This is the Editor, refusing to put on a stupid accent for the purposes of this post, as, frankly, swathes of italic are a bugger to read.
So. Reed has cheerfully announced to the Universe she is NaBloPoMo-ing, oh yes. And then she dumps the responsibility for making it happen in my lap, mine, by the way, the lap of an editor, and I am not, may I point out, a writer, and off she waltzes to the other, blogless, end of the country.
Damn her.
Also, this dearth of posting the NaBloPoMo was supposed to break? Do you know what her excuse is for not posting much these days? She hasn’t the time now that she’s studying full-time and working part-time. Oh, really. No time. Well, let us unpack that concept a little.
There are 168 hours in a week. Let us say Reed sleeps, or, at least, lies quietly in a darkened room, for seven hours a night, or 49 a week. That leaves us with 119 waking hours to play with.
She is actually in classes or lectures for 13 hours a week, and is at work for 14 hours. That leaves 92 hours. Commuting is unavoidable, has to be done five days a week, and takes between one hour and one and a half hours each way. Say, on average, 13 hours a week lost to being pressed into a complete stranger’s parka-clad armpit. That leaves 79 hours. Reed has to drink tea, and brush teeth, and dress, of a morning, and being uninclined to sleep like a normal mortal, it takes her a good hour to wash one face and put two socks on. So we’ll take seven hours away for reluctant morning faffing. 72 hours. She also has showers and eats three meals a day. Say four hours washing, four hours eating. 64 hours. She also cooks, cleans (very occasionally), does laundry, washes up. Four or five hours a week. Say four, because she’s lazy. 60 hours. She also goes to the supermarket, whenever she can’t force her husband to go instead. 56 hours? 58 hours?
Say 56 hours. 56 freshly minted hours a week to do as she damn’ well pleases. Even I admit she needs to spend some of that studying, and when she was Having an Essay last week she did indeed spend most of that studying, and oy vey, the whingeing. But what does she do with the rest of it? This time she doesn’t have to spend writing and blogging?
She has coffee with friends. She reads books. She dithers. She listens to the radio and knits. She – oh God! – has taken to faffing about on Facebook, and I very much wish I’d nipped that one in the bud. She reads other people’s blogs. She occasionally comments. She participates in various fora. She stares at squirrels. She watches entirely too much TV. Her husband has gone insane and brought home Myst IV and Myst V and I will never see her again. And meanwhile the poor blog sits here, covered in a vasty growth of carpet-fluff.
I’d bloody resign if I could.
