are in May without Operation Whey Tub still in abeyance.
Phil revealed that this was on her to-do list for the weekend. I was surprised she had a weekend to-do list. She has daily, weekly, monthly and yearly to-do lists. There was genuine surprise in her voice that I did not do the same. I am surprised that she was surprised. She knows me better than anyone. I had no such list. Not because I am an impetuous free spirit fluttering my way through life like a crisp packet in the wind but because I am essentially a shiftless hanger-on in this household.
I can’t help but feel that it was a thinly veiled attack on my essential lack of utility, not only within the domestic arena but on a existential level. She has a proper job that requires juggling multiple complex competing priorities over the long, medium and short term. If I have a single zoom call it throws off my entire day.
I have one thing to do on my to-do list: finish this book. Drawing the thumbnails takes three months. That makes it hard to panic in the very short term. It is more of a long drawn out low-key anxiety.
As the world’s worst multi-tasker it is fortunate that I have found my niche. If I was assailed by incessant calls and meetings I would not only lose my focus but my mind. The world is not clamouring for my attention and that’s the way I like it. That has always been the guiding principal behind the runaway success of Andi Watson Enterprises. The business that employs one person. Me. Occasionally profitably.
Phil wakes up on Monday morning, flips open her work laptop at 7am and finds an avalanche of e-mails communicating fresh problems that have been birthed in the last 48 hours that will require her to expand her ever growing to-do list. I flip open my laptop and find a single email from LiveJournal concerning my Statistic daily digest. Apparently someone has liked my final post dating from october 2013 where I inform readers I am moving my blog to what was my new website. The once new now old site has since been squatted by a photo of a Japanese lady holding an empty heart-shaped box.
If it’s symbolic then my only complaint is that it’s a little too on the nose. Anyway, I have since had a better idea for the scene I had already sketched out for the thumbnails of pages 130 and 131. It involves the talking sword and the talking unicorn. The scene might not even make it into the finished book but I like the new idea better so I’ll do it again. It goes right to the top of my to-do list.
Thanks to a ruthless list-making regime I able to create books like Kerry and the Knight of the Forest and The Book Tour. Save me from a proper job with endless emails and meetings by supporting my store/digital comics/patreon or leaving a positive review online.
take care,
andi