The Dilemma
I'm trying really hard to embrace the shitty moments, which are legion, so that I can still laugh at the lighter moments.
Eli 20.3 is doing it, too. And it's hard.
We talked last night, and I remembered something that happened to me earlier in the day.
"Okay," I said, "I have a hypothetical situation for you."
"Go ahead."
"I was sitting at the kitchen table, just about to start editing, and I'd strained my back the night before in my sleep."
"I don't know how you do that, but keep going," he said.
"I spend a few minutes adjusting a heating pad until it's in the right place for my back. I finally get it in the perfect place, and right when I start editing, I see the crumbs."
"Crumbs?"
"Crumbs from my English muffin breakfast. There's a small amount of them on the table. So I sweep them onto a blank page. And I can't work, because I can't stop thinking about them."
"I don't like where this is going," he said.
"I have two choices," I said. "I can either get up and put the crumbs in the trash, which means I have to start all over again with the heating pad--"
"Don't tell me the second choice."
"Or I can eat the crumbs." I pause for dramatic effect. "Now, what would you do?"
"I'd take the page the crumbs were on, wad it up, and toss it behind me so I couldn't see it," he said.
This is why the boy is at Oxford.
"Okay, that's brilliant," I said, "but I didn't think of that option. What do you think I did?"
"I think we both know what you did," he said, "and it wasn't get up."
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