Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Forces are Working Against Me

Yesterday was a success. I wrote a decent introduction (although I've yet to get any constructive criticism) and I was all ready to work on my conclusion today. Little did I know the workers downstairs were ready to pour cement in the parking lot.

You may wonder why men pouring cement four floors down would interfere with my writing, but trust me, they do. The windows and doors are all closed, at least on that side of the house, but air-tight seals do not exist in this region of the world. The machine used to mix the cement has an old diesel engine that sputters as if it will gasp it's last breath at any moment. But does not. Also, I noticed the men shoveling large piles of stones into the machine, so while the engine grumbles the stones roll through the rotating bin, clanging against the metal sides.

Every now and then it backfires, then stops and they have to start it up again, but it's been running steadily since eleven this morning.

On the other side of the house my neighbors have been listening to the same CD all day. It's the same one the play most every day but they normally stop after one rotation. Today it's gone through at least three loops. (Perhaps they're trying to block out the sounds of heavy machinery.) There's one song that really grates on my nerves - all I can understand is every line ends with a "mee-ya" sound. Very nasally, very annoying. And of course I spend the rest of the afternoon saying mee-ya to everything.

I did manage to write three or four pages - all crap, of course - so at least it's a good start. Let's hope tomorrow is a little more peaceful.

1 comment:

Ed Wyrd said...

You have my sympathies. Writing with everyday distractions is hard enough, but construction?

You should have run across the cement after they were done, then wrote, "Kilroy was here!"