Here’s the premise: we all know what it means to waste time. But if you’re doing 2 things at once, both of which are pretty useless, that’s double-wasting time, right?

I think I mentioned that I’ve been having PC troubles. My beautiful desktop machine started crashing – blue screen of death crashing, which is serious – about 8 days ago. Before that, its video functions had been funky. Once the crashing started and I’d ruled out things like virus, bad memory, dust in the tower, and registry fubar, I discovered that the graphics card was overheating. It was twice as hot as it was supposed to be (approx 215 F), but the fans are running.

I’ve been advised to replace the graphics card. I’m working on that. The PC is on injured reserve and I’m using my trusty but temperamental laptop. The desktop still works just fine, with a little fan blowing cold air into the case. But that’s like driving a car around with a bad water pump, and the back seat full of water jugs. Better to let it mostly rest until new parts are obtained and installed, than to be constantly worried and watching the gauges.  

In the mean time, of course everything is backed up as much as possible. All of my writing is saved onto a second PC, CDs, flash drives, and up yonder in The Cloud. But I said to myself, “Hey self, wouldn’t it be cool to have all those poems in one file, which could be updated at will, and saved easily to Dropbox for backup?”

So, since there’s just no arguing with myself when I get a brilliant idea like that, off I went through the short prime time hours of last night, building a Word file of poems by me in alphabetical order. And properly formatted for efficient mapping and retrieval, of course. And while doing that, I was – here’s the double-wasting part – watching TV.

Not writing or reading or winding the clocks or pondering the luminosity of the Waxing Gibbous moon. Shuffling stuff I’ve already written, and glowering at the tube.

Oh dear. But I learned that I have almost 140 completed poems, now all nice and neat. And there’s another folder of unfinished ones; drafts, loose pieces, false starts and insensate stuff. Probably many more in there. But I’ve come to my senses, for now. I’m not diving into that. Instead, I’m writing this. 

By the way, the last post, Cheesy Blogging, really was allowed to ferment for over 24 hours in my vat of drafts before posting. I’m not sure it it improved the flavor. Maybe it just made the stuff a little stale.

Speaking of which, for being such a good reader and sticking with me, here’s a treat for you. From deep in the crusty casks of the Unfinished Poems folder, a poem. It’s from way back in February of 1999.

OPEN WATER

I can see nothing.
I look out into limitless dark
that hours ago was the sea
and into which now
everything — boats, birds,
men and islands and all
the world I
knew in daylight —
has disappeared.

I wish I was home
in my old chair, but we
had our final good-byes to make.
I wish I was anywhere candles
burn with happiness
but the ocean called me out tonight.
Up and down on worrisome swells,
then the morning tide wakes and turns
and carries this wreckage
in first light for open water.

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Open Water by Kyle Kimberlin is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
3.0 United States License.
Please feel free to copy and share it with others.