When I must break from writing to clean house

(I wonder if other writers experience this problem)

OK. I keep my house clean, for the most part. But things certainly get piled up when I am here alone for a few weeks at a time… For instance, mail stacks on my dining room table, dishes spend days in the dishwasher, blankets and pillows collect on the sofa in the television room and new and old newspapers, unlabeled CDs, manuscripts, books, boxes of photos and stack of photo albums including everything from family pictures to photos of criminals to those taken for lots of years at writers’ conferences and poetry conventions.

So, when I clean thoroughly, I usually misplace very important stuff like phone numbers, pass words, notebooks containing irreplaceable information and other scarps of paper that is so very important to my writings.

That’s why I don’t make a habit of straighting in my computer room until I think somebody might want to sleep over after a cookout or holiday dinner at my house.

So now with Thanksgiving just around the corner, yesterday was a cleaning day for me. Needless to say, my computer room comes last; it is on the to-clean list today.

But let me tell you what happened yesterday after I had mopped the tile floors in half the house and went outside to hose off windows and porches. OK. I started with spraying the window outside my computer room with the water running full blast. Forgot I had recently turned off the air conditioner and opened the windows... When I didn’t see the water boomaranging back at me, I realized what was happening.

I ran into the house to shut off the computer and unplug the surge protector but slipped on the drenched tiles, tripped over dampened newspapers, slipped and fell into the the closet’s sliding mirrored door. It crumbled to pieces. I just laid there in total shock staring up at the breakage as it slowly crackled, starting at the bottom and working to the top. But the pieces didn't fall.

After I gathered towels and tried to dry off the back of my computer, speakers, surge protector, too many wires for a wireless network, and turned my keyboard upside down to drain, I tried to start my computer, which had gone off without help—well, it did have held of the window-washer.

I thought and figured bills to see how I could afford another big-enough-to-work-on computer. Later yesterday, I tried one more time to start the old e-machine and would you believe, it came on.

I wasn't hurt except for a bump on the head (to match a bump I got on the other side of the head last time I cleaned) and a bit of a strained back. The YMCA where I workout doesn’t have a Hot Tub to lay back and relax in. But it does have a nice Back Extension machine that is so awesome. Yea!

But the real truth is: I should speak with my Muse before I clean house!